Woodhouse Michael: General Debate 
Woodhouse Michael: General Debate 
[Volume:659;Page:8392] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 Yesterday we saw another great idea for a Tui billboard ad. Outside the Labour Party caucus room Phil Goff told the media in relation to his nationhood speech that it was not a Don Brash speech as “I’ve never believed in doing that sort of thing.”—yeah right! 
But what I really want to know is who the genius in the Labour Party was who after Labour had elected a unionist as party president who brought in several new MPs who had been unionists shoring up the left suddenly said: “I know what we should do. Let’s go after the right-wing vote. Let’s have a crack at the tub-thumping race relations issue in this country.” never mind that it hugely upset its own caucus never mind that it upset its own party membership and never mind that it drove the last nail in the coffin of Labour’s relationship with the Maori Party which Labour would surely need if it ever wanted to resume the Treasury benches. Even when Labour members were going into caucus yesterday we could see the stony-faced looks on the faces of Mr Goff’s colleagues. They were ready to give him a bit of a serve. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. 
But how is this for equivocal support? Labour’s own president Andrew Little told the  
New Zealand Herald  
he had “personal concerns” about the speech and said that the speech had received a mixed response from the party’s rank and file. But I guess that sort of speech is pretty understandable from a leader whose own party is polling only around 30 percent whose own support hovers above the margin of error but only just and whose party has no credible policies. 
In fact if we really want proof that Labour does not have any credible policies at the moment we need only to go on to its website and click on “Labour Policy”. It will come up with the Labour Party’s 2008 manifesto the same manifesto that the electorate rejected when it threw Labour out of office last year. So what has Labour said about policies? On the foreshore and seabed it said that the caucus had agreed to a new position this year then Mr Goff declared in his speech last week that the present law was working well and should not be repealed. Let us talk about monetary policy. A 20-year monetary policy consensus was thrown out on the hoof. In relation to benefits for millionaires Labour says “Oh we do support benefits for millionaires but we don’t support benefits for millionaires.” I am not quite sure which one it is. 
It will make barbecue season pretty interesting this year. As well as Labour members sitting under a tree at a barbecue thinking up which Kenny Rogers song to trash at the next Labour Party conference and reading the Sarah Palin autobiography they might just be thinking “Hmm when shall I make my move? If I don’t make my move now someone else might.” And who might those aspirants be? I think straight off the hoof there might be seven. Might Annette King in her reflections over summer regret her public statements that she does not aspire to be leader? She will be thinking “Hell I can do a better job than this guy.” In fact she even said: “It wasn’t like ‘The King is dead long live the King.’ It was slower than that. You know the King is dead but the Prince isn’t quite ready yet.” 
Shane Jones must really be grappling with the nationhood speech. He is publicly supportive of Mr Goff and of his calling the emissions trading scheme deal with Maori cynical but he knows that his Government did exactly the same deal with exactly the same five iwi giving them additional benefits because of what they said were “unforeseen circumstances” in Labour’s emissions trading scheme. He knows that Labour’s relationship with the Maori Party is in tatters. Maybe he is thinking it is time to step up to take the reins and to heal those wounds as soon as possible. [ 
Interruption 
] Labour members are moaning but deep down they secretly want to be mentioned in this call. 
David Parker has not been an obvious candidate but after the  
Trans Tasman 
 newsletter gave him a comparably high rating calling him a high achiever maybe he will be sitting under the tree sipping his Central Otago pinot noir and thinking “Gosh I might have the right stuff after all.” But it is a left of left caucus so maybe former party president and long-serving MP Ruth Dyson is thinking about whether she has the numbers to take the party back to its spiritual base. What about Trevor Mallard? Trevor Mallard has been a very good shadow leader this year which is a pretty good achievement given that he is not the shadow leader. Or it might be a bolter. It might be one of the Clark clones like Grant Robertson or should he be using the barbecue season to sidle up to the people who are likely to be leadership aspirants and asking to be their deputy? But are Messrs Ryall and Gilmore right that the frontrunner is in fact aspirant No. 7 David Cunliffe? He knows that timing is everything in politics.