Does Gerry Brownlee think we're goldfish?

In the lead-up to the election campaign, National trumpted a "next Tuesday" Treaty of Waitangi policy: all claims would have to be filed by the end of 2006, and all filed grievances settled by 2010. This was simply insane; as Dr Claudia Orange (among others) has pointed out, there simply aren't the historians available to complete the necessary investigations in that time - meaning that a) justice would suffer; and b) there would be no full accounting of the wrongs done, and therefore no proper healing process or true settlement of grievances. But National either isn't in the reality-based community on this, or doesn't think that either justice or a true settlement of grievances matters, and so that's the policy they pushed.

It's somewhat surprising then to see Gerry Brownlee, the architect of the "next Tuesday" policy, responding to the government's far more realistic 2020 target with a claim that it will take 35 years to complete the process. Does he think that we're all goldfish, and that no-one would remember? Or has Oceania always been at war with East Asia?

Besides showing utter contempt for the electorate, this also shows how utterly dishonest National's policy is in this area. If Brownlee thinks it will take 35 years to settle all claims properly, why was he saying he could wrap it all up in 5? Conversely, if he thinks it will only take 5 years, why isn't he saying so now? Or has he simply been making shit up all along (a tactic with a certain history in the National party) to get elected or make the government look bad?