Everyone’s talking about immigrants and Māori. It must be an election year.
Can you feel the vibe shift in the air? There’s always someone plotting some wayward schemes within the walls of parliament, stirring the cauldron and flashing Cheshire cat smiles through the fumes. This week in particular has seen old dogs return to old tricks, providing bad omens for the election year ahead.
Case in point: on Tuesday, the House’s question time session saw a Machiavellian matua getting up to his usual tricks. Rehashing an announcement made over the weekend, a two-year ban on gathering seafood in rockpools around the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, fisheries minister Shane Jones puffed up his chest and lived up to the grand orator reputation he is known for.
Taking patsies from NZ First MP David Wilson, Jones declared the war had been won. No longer would the area be plagued by the “bus loads” of tourists showing up to swipe marine life, and, by the way, did you know those visits were largely organised “by immigrants”?
Jones pronounced that last “i” word sharply enough to rile Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swabrick up. “There it is,” she cried, with flailed hands in the air. “Happy Chinese New Year!”
“When the busloads arrive,” Jones continued, “no rock pool can survive something akin to the oriental express.” Queue the groans from the opposition and the typical lack of response from the speaker.
By Wednesday, the writing on the wall was becoming clearer. But it was also OCR day (spoiler: the Reserve Bank is keeping the official cash rate at 2.25%), so there were a few things to get through before any racism could rear its head again.
Like the feisty little standoff between Labour leader Chris Hipkins and prime minister Christopher Luxon during question time. On the subject of cost of living and inflation, Luxon seemed to crack under Hipkins’ pressure, and instead of directing his ire straight at his mate in red, his use of the word “you” – question time responses are always supposed to be directed at the speaker – meant Gerry Brownlee caught a stray.
“You ran this country into a hole economically. You’ve got no economic credibility,” Luxon called. “I wouldn’t employ any of [that front bench] in a lower middle management job.” As he sat back down at his bench, the prime minister pointed his finger at every red team member sitting directly opposite him.
When Brownlee had to scold Luxon’s use of “you” (“I certainly did not exact any economic vandalism on the country”), NZ First Winston Peters got lost in translation. “E-W-E?” Peters asked, giggling away in his seat.
When Hipkins pressed Luxon on an August 2025 Stuff headline that said the finance minister was suggesting the then new supermarket plan could lead to a cut to grocery prices, Nicola Willis felt as though her words had been misconstrued. “This is going to be a privileges issue,” Willis warned. “You’re misleading the House.”
“Oh!” replied Labour MP Barbara Edmonds. “Just like you.”
Later, someone else also misled the House. Rising for a point of order as Green MP Teanau Tuiono questioned acting climate change minister Scott Simpson, Peters asked why the minister was “answering a question from someone who comes from Rarotonga to a country called New Zealand”. First of all, Tuiono was born in Auckland.
Later, discussions moved onto NZ First lodging its 1,000th member’s bill this term. This one is seeking a binding referendum on whether the Māori seats should be kept. Peters hooted and hollered about those damn Māori seats and that damn Māori Party. He took aim at Green MP Hūhana Lyndon for heckling him, telling her she’s from a party of communists, not “the Māori people”. Two speeches later, in defending the honour of the seats, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi quoted singer Luther Vandross: “A chair is still a chair, even when there’s no one sitting there.”
Thursday’s question time saw Brownlee take a stand on the previous day’s antics. The speaker had to remind the House of a ruling made in May last year – that “Aotearoa” is A-OK to say, please stop throwing a fit about it, looking at no one in particular. He also had to remind the House that everyone who sits here is made equal, whether they were born in the Pacific, Asia or that hellhole known as Auckland.
The only person made an example of was Labour MP Kieran McAnulty, for trifling with the speaker. After Act Party leader David Seymour, as acting prime minister, told the House he found Seymour “very agreeable and a great person to agree with”, there was a whole lot of hubbub as multiple MPs rose for points of order. Peters tried, and was told to shut up and sit down by another member. When McAnulty tried, he was told to shut up and leave by the speaker.
Later that evening, justice minister Paul Goldsmith’s English Language Bill, which will set out English’s status as an official language of New Zealand in legislation, was introduced to the House. It’s difficult to say whether this bill – a commitment in the National-NZ First coalition agreement – will meaningfully change the lives of any New Zealanders, but it’s nice to see a struggling language put on the same pedestal as te reo Māori.
Introducing the bill, Peters said it would correct an “anomaly”, and see the massive change of English being used in the likes of the courts and hospitals. “I know some people have limitations when it comes to our language, but I’m not one of them,” he assured the House.
