The party had nine years in Government but seemed bereft of ideas, the only decent ones came from their coalition cobber Peter Dunne and they never saw the light of day.
Now suddenly they're full of ideas, ideas they could have put before the select committee that they were sitting on.
But instead they were secretly beavering away behind the scenes and coming up with their own bill.
In reality they could have come up with the most liberal cannabis laws, not that that would happen given the arch conservative Simon Bridges is in charge, and know that they were empty vessels.
The bill they've proposed can only survive in two ways.
It could be picked up by the Government which is highly unlikely and they know it, or it could be drawn from the lucky dip in the Parliamentary ballot which is stacked up with more than 70 mostly full, frank and meaningless missives.
The cynicism of National knows no bounds on this one.
Their bill's under the name of their Whangarei MP and former doctor Shane Reti who was a member of the select committee considering the Government bill.
If he had bright ideas of making a better law, why not promote them through that process, where he knows they'd have a chance of success, rather than producing an alternative bill?
The answer's simple, they wanted to undermine the Government effort which they know will go through and be passed into law.
National missed the boat on the cannabis debate, they were up the creek without a paddle while people desperate for relief were left to fight the system.
They've now finally convinced the lawmakers with power that they're entitled to end their days with some dignity, free from the painful ravages that they should never have had to suffer.
Let's hope this legislation puts and end to it, and sooner rather than later.
