Hon Christopher Finlayson

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : Mr Jones was slow off the mark this afternoon, but he proved once again that empty vessels make the most noise. That is the same Mr Jones who said that he and the Labour Party did not support Māori seats for Auckland. But I do not want to waste my time on Mr Jones.

I want to say something about the Leader of the Opposition: Mr Goff is finished as Labour leader. He will never be Prime Minister, and he will never lead a Government. Let me read to the House from a general debate contribution made by a senior member of the Labour leadership team in 1989: “Last week the Government caucus chose a leadership team for the 1990s … a team that is backed by … a united caucus .… The Labour Party and the Government caucus are united behind the new leadership team … The Cabinet, the Government caucus, and the Labour Party have been brought together in a manner that fills Government members with optimism.” Those were the words of Annette King, speaking just a few months before Geoffrey Palmer was rolled as Labour leader. By my calculation, if her previous predictions are correct, then Mr Goff has about 2 months left.

Despite this, Labour is presently engaging in some strange branding exercise, which is, quite frankly, embarrassing. Phil Goff may have been outfitted in a new camouflage jacket for Listener photo shoots, but the party has not changed. While Mr Goff has been throwing lambs over his shoulder, Helen Clark is busily text messaging MPs from the Big Apple for their general debate speeches. It is the so-called star-studded line-up of new recruits, but they are nothing more than Helen Clark’s former employees. Mr Goff is supposed to be in charge. The same Labour Party comintern that gave us the Electoral Finance Act is still pulling the strings, even if it has decided to dress Phil Goff in new clothes like some social democratic Ken doll. His re-branding, which Clare Curran describes as “a real man”, resembles only a left-wing women’s collective view of what a real man is supposed to be. Labour will take any opportunity to make Phil Goff look like a man of the people, but he is no man of the people; he is interested only in his own career, and he will say or do anything to advance it. To paraphrase what someone once said about Richard Nixon, he is the kind of politician who would cut down a tree, then mount the stump and make a speech about conservation.

This is not a speech about conservation; it is a speech about contrasts. Labour may have been a really bad Government, but it is a shocking Opposition. While the National-led Government is busily implementing a high-quality legislative programme, Labour members have chosen to spend their time singing Viet Nam War protest songs on bus rides of doom while they drive through safe National seats. While I was working on an overdue reform of the Limitation Act, that tribune of the working class, that authentic representative of the proletariat, Charles Chauvel, was following behind the Labour bus in his convertible—“Take Me Home, Country Roads”, indeed. While my colleague Simon Power was getting on with the long overdue reform of the defence of provocation, which Labour could have done if it had done something positive while in Government, Mr Goff was talking about repealing the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2008. While Chris Carter was coming to terms with not getting airpoints for travelling on the bus and with being ignored by his colleagues, Steven Joyce was putting the final touches on a new transport agency for Auckland. While Annette King constantly abuses Paula Bennett, that great and fearless Minister of the Crown has been working on her Fresh Start package for young offenders and that wonderful Break Away package for school holidays. And so it goes on.

The current Labour Party leadership is useless, unprincipled, unpleasant, and uninspiring. Chris Trotter was correct when he wrote in 1994 that the likes of Mr Goff and Mrs King were past their use-by dates; regrettably, nothing has changed in the last 15 years. He said that in 1994, and nothing has changed in the last 15 years. The Labour members are totally unprincipled, and they are worse in Opposition than they ever were in Government.

Grant Robertson: Nasty little man!

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I hope Mr Robertson enjoys that place, because he will be there for a long time.