Brash takes further flakon DPB plan

National MPs closed ranks over the sacking of Katherine Rich yesterday, but not before retiring MP Lynda Scott took another swipe at Don Brash.

Kaikoura MP Dr Scott told her local paper the Marlborough Express that she too disagreed with the welfare policy unveiled at Orewa, saying people on the the DPB had a hard life.

She said that former leader Jenny Shipley's caring conservatism stance on welfare had inspired her to join the party, but things had now changed.

MPs Bill English - whom she supported against Dr Brash during the leadership coup last year - and Nick Smith still represented the Shipley ideology, she said.

Dr Scott was reluctant to repeat the comments to the Herald, but it is understood they were accurately reported.

A third MP who did not want to be named also expressed reservations about the policy yesterday, especially the references to adoption as an option for women on the DPB.

The MP said this idea had never been put to the caucus, a statement that counters Dr Brash's belief that all the National caucus bar Mrs Rich fully supported his Orewa speech.

Mrs Rich did not speak to the media yesterday and neither did Rakaia MP Brian Connell after being effectively gagged by senior whip Simon Power and deputy leader Gerry Brownlee.

Mr Connell had said Dr Brash's management of the situation, was "stupid". He was spoken to by a clearly annoyed Dr Brash yesterday, but neither would reveal the details of the conversation.

Many MPs remain confused about how the situation evolved and appear not to have anticipated it.

All are frustrated about the bad start to the Parliamentary year it gave the party, although most accept that Mrs Rich's refusal to pledge to sell the policy meant Dr Brash had little option but to remove her from the portfolio.

New welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins said she was fully behind Dr Brash and dismissed claims the party's women MPs were being picked on.

Ms Collins nevertheless appeared at times equivocal about Dr Brash's controversial DPB proposals, saying he was not advocating benefit cuts.

Dr Brash said in his speech that women having another child while on the benefit should "not gain automatic entitlement to additional state assistance" and those beneficiaries should be required to "show exceptional circumstances' before getting extra support.

It was this policy, and another advocating women should consider adoption as an alternative, that Mrs Rich disliked.

Ms Collins said the party hadn't worked through what "no automatic entitlement" meant.

"I think it means people should be able to be looked at in their family circumstances and situations and that there needs to be far more tailor-making of welfare policies."

"I think we have to do something, but I'm not quite sure what. After I've been in the job for more than 24 hours I might have the answer."

"I've got people in my electorate who have been to see me with five or six kids, to five or six fathers."

If she could save one woman from that fate "I'm willing to look at anything."