Nicola Willis takes aim at Shane Jones, while Winston Peters clarifies he’s not a student of ‘Woketown University’.

It was the right week for a huge development at  parliament: the reopening of Pint of Order. A month-long dry spell was broken on Wednesday after renovations on the building’s exclusive bar were completed, creating more corners for staffers to leak stories and journalists to slur their words. Either way, plenty of people would have felt like a drink by the end of this week.

Equally important as the Pint of Order’s reopening, though not as beloved by New Zealand First staffers, was the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with India on Monday. Finance minister Nicola Willis began Tuesday’s question time by sinking her teeth into the deal’s economic benefits, and all the “avocados, persimmons, blueberries and cherries” to come. 

But there was that grating little voice that always seems to pop up when the National MPs want to pat themselves on the back for things, the devil on the coalition’s shoulder. NZ First leader Winston Peters quoted Indian High Commissioner Neeta Bhushan’s assessment of the deal’s investment pathway in which NZ would contribute US$20bn into India’s economy as “aspirational”, and wondered whether the finance minister was telling New Zealanders the same thing.

“What I’m simply saying is that the Indian side are using a different turn of phrase to describe that aspiration,” Willis replied. “Just as that member’s colleague uses a different turn of phrase of refer to Indian New Zealanders than I would ever use.”

She was, of course, talking about NZ First’s deputy leader Shane Jones controversially describing the Indian immigration tied to the deal as a “butter chicken tsunami”. Jones got the reference and cried “Free speech! Free speech”.  

Her coalition partner’s India obsession was something that was still on Willis’s mind on Wednesday. So during general debates, she took another opportunity to stick a shiv in the side of NZ First. “Shame on you, Shane Jones,” Willis cried. “I enjoy working with you around the cabinet table, but that kind of race-based rhetoric has no place in New Zealand politics.” You have to feel for the National Party: it sucks when the person you get into bed with turns out to be exactly who you suspected they always were.

The House also managed to get through a few first readings of members’ bills on Wednesday. First up was the joint Labour-National Modern Slavery Bill, which marked a first for parliament – the use of standing order 288, which allows a bill to be progressed if it has the support of enough MPs outside of the executive (as in, the ministers, associates and undersecretaries). By requiring corporations to report on the slave labour in their supply chains, the bill is not a “silver bullet” to modern slavery, said National MP Greg Fleming, who linked his arms with Labour’s Camilla Belich to take her bill to the House, “but it is an important part of addressing that evil”.

Later in the evening, Green MP Kahurangi Carter delivered an emotional speech during the first reading of what’s been nicknamed her good samaritan bill. The bill would protect those who call for emergency help for a drug overdose from low-level drug offences. With a framed photo of Jacob Gunnell on her bench, Carter told the story of the 24-year-old who died after an adverse reaction to LSD. His friends didn’t call 111 for fear of “getting in trouble with the police”. National and NZ First didn’t support the bill, but the Act Party threw its weight behind it allowing it to progress to the select committee.

And just before parliament wrapped up that night, speeches began for the first reading of Act MP Laura McClure’s bill to criminalise the creation and sharing of pornographic deepfakes. 

Labour MP Helen White, who is in support of the bill, seemed slightly confused about the kind of online porn being discussed. “I just wanted to talk about something I’ve never heard about before, which is a form of fiction, and it’s called dark romance,” White told the House. “Those are like fan fictions, and what people are doing is they’re contributing to a story which is basically one of abduction, rape, and then turning the rapist into your lover.” There was a puzzled look from assistant speaker Maureen Pugh, who no doubt was learning about fan fiction for the first time and was getting one hell of an introduction.

Moving on. There was time on Thursday to pull four new members’ bills from the biscuit tin. For those who haven’t had the privilege of seeing how this democracy sausage gets made, here’s how it works: all 76 members’ bills (well, there’s only 72 left in the tin now) are represented by a numbered tile, which are placed on paper and tipped into the tin. Someone will pull a tile, and there will be a faint “woohoo!” from the respective party rep in the room, and then it’s all over.

They bills plucked out of the tin in parliament’s library were Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishan’s bill to criminalise virginity testing, Labour MP Tangi Utikere’s amendment to the clean slate law (which would widen the clean slate eligibility), National MP Tom Rutherford’s bill to deny those charged with murder parole if they won’t reveal where a body has been hidden, and Tim Costley’s Better Regional Boundaries Bill. The latter does exactly what it says on the tin, but might prove too costly an exercise for parliament to pass.

On the way into the House for question time, ministers would’ve caught a whiff of the buffet lunch being served at Copperfields: butter chicken. There was also a smell – delicious to some – of an enemy confessing it was a mistake to say he’d made a mistake. Yes, it was Winston Peters and he was changing his mind on whether it was a mistake or otherwise to release emails between himself and his and 1IC about New Zealand’s position on the US-Israel attacks on Iran. No wonder he was slightly cranky over Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walter’s questions about the war.

Asked whether legal advice was sought “from officials on whether the strikes on Iran were lawful under the UN Charter before the Government settled on its public position,” Peters reminded Walters who she was dealing with. “Because the job I am entrusted with is the minister of foreign affairs of New Zealand, not the professor of international law at Woketown University,” he said. “We take judicious, prudent decisions based on the national interest rather than offering empty virtue signalling.”

By now, most of our parliamentarians will be back in their electorates, looking forward to next week’s recess. They’ll need it to survive the three-week sitting block coming up, which will end with Willis presenting the 2026 budget. Of course a week-long recess is only a week, but also a whole week, and as they say, a week in politics is a long time. Long enough to potentially see cracks in a coalition turn to chasms.