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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

PoliticsDecember 15, 2022

Ten days that define 2022 in NZ politics

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

At the tail end of a year that seemed to defy the laws of time, we dust off the dates in the calendar that capture the thing as a whole. 

Tuesday March 2: Parliamentary protest ends in flames and violence

Was the pivotal day February 6, when the anti-mandate convoy, inspired by events in Canada, set off from either end of the country? Or February 9, when police attempted to shepherd protesters off parliament – an effort ultimately abandoned, despite arrests, allowing the encampment to bed in? Or Trevor Mallard’s Manilow and sprinkler mini-festival?

It could be any of those, but there is one of the 23 days of parliamentary occupation most deeply engraved in memories: the last. For three weeks, the lawn of parliament had turned into a protest camp and the roads around the complex moats of protest vehicles. Many hundreds of protesters, whose number ranged from the disgruntled and distressed through to the conspiratorial and insurrectionist, were united in anti-vaccine, anti-mandate demands. It ended in violence and fire, with a group igniting gas bottles and tents. There was an attempt to burn down Old Government House.

It was the worst day of ugly division in Aotearoa, but not the last. In the shadow of both the unprecedented disruptions from the pandemic response and the riot at the US Capitol, it set a tone that we haven’t yet fully shaken off.

A rioter throws a desk on to a fire by the parliamentary playground at the end of the parliament occupation, March 2, 2022. (Photo: Marty Melville / AFP via Getty Images)

Monday March 14: Cost of living pressures prompt fuel tax cut 

This set a tone, too. No one was debating any longer whether cost of living challenges amounted to a crisis. Fuel prices had surged against a backdrop of Covid-induced supply chain disruption and geopolitical instability stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Amid that “wicked, perfect storm”, the prime minister announced that cabinet had decided to cut fuel excise by 25 cents a litre. Public transport fares were simultaneously halved. It would all cost more than a billion dollars.  

Tuesday March 15: Simon Bridges quits

I had to double-check this one – surely it was earlier than this? But no, there it is, March 15. And the Tauranga byelection that Bridges’ resignation triggered was June 18, which seems even more impossible. In any case, the former National leader’s decision to quit politics to spend more time with his podcasting career (yes, yes, among other things) was a blessing in disguise for his party. 

Christopher Luxon’s appointment of  Nicola Willis to the finance portfolio Bridges vacated was the best decision he made all year. While Luxon continued to suffer the wobbles through the second half of the year – lapses on detail and a sprinkling of malapropisms – Willis used her many years of political experience (as MP and staffer) to provide some ballast. Grant Robertson has proved a formidable finance minister, but it’s taken this long till he’s encountered someone with the judgment and discipline to give him a proper run for his money.

Tuesday May 31: Jacinda Ardern at the White House

For two pandemic-enforced years from March 2020, Jacinda Ardern’s passport stayed in the drawer. This year it got a workout; from April 18, the prime minister has spent 55 days abroad. Among the summitry, trade delegations, tourism promotion and the big state funeral, the most critical moment was the meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House – the first such visit for a New Zealand PM since John Key in 2014. 

It came at a time of geopolitical delicacy. As well as the war in Ukraine, there has been a lot of attention on China’s efforts to grow its influence in the Pacific. In her White House meeting, and in diplomacy since, Ardern has successfully managed to balance relationships with both Beijing and Washington.

Monday June 13: A major minor reshuffle

For all the spin doctors’ efforts to tease a “minor” cabinet reshuffle, this looked major at the time and even major-er in retrospect. Not just because of the personnel shuffling, but the way the announcement (it took Ardern a not-minor seven-and-a-half minutes to get through it) traversed the fault lines the government has confronted across the year – as well as exposing a lack of ministerial depth.

Kris Faafoi had wanted out before the election, but now he was properly escaping, leaving others to clean up policy programmes in various states of shambles – the media merger, the hate speech laws, immigration. He might be about as far from Machiavellian as you could imagine, but he nevertheless would go on to personify New Zealand’s loosey-goosey approach to parliament and lobbying. 

Jacinda Ardern and the reshuffled. Clockwise from left: Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Trevor Mallard, Kris Faafoi, Chris Hipkins, Willie Jackson, Poto Williams. (Image: Tina Tiller)

Poto Williams was removed from the police portfolio at a time when law and order was roaring into headlines. Ardern put it down to “the narrative”. Williams – who in recent days announced she will stand down at the next election – was replaced with fix-it man Chris Hipkins, but the issue of crime would remain firmly in the foreground for the rest of the year. 

Not a minister, but thrown into the announcement mix was the departure of Trevor Mallard’s, moving from the speaker’s chair to a diplomatic seat in Dublin, and ending a remarkable political career that went up and down about as often and sporadically as a Beehive lift. 

‘If you regularly enjoy The Spinoff, and want it to continue, become a member today.’
Toby Manhire
— Editor-at-large

Sunday July 23: James Shaw voted out of leadership

This took almost everyone by surprise. The Green co-leader was jettisoned from his seat at the party AGM, with more than 25% of the 107 delegates who voted demanding nominations be reopened. Paradoxically, it wasn’t all bad for Shaw and the party, as he packed his knapsack and travelled the country to talk to members. When he came to face his nemesis Ron (reopen nominations) again, Shaw won comfortably – backed by 97% of delegates – which most likely forestalls any internal challenge before the election. It has been a strange old term for the Greens, with a toe in government and the rest outside, but they’ve remained polling close to 10% throughout, which is not a shabby base ahead of election year.

On which point, though I have no obvious day to which to attach it, Act under David Seymour similarly ends the year sitting pretty in polls. Predictions that a dream run would come to a thudding end as National became functional again have been disabused. Another prediction has proved wrong, too. After years of a one-man caucus, the odds on some new MP or other disgracing themselves could hardly have been shorter. The reality is the opposite: a disciplined group, and a number of MPs (among them Brooke van Velden, Nicole McKee and Karen Chhour) emerging as highly competent and values-driven.

Monday August 8: Sam Uffindell’s history of violence revealed

Reports of a vicious high school assault, perpetrated by the newest National MP, Sam Uffindell, shone a light on the party and its processes, on politics and our culture more broadly. The MP for Tauranga was reinstated to caucus after a Maria Dew inquiry failed to substantiate further bullying complaints. Luxon handled the episode as well as could be expected. Just as importantly, the party seems to have sorted some of its selection woes, the evidence of which was best expressed in the Hamilton West byelection. Tama Potaka handsomely won the seat vacated by Gaurav Sharma and seems destined for much greater things than the guy who won the Tauranga edition. 

Friday September 9: Queen Elizabeth II dies

This deserves a place in the defining moments of the year not for reasons of sentimentality, but because our literal head of state died and a new one (her son, apparently?) was sworn in. 

Monday September 12: Covid lights switched off

Another elastic time mindwarp: it was just a few months ago that the plug was pulled from the traffic light framework and mask wearing requirements went the way of mandates – all (with a tiny handful of exceptions) gone. The year had begun with a third of the country bleary eyed having just emerging from lockdown, and the team of five million was already well splintered. Domestic restrictions and border controls had been loosened across 2022. But this was the day that more than any represented “a return to normal”. Normal, maybe, but certainly not “post-Covid”. The virus is currently killing around three times as many people in New Zealand as does influenza. 

Saturday October 8: Local elections

Mayor Wayne Brown might have been interviewed less often than a random Queen Street busker but his victory – comfortable in the end over Labour and Green enforced Efeso Collins – evinced more than anything a disgruntlement with the Direction of Things. It wasn’t quite a triumph for the centre-right, especially in light of Tory Whanau’s Wellington win, but it was broadly a kick in the teeth for incumbency. 

The other unmistakable message to central government: people didn’t and don’t like three waters. Also: a bad day for disinformation spruikers, and the turnout of both candidates and voters sucked.

Wednesday November 23: The Orr report

Fans of counting will note that this is the 11th of 10 defining moments. Error? Or a deliberate and clever allusion to the pervasiveness of inflation across our politics in 2023? You decide. 

Announcing the last Monetary Policy Committee decision of the year, Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr put firmly to bed the nonsense that he was somehow in political cahoots with the Labour government. Not only was the base rate going up by a record 75 points, but the outlook for 2023 was, you know, pretty shite. Sticky inflation, the return of unemployment and a gentle dipping of the bow into the (hopefully) shallow waters of recession. It was the day that very much set the scene for election year. See you then.


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Jacinda Ardern, Wayne Brown and Michael Cullen have all entered the game of pricks (Image: Archi Banal)
Jacinda Ardern, Wayne Brown and Michael Cullen have all entered the game of pricks (Image: Archi Banal)

PoliticsDecember 15, 2022

A brief history of New Zealand politicians calling people pricks

Jacinda Ardern, Wayne Brown and Michael Cullen have all entered the game of pricks (Image: Archi Banal)
Jacinda Ardern, Wayne Brown and Michael Cullen have all entered the game of pricks (Image: Archi Banal)

Jacinda Ardern’s unparliamentary insult of David Seymour is just the latest chapter in a prickly national tradition.

“A spiteful or contemptible man often having some authority” is the definition offered by Merriam-Webster for the word prick. That’s the fifth definition, but it contains within it some of the fourth, which reads simply: “penis”.

It is unlikely that Jacinda Ardern would call David Seymour a penis, but nor did she choose “dick”, which is something more of a garden variety phallic insult. Prick, she called him, in the New Zealand house of representatives this week. In the hope of better understanding some of the etymological nuances, or if we’re honest more just in the cause of talking about politicians calling people pricks, we present a very short and almost certainly incomplete history of the word in Aotearoa political discourse.

Editorial note: we have excluded both foreign uses (such as the Victoria Liberal Party calling Dan Andrews a prick in a paid advertisement last month) and other cusses used in the New Zealand parliament (various uses of “dick”; all the times Winston Peters called David Seymour a cuck).

‘If you regularly enjoy The Spinoff, and want it to continue, become a member today.’
Toby Manhire
— Editor-at-large

Muldoon on Muldoon

About a year on from losing to Jim McLay in a National leadership contest that followed the 1984 election defeat, Robert Muldoon was asked whether he would be a thorn in his successor’s side. He replied: “More like a little prick.”

Thomas on Bolger

In the 1996 election, New Zealand’s first under the MMP system, Jim Bolger in effect torpedoed his own candidate Mark Thomas’s run in Wellington Central with just a couple of days to go, giving a nod to Act’s Richard Prebble. Luckily for all of us, Tony Sutorius was there filming it all for what would become Campaign, which remains today among the very best of our political cinema. Thomas’s reaction to the news that Bolger was pretty much killing his candidacy? “Fucking prick.”

Cullen to McKinnon

At some point in the late 1990s, Michael Cullen called then minister Don McKinnon a “born to rule prick”. The details are hazy and not lodged on Hansard, but McKinnon later confronted the Labour MP in the lobby, hands in pockets to indicate a lack of any intention to punch him.

Harawira to Harawira

Hone Harawira, then of the Māori Party, in March 2006 called himself “a bit of a pious and pompous prick”. He was referring specifically to his position on smoking, as a reformed smoker. 

Smith to Cosgrove

In a May 2007 debate on the Taxation (Annual Rates, Business Taxation, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill, then opposition MP Lockwood Smith laughed at then associate minister Clayton Cosgrove, explaining: “I laugh because I feel sorry for the poor prick”. To be fair, Cosgrove was being a dick.  

Cullen to Key

It’s the “rich prick” line that most remember, but then deputy prime minister Michael Cullen also called National leader John Key a “scumbag” during a parliamentary debate in December 2007. And he was unrepentant, too, having taken exception to Key’s description of MP Darren Hughes as “the son Helen Clark never had”. Cullen took that to be a jibe at the fact the prime minister did not have children. Key said he was just repeating words he thought Hughes had used in a newspaper. Turned out it was the reporter who used those words. Prick.

Lees-Galloway to Bishop

A harmless, almost heartwarming deployment of the label “prick”. The transcript, from September 2018, in full:

Golriz Ghahraman: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise, and I will congratulate the member who’s had his bill pulled from the ballot. I’m sure it’s very exciting, but I do have to note that–

Chris Bishop: It is. It’s happened three times now – it’s great.

Ghahraman: Well, congratulations, Mr Bishop. It’s been three times. Unfortunately, this particular time–

Iain Lees-Galloway: We always thought you were a jammy prick!

Ghahraman: Ha, ha! 

Gilmore to nobody in particular

Aaron Gilmore, who would later become famous for allegedly saying to a waiter “don’t you know who I am?” had already called himself a rich prick in parliament. Kind of. From his maiden speech, in December 2008: “I have done well enough in New Zealand to be resented by some and labelled a rich prick.” It is debatable, as he faces legal action from his parents and complaints from tenants, whether the first part of that is true today. 

Brown on Wilson

For fans of “hot mic” incidents that involve politicians calling other people pricks, 2022 has been a richly enjoyable year. In the Auckland mayoral campaign, Wayne Brown, aka The Fixer, aka the leader of the Wayniacs, thought he was off the record, or not being recorded, when he told a Newshub Nation reporter of his frustrations with NZ Herald journalist Simon Wilson. Wilson was proving a bit of a thorn – which is very prick-like – in Brown’s side, mostly by asking frustrating questions based on knowledge of facts.

Wayne Brown has big plans for Auckland (Photos: Supplied, Getty Images)

“That prick Simon Wilson dug it out,” said Brown – the “it” being the fact of Brown’s age, which Wilson had presumably deduced using either research or mathematics or a combination of the two. Brown continued: “He’s been at me for all year long and the first thing I’ll do when I get to be mayor, I’ll be gluing little pics of him on all the urinals so we can pee on him.” Brown has yet to follow through on the urinal decoration, but he did apparently move quickly to install a beer fridge in his office.

Ardern on Seymour

The prime minister, in December 2022, which is to say this week, was under questioning by the Act Party leader about mistakes, and whether she had apologised for them. As she took her seat, Ardern was heard to say, sotto voce: “Such an arrogant prick.” There was no reference to urinals or any wish to piss on his face.

Seymour took it very well, scoring a political point or two while accepting the apology and resisting any temptation to feign injury. While it might not be directly out of the kindness manifesto, the prick line is unlikely to have cost Labour votes. If anything, the pressure will be on the Greens to come up with something meaner to call him.

h/t @UrbTurn for the Muldoon line.


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