Losing our shit till ’26.

Twenty-one days to Christmas and we’re cooked. The constabulary are sitting around waiting for a man to shit out a $35,000 sapphire-gold egg. The nation is in a frenzy, gagging to know what a six-foot-tall anthropomorphic meatball thinks about New Zealand so far. And the political conversation has gone to filth. 

Scrutiny week at parliament, a nascent exercise in democratic transparency, has in large part taken place in a gutter – characterised, in the words of one observer, by “boorish heckling” of Nicola Willis from opposition members. Protracted jeering about a table in budget documents enumerating contracted projects was especially contemptible. According to a transcription painstakingly compiled by the national broadcaster, it went something like this: “Which table? Which table? What’s the table number? Which table, please? Which table?” 

It is hard to remember, across the course of New Zealand parliamentary history, uglier scenes about a table in budget documents enumerating contracted projects. 

“Everyone’s very excited today. It’s the Christmas cheer I suppose,” the finance minister told the committee, before calling her counterparts conspiracy theorists. She later told reporters all the “bickering about the table and the constant barrage of interruptions” was lamentable, sighing: “I think they could all do better than that.”

The Labour MPs responded by saying I know you are, but what am I, or words to that effect. Their best defence, in truth, is that having so far resisted the New Zealand tradition of going full unruly tourist when in opposition, they need to unleash somewhere. 

There’s more. David Seymour was the scrutinee in another committee room, where – in the wake of his heated debate with a principal around who is to blame for a crop of mouldy lunches at a Christchurch school – he was accused by Willow-Jean Prime of bullying those who criticised the school lunches programme. Seymour retorted by accusing her not just of putting on an act, but (a) being so bad at acting that she would struggle to gain employment as an actor and (b) would not win an Academy award. 

Anyway, whether enraged by the slight on his colleague’s acting or the implication that gainful employment as an actor is straightforward or by the absence of any table-based repartee, Phil Twyford interjected: “Give it a rest, jerk!” 

It was quite an afternoon for David Seymour; shortly before being called a jerk he’d been called a dick, this time on national radio. Seymour – whom I should have mentioned before now is the deputy prime minister of New Zealand – had rung in to Newstalk ZB for a friendly chat. Within minutes, however, things went the way of a week-old savoury mince and potato. When Heather du Plessis-Allan’s demands for evidence on who was responsible for the mouldy lunches was met with the suggestion she was overegging the principal’s efforts in the media, the ZB host said this: “No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Then she said: “Come on, come on, David.” And then: “Don’t be a dick. Don’t be a duck. You’re being a dick.”

And then – well, look, might as well type it all out …

HDPA: “What you’re doing is making this a story about –”

DS: “You’re calling me names!”

“Come on, man.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You are making this a story about media ego. It is not about media ego.”

“No, I’m –”

“It’s a he-said, she-said –”

“OK.”

“Listen, hear me out. The only way that you can determine what is true is if the people cough up the primary evidence. She has, you haven’t. I would like to believe your story, because I can see the inconsistencies, and I can see the possibilities that this is a problem. Can you answer me one question about the food, right?”

“No, no, no, no. Hang on –”

“Is the same food served on Thursday that is served on Monday.”

“Well, as I understand it, yes. Next point, Heather, just, if you –”

“Really?” come 

“If you come back from calling me names, just for a second –”

“I –”

“And I just make the point that the proper way to address this would have actually been not for the principal to have gone off and talked to a whole lot of media. I mean, she’s done so many interviews. She was doing one this morning, she had to cut short so she could go and do another media interview. It would have been to say child safety is number one, child education is number two.”

“David, I don’t disagree with you –”

“So, we will wait, yep –”

“I don’t disagree with you, but it’s quite clear she’s playing politics, and so are you. And David, listen –”

“How?”

“For the future –”

“Sorry, Heather, how are –”

“If you’re going to come on here, and you do this every single time, if you’re going to come on here and neg me like you do with your little snarky comments, you can expect to be called a dick and be called out for it. OK, off we go. Thank you very much. David Seymour, deputy prime minister.”

The deputy prime minister’s interview has been ended.

HDPA again: “Lord, I just called the deputy prime minister a dick.”

What is happening? Or, perhaps more importantly, how is it all happening without Winston Peters being involved?” Was Simon Dallow the only thing keeping the national discourse civil? Has his extraction tipped us back into the feral state of nature? 

In large part it can be put down, as Nicola Willis hinted, to that end-of-school energy, that pre-Christmas fever. After all, it was also December that Jacinda Ardern called David Seymour – who has the misfortune to find himself at the centre of so many of these yuletide discourtesies – an “arrogant prick”. And when did Michael Cullen call John Key a rich prick and a scumbag? Why, December 2007. 

And this year the temperature is, needless to say, hotter than normal, as irrefutably evidenced by the burst of cuntloquialisms in newspapers and parliament way back in May. After another year of torpor, of despair, of growth in the cost of living, we are all melting down. The giant meatballs are about to pop on Bunnings hats and start turning over petrol stations like the unruly tourists. Survive until 25 has morphed into Lose your shit until 26.

Just, please, whatever you do: don’t put David Seymour and Winston Peters in the same room. 

* It is true that Shane Jones has been calling people demonic eggbeaters, but this is more a sign of continuity than change. 

This article has been updated to correct the chronology. David Seymour was called a jerk after being called a dick and not called a dick after being called a jerk. We apologise for the error.