Brownlee Gerry: Appointments — Assistant Speaker 
Brownlee Gerry: Appointments — Assistant Speaker 
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GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak to the motion that nominates Marian Leslie Hobbs to be an Assistant Speaker and in so doing I will take a moment or two to consider just what the role requires. I will also indicate that it was the Government’s prerogative to make the nomination from its number or of someone in the House its members were prepared to give their support to. I guess that is where the Labour Party had some difficulty because we note that so far 12 of its number have said they are not coming back voluntarily another six have indicated they are thinking about it and 19 are actually terrified about the prospect of not being sent back. When we look at the situation that presents for the Labour Party now we see that the options it seems are somewhat limited. If we go through the list and look at who is likely to be returned in a seat—and please let me assure the House that we are not certain that any of these members will be returned in a seat—we see there is of course the Prime Minister. Assuming she does contest the election—and that appears to be somewhat in doubt—she would be returned in her seat but of course the Assistant Speaker position would not be open to her. 
Going down the list there is the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. Well he in recent days has become another “maybe” and is now in a very precarious dicey position. But he has also been elevated recently to the ministry and is now one of the great hopes for the Labour Party’s future. So to have him in a situation where his seat looks to be a little precarious cannot give anyone over there any comfort whatsoever—particularly those like young Darren Hughes. He was somewhat relying on Mr Cosgrove coming though as a sort of saviour for the Labour Party therefore giving him a longer political career than he might naturally expect. 
Mr Hughes himself was considered for the role of Deputy Speaker but recently he has been promoted into the ministry. He is now the Minister of Statistics and he takes that job very seriously. In fact members will see that he has on his desk a 24B exercise book. It is one of the ones he did not finish in his last year at secondary school—just a short time ago—in which he records all sorts of statistics usually about his colleagues. It saves him having to walk around with one of these volumes in his back pocket as he tries to calculate who will be the next leader of the Labour Party. 
There is also Ruth Dyson. She is a Minister so is no good for Assistant Speaker. Lianne Dalziel has been a Minister then was not a Minister then came back as a Minister. She also interestingly is in a seat that now looks to be under a little bit of pressure. 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Ah well—members laugh over there and they guffaw. But Aaron Gilmore is out there day by day knocking on doors and people are coming out to him and saying “Aaron we just need you sir in Parliament to represent us because we are not getting the deal we need at the moment.” 
There are others like Pete Hodgson. He has a reasonably solid seat down there in Dunedin but Mr Hodgson is one of the six who is on the list of “Maybe I will; maybe I won’t.” There are others here like the Hon Annette King. Under the circumstances I think her seat is now looking pretty dodgy as well. That is a seat that has long long promised to be a National seat. It is only her commitment to the right of the Labour Party that has kept her there. And as Labour goes back to kind and becomes a lot more left going into this election then I think we can expect that she herself will decline this opportunity. 
One of the things I cannot understand though is that Labour had an opportunity to appoint Lynne Pillay to this position. Lynne Pillay has a very solid seat out there in the west of Auckland and no doubt she will be one of the contenders for Labour leadership positions should the Labour Party survive in reasonable sorts of numbers beyond the next election. But for some reason she has been overlooked. I do not understand that. That is another one that surprises me a little bit. Obviously with so many leaving—12 going six considering and others still thinking about it—they are going to have to work at it a little bit. And there is Lesley Soper for example. She was last in and will probably be first back in. But no no consideration was given there. 
I know that Labour has a little trouble in the Maori seats at the present time. And I would have thought they might have turned to someone like Mahara Okeroa to put him in the Chair here and to give him the sort of status and gravitas that he needs because I know that the Ngai Tahu voting base have deserted him. It is all over. They are not going for Mahara any more. He is a nice chap they say but no—“We can achieve more for Ngai Tahu by voting for the Maori Party.” So I guess they have said to him: “No you’ve got to go out all around that huge Te Tai Tonga area and round up a few more votes.” 
Mita Ririuni is a list member so he would have had the time to do it. But no they do not want to let someone like that get in there. No—there are inexplicable reasons for that and I do not really want to go into them. There is someone like Dave Hereora who has recently been dumped as the chair of the Maori caucus in favour of Shane Jones who would have made an excellent candidate—an excellent candidate—but they have put poor old Dave on the back of the cross benches. He is a very capable fellow but is shut down at the present time because anyone with a shining light in the Labour Party at the moment is not given any encouragement whatsoever. 
So we come to the compromise candidate everyone’s friend Marian Leslie Hobbs. I want to reveal in the House this afternoon that I have known Marian Hobbs or known of Marian Hobbs for almost 30 years. Throughout that time I have seen her in numerous situations. She was once a firebrand unionist with the Post Primary Teachers Association. I remember her giving an impassioned speech in the late 1970s in which she persuaded the gathering to vote in favour of a particular strike action which was a little unusual. When the vote was taken and the result declared and after the chair of the meeting referred momentarily to Marian Hobbs she simply stood up and said “Thank you darlings. I’m proud of you.” In the vein of Michael Cullen’s warning to the House about names like “Tuppence” and I am told by people who serve with her on select committees that “Blossom” is another one I think we need to say to her— 
Sue Moroney 
: You won’t get “darling” Gerry. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Every time I see Marian Hobbs in the hallways she is a very pleasant person. She always smiles and she always says “How are you going today darling?”. I have never misconstrued that perhaps because I am so used to hearing it from people—I am not sure. But I have never misconstrued that. I just think that in the heat of parliamentary debate it would be a little inappropriate if people were called to their feet in that way. So with that small warning that small hint of reservation can we offer our congratulations to Marian Hobbs and our assurance that we will give her the respect that is due to someone who holds this sort of parliamentary office.