Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Volume:640;Page:10476] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 Where were they? Where were Minister Annette King’s mates? Why did the Labour Party front bench desert this Minister at this difficult time for her? Why did they walk away? Well let us have a look at it. First there is the debacle over the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill. None of what was presented by the Minister today is true. She is an extremely arrogant Minister who would not know consultation if she was instructed totally in what it is. Then there is the issue of the police and the lack of standards in the new recruits. We will have police officers on our streets who cannot even write let alone bring a successful prosecution to court. And now there is the horrible spectre of potential corruption at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board hanging over the Minister’s head as well. 
Is it not interesting that only now Mr Trevor Mallard comes to sit alongside the Minister? This has nothing to do with supporting her of course. Everyone in this House knows that we have gone past the shortest day. We are on the long road to summer and Phil Goff has the barbecue list out to revise who should be there in the summer because he knows that his opportunities are not too far off. He has told us—and anyone who wants to listen—that if he had been handling that Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill the House would be voting for it now. We look at him every day as various Ministers are in trouble. Mr Hodgson today had a big grin on his face and where is he now? He is out in his caravan talking to the people—waiting waiting for his time. Of course he must be enormously comforted that his running mate David Cunliffe is off filling up the liquefied petroleum gas bottles ready to make sure that the barbecue fires up in the right direction. 
These are people who are in severe political trouble and this is a Government that is on its way out not just because of the trans-Tasman therapeutic products legislation not just because of the police issue and not just because of the debacle at Hawke’s Bay—all the responsibility of the one Minister—but because of so many things that have gone wrong: 20 free hours’ early childhood education that are perfectly free as long as one pays for them; the vicious attack on the mortgage holders of this country in order that we might somehow stem a rising exchange rate; and of course health services throughout the country being in crisis everywhere. My own city has an emergency room that simply cannot cope and people are suffering the consequences of that. 
The education sector is struggling to provide for the realities of life for many young New Zealanders and is not giving them the opportunities that they need. We have a Minister of Education who now knows he has made such a hash of it that the best thing he can do is to get out. It is only a matter of days before we hear the announcement that Steve Maharey is the new vice-chancellor of Massey University. Well good luck Massey University—all the best. That will not be a good move for that university or for any of the students who go there. 
But there are a few bright spots on the horizon. I understand that Clayton Cosgrove is now the “go-to man” inside the Labour Party. One only has to look at the Order Paper to know that that is the case. A few weeks ago the Order Paper had nothing on it. Now it has substantial legislation on it such as the Wills Bill. It has substantial legislation on it such as the Arbitration Amendment Bill. It has important pieces of legislation on it such as the Succession (Homicide) Bill. Who is the Minister behind all of this? The young cut-and-thruster Clayton Cosgrove himself. 
Well all I can say to Clayton Cosgrove is: get home on a Friday stay there on a Saturday stay there on a Sunday and do not be too eager to come back on a Monday because those boundary changes are looking pretty dodgy. Would it not be a great shame if the great future light of the Labour Party lost his seat? He will not go on the list. He has promised the people of Waimakariri that he will not go on the list. It will be a great shame if he loses his seat just by the stroke of a pen. 
The point here of course is that this is a Government that now cannot do anything right. It now cannot achieve anything at all. That is demonstrated so clearly when the Minister of Finance has to stand up and explain why it is OK for Winston Peters the coalition partner to undo 20 years of bipartisan agreement on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act—20 years of bipartisan agreement on that Act which has allowed the New Zealand economy one way or the other to flourish more than it might have without it. Michael Cullen sits there quietly and allows Winston Peters to have a go at advancing that legislation simply so Helen Clark can stay as Prime Minister.