Brash shifts jibes at Clark's childlessness to grandkids

Helen Clark

National's fixation with Helen Clark's childlessness has moved on a generation with leader Don Brash's references to grandchildren in his speech at the party's northern region conference.

At the Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre in Mt Wellington Dr Brash yesterday covered the well- traversed themes of election spending, the welfare system, political correctness and taxes.

That led him on to describing, to laughter from the audience, Labour's policy toolkit as a "museum of fossilised ideas".

The subjects of traffic congestion, energy problems and a slipping standard of living followed until he reached the "nub of the problem".

"Helen Clark's Government has cruised along, basking in an environment that they'd done nothing to create, and squandered the best opportunity in decades to lift our living standards back towards those in Australia," he said.

Dr Brash said the failure to close the ever-widening gap with Australia would ultimately destroy the kind of society which people wanted "for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren".

"This may not be important to Helen Clark, but when my third grandchild was born just four months ago, I was reminded how important it is for me. And that's the nub of the problem."

Dr Brash said one could not escape the conclusion that Helen Clark's Labour Government was completely focused on trying more and more convoluted ways of making the money go around without having any idea about how to make the cake grow.

"You can't escape the conclusion that Helen Clark has no understanding of what drives people to better themselves and to achieve more, and therefore she can't create an environment that encourages people to do that, to the benefit of us all."

A year ago National leapt on Helen Clark's childlessness, saying she and her Government were out of touch with the realities facing families.

Helen Clark yesterday said through a spokesman that the latest comments from Dr Brash were just more of National's "tired old rhetoric" and she had no further comment.