Parliament slogged its way to the finish line – and got an early day off as a result.
The last sitting week of the year started off on a sombre note. A mass shooting nearly 2,200km away from the Beehive on Bondi Beach gave pause to those around parliament with loved ones across the ditch, those with fond memories of a past lives lived in Sydney, and those who would rather not, as the prime minister put it on Tuesday, “accept that extremist violence is a hazard of contemporary life”.
The condolences which opened Tuesday’s question time session included strong words from Christopher Luxon, but his characterisation of Aotearoa as one that has avoided “the problems that come with mass uncontrolled migration” prompted some raised eyebrows around the chamber. Other parties took other lessons away from the attack; for Labour and Te Pāti Māori, it was a “raw memory” of March 15; for the Greens, it was the heroism of Ahmed al-Ahmed that showed peace was possible despite hate; and for Act and New Zealand First, it was a chance to scold anyone who had chanted “from the river to the sea”.
Then, about half an hour later, it was into questions. The economy, stupid, dominated most discussions, with the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update having arrived earlier that morning. It’s been a long year, but surely you remember the school lunches thing? Or when Luxon offered unsolicited parenting advice in the form of advice on making Marmite sandwiches?
Anyway, those highlights of 2025 were revisited when Labour leader Chris Hipkins tried to press Luxon on food prices, but Act leader David Seymour (or, “that bloke who just stood up”, in Brownlee’s words) saw, as he does, the bright side of it all: we’re been making school lunches with chump change – are these not the cheap eats the red team has been crying out for?
And Brownlee, breaking character, added his own two cents on the perfect base for a Marmite sandwich. “I can’t help, in this circumstance, in this Christmas season, to give a big shout-out to Coupland’s Bakeries,” Brownlee told the House. “A great South Island institution, cheapest bread in the country by quite a long shot.”
Point of order, said Seymour – isn’t the speaker supposed to set aside all personal and private interests? “I have no interest in that particular bakery other than the occasional step across the threshold,” Brownlee replied.
Other highlights from the session included transport minister Chris Bishop showing off the new roadside drug test, which looks almost exactly like a Covid-19 test, but for the narcs. For reasons unknown to The Spinoff (but with theories we couldn’t possibly comment on), Bishop opted not to try it himself in order to show the House how the test actually works.
Afterwards, the two new Resource Management Act replacements, the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, were introduced to parliament. With his RMA minister hard-hat on, Bishop sung the praises of putting property rights above all else – lest we end up like the Soviet Bloc.
And later that night, the Electoral Amendment Bill – which will end same-day enrolments and ban prisoner voting, among other changes – passed its third reading. There was some tag-teaming in speeches between Green MP Tamatha Paul and Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who drew on their experiences as young wāhine Māori.
“That is what me and Tamatha represent in this House, is young Māori wāhine, and who … are unfortunately kept out of these democracy processes,” Maipi-Clarke said. “We represent our constituents that I’ve had engagements with across the motu … stories of ‘if you two are in here, I feel like I have a voice in this parliament’, and making sure that they still have accessibility to voting.”
By Wednesday, much of the tension felt at the start of the week morphed into festive cheer. The press gallery rolled out the blue carpet – aka tarpaulin – for a party that night (it pays to have something to keep the wine stains off of the actual carpet), and the House adjourned a day early – so no one was very interested in getting much work done at all.
The end-of-year speeches included the usual trademarks: thanks to the staffers (including those working in “a place called Pint of Order”, said Seymour), reflections on the year passed, hopes for the year ahead, and a few dry jokes. Luxon looked to the opposition benches, and saw a picked-over box of Favourites staring back: Hipkins is a Flake for dodging the Covid-19 inquiry, and Labour, the Cherry Ripes, “seem nice on the outside, but inside they’re deeply, deeply red”. As for the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, they’re basically the Picnics – “a bit rough and totally nuts”.
Some were less creative, but more cutting. NZ First leader Winston Peters returned to a favourite Winstonism while criticising Labour, the “apparatchiks who have graduated from some sociology department riddled with left-wing brainwashing propaganda”, who “think that ‘manual labour’ is the prime minister of Mexico”. And “as for the Greens”, well, they’re the most “hypocritical, shallow, vacuous bunch of Marxists” who have “gone through more MPs than protests”.
“Shoplifters, cheap-labour exploiters, foreign-born Marxists, and unstable narcissists, the last two donning a watermelon yarmulke and Hamas scarf during Passover,” Peters cried. “Just breathtaking what they’ve got away with here.”
In a calmer goodbye to the halls of power, Bishop was able to laugh at the storm he created at the Aotearoa Music Awards as he talked the House through his Spotify Wrapped: “Don McGlashan, sadly, did not feature, and nor did Stan Walker.” The minister made some stabs at what those around the House would have been listening to this year: ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ for Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris, ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ for Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke and Oriini Kaipara, and “David Seymour has had one song on repeat this year: Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’. Now, he sings this a lot in Cabinet meetings, followed up by Mr Peters finishing up with Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’.”
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel one-upped Bishop by doing more than just listing off songs, instead singing a Labour Party remix of ‘What’s Going On?’: “‘Cut cost of living’ is what the PM said, but our whānau out there still can’t buy bread, oh man! What a situation.”
Health minister Simeon Brown, the last to give a speech in the House for the year, read out his Christmas cards. To Labour candidate Michael Wood, who famously failed to declare shares when he was a minister: “I do hope you’ve received Christmas cards from all your old friends: Auckland Airport, Chorus, Spark, National Australia Bank.” To another Labour candidate, Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney: “Merry Christmas, Craig, and may your economic theories remain theoretical.” To Chris Hipkins: “I wish you a very Merry Christmas and may your hundredth mention of ‘different’ be the charm.”
It was all over by 6pm – just in time for MPs to head down to the press gallery party, and let go of the past year’s aches over bottles of wine, not to join together again until late January. By Thursday, the only zombies left on the parliamentary precinct found themselves under the clouds on the speaker’s lawn, desperately clinging to life with the help of sausages and Powerades provided by the Labour Party, as its leader hosted a barbecue while wearing a “frickin’ Chris Hipkins” tee. It’s a good way to curry favour ahead of an election year.
