A week of super urgency has been tough on MPs, and even tougher on Gerry Brownlee and his assistant speakers.

It’s parliament’s penultimate sitting week, meaning most of the government workload is complete and everyone else is over it. The horsemen of the apocalypse – no, not the Ngāti Kahungunu convoy, but the MPs themselves – returned to parliament for a week of super urgency. But the only thing many of those in the House appeared to be in a hurry to do was make fools of themselves.

The sober mood that opened Tuesday’s question time lasted about as long as you’d expect. MPs rose to mark the death of former NZ First MP Jim Peters, older brother to Winston. That brief reflection quickly gave way to the usual circus, with current NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones offering to give the speaker the reo Māori translation of “sock puppet” while making a vague dig at the Greens.

No one was less impressed by MP antics than speaker Gerry Brownlee. First it was Labour MP Ginny Andersen who got the boot out of the House for laughing and carrying on while poor Carl Bates tried to ask a supplementary. Then it was Act Party leader David Seymour, who thought he might try his hand at talking back to the teacher. It wasn’t “the smart thing to do”, Brownlee told him. Not one to shy away from pushing his luck ever further, Seymour then strode out to the tiles and told reporters Brownlee must have been a bit “hangry”.

After question time, the government debated the India Free Trade Agreement, which saw NZ First attempt to filibuster its own coalition. There was a small hiccup when the party appeared to vote in favour of the legislation, and had to correct the record that, no, NZ First would not be supporting its own coalition’s bill.

“They’re meant to be in favour of the final vote,” chirped trade minister Todd McClay. “You can debate that offline,” assistant speaker Barbara Kuriger informed him. In the end, it was National, Labour and Act who got the agreement over the line.

On Wednesday, other MPs were made to say ka kite to their seats – some by choice, and one by the speaker. Minister Chris Bishop was kicked out of the House for the first time in his four-term-long career, for heckling Labour’s Barbara Edmonds as she pressed finance minister Nicola Willis. Later, National MPs Maureen Pugh and Andrew Bayly delivered their valedictory speeches, with Pugh reflecting on her “quite ordinary” relationship with the media. Sure, some have been keen to drag up old dramas as she prepares to end her parliamentary career – but there’s something you should remember about the man who once called her “fucking useless”: “he lost his job, and I got promoted”.

On Thursday, the House heard a surprising admission. A question from Damien O’Connor as to when the Modern Slavery Bill would return to the House kicked off question time. With no more members’ days (when members’ bills are debated) on the House agenda, the one bill the major parties are truly aligned on will have to wait to pass under the next government.

With Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori closing out, Labour’s Māori caucus leader Willie Jackson quizzed Māori development minister Tama Potaka about the government’s spending on reo Māori initiatives and its relationship with tangata whenua. Potaka’s answer – delivered in te reo Maori – was poetic: “Tēnei mea, te hononga i a Māori mā me te Karauna he pēnei tonu me he mārena: he wā ka piki, he wā ka heke.” Translated: “This phenomenon – the relationship between Māori and the Crown – is similar to a marriage: at times it’s up, at times it’s down.”

Next, Jackson gave Potaka a particularly difficult multi-choice question in asking what he felt was his greatest achievement for te reo and te tiriti. Was it: “introducing three bills on the first day of our celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, was it cutting $30 million from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, was it disestablishing the Māori health board, was it repealing 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, was it increasing the Māori unemployment rate, was it introducing the Regulatory Standards Bill, or was it introducing the most divisive bill in the last generation, the Treaty principles bill?” Potaka, understandably, chose none of the above.

To the school children and officials in the public gallery, Brownlee tried to save face. The chamber has been in a “more fractured state than it is usually”, Brownlee claimed. Well, Mr Speaker, if we’re being honest, this has been the state of play for a while now.

The House only got more heated as proceedings moved onto the second reading of the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill. A remark from Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara about the bill being “bullcrap” earned her a light telling off from assistant speaker Pugh, before NZ First minister Casey Costello probably decided this was all going too smoothly and someone needed to pay.

As Greens MP Julie Anne Genter began her speech on the bill, Costello rose to tattle on Kaipara and her party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who had been gossiping away behind their benches. Overhearing the ladies discuss a certain c-word, Costello was to claim Ngarewa-Packer had called Pugh a “particularly offensive” term. Ngarewa-Packer simply said it as it was: “cunt”. A government minister has used the word in the House before, so why draw the line at bullcrap? “Hypocrites!” she cried, and was asked to leave.

Jackson rose for a point of order. Yes, the term is offensive, but a speaker has allowed it to be said before, he argued. The barrage echoing across the House was only amplified by Jackson’s inability to find his inside voice, and he was escorted out of the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms. Ngarewa-Packer, for what it’s worth, said she hadn’t been directing the word at Pugh, but wondering aloud why “bullcrap” had been called out but “cunt” was OK (it was said in the House by Act MP Brooke van Velden last year as she quoted that infamous column.)

The drama carried on into Friday morning, with the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill passing its third reading. MPs loitering in the smoking area, beware. If only the legislation could have been amended to move on undesirables within a building, too.

This sitting week is expected to last till midnight Saturday, before the House shuts up shop for the term either next Wednesday or Thursday. Until then, MPs will need to learn how to handle feeling like the walls are closing in without going totally off their rocker. I don’t know about everyone else in this debating chamber, but call me Charli XCX because I think I’m gonna die in this House.