Soper Lesley: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Soper Lesley: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7568. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LESLEY SOPER (Labour) 
: 
 There has been a wee gap since I last spoke in this House. But as I was saying before being temporarily interrupted by the 2005 election I am proud to be part of a Labour-led Government that is about delivery and a sustainable future about uninterrupted economic growth about reducing unemployment—something a National Government never achieved—to the second-lowest rate in the OECD about promoting thousands of Modern Apprenticeships and industry training about setting up the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and launching KiwiSaver this year about delivering cheaper doctors’ visits and prescriptions and about delivering to thousands of families through our Working for Families package. Some of the issues I mentioned in my inaugural speech were delivery for women through the Action Plan for New Zealand Women education investment and the tertiary education revamp a legacy of good housing for the people and investment in public health. The Labour Government has delivered on those issues and continues to deliver on them. 
In contrast to the positive vision and reference to the real issues in the Prime Minister’s speech last week—real issues like climate change and commitment to carbon neutrality Working for Families new family violence prevention strategies 20 hours of free early childhood education providing a sustainable pathway forward for New Zealand—what I heard in the House yesterday and today from the so-called Opposition which I have heard from those members for months was the usual sound and fury signifying nothing. There was carping and whingeing and groaning irrelevancies. There was not one glimmer of a good idea or even a bad idea. There was no vision and no reference to actual policy. 
Just as Mr Key’s lame attempt at a food in schools programme was gone by lunchtime when he realised his hollow mistake the National Party confirmed yesterday and today that its members are the hollow men. There was no substance and no reality. There was a ghostly wraith of echoing nothingness. But wait. Perhaps the National Party nothingness will be filled with market rents as Moana Mackey has just referred to benefit cuts an Employment Contracts Act to penalise workers asset sales and the creation of an underclass. After all National has done it all before. There is such a dearth of talent in National’s ranks and they are so deeply divided in the leadership stakes and on the backbench ranks. Let us think about where Brian Connell is. He has been left hanging somewhere I believe. 
Lockwood Smith was surprised by Mr Key’s flip-flop on nuclear policy Bill and John are differing on the mortgage levy idea. Mr English said: “I am easily underestimated.” and “I do the policy and write the speeches.” Mr English is not ruling out having another go at the leadership. He sent the “hollow men” emails that rather deeply attacked a number of his National colleagues but they are so deeply divided that falling back on the old the tired and the outdated must look good. It certainly appears to look good to Mr Key who has as recently as December last year and this very month managed to say: “So really in a sense all I changed is probably the tone.”; “Broadly speaking we weren’t planning to make major changes.”; and wait this is a really good one—it is the most telling of all—Mr Key said: “If you go back to the 1990s we proved what National believed in in the 1990s.” 
Let me think. Was not that market rentals benefit cuts bulk funding of schools the Employment Contracts Act the destruction of the apprenticeship system and bed night charges in hospitals? Yes it was. And who is writing Mr Key’s speeches? It is the puppet master Mr English the disastrous 1990s Minister of Health and Associate Minister of Education who fortunately will never rise to such positions again. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.