The coalition careens from a confidence vote to a trade agreement to a weight loss comment.
National MPs returned to parliament this week, after a fortnight’s recess, as a storm brewed in Wellington, both figuratively and literally. Christopher Luxon summed the issues up as a handful of MPs “moaning” about his leadership and media set on turning caucus issues into a “soap opera”. Of course, at the heart of the issue was weeks of humdrum polling and Sunday’s 1News Verian poll threatening to break the coalition’s levee.
As the rain fell in Wellington, the heavy skies seemed to mimic dark days for National. But prime minister Christopher Luxon saw something different: a state of emergency was an opportunity to see a few rats drowned in the gutter.
So it was all on as National MPs made their way to caucus on Tuesday, mostly failing to avoid the media pack waiting on the tiles. It’s unlikely anyone, other than Luxon, was as stressed as junior whip Suze Redmayne, who dodged reporters and ran through a back corridor to get to the caucus room. Where was the party’s chief whip Stuart Smith? He was at the centre of the storm, after being named in a NZ Herald story as having tried to track down Luxon to confront him with caucus’ unhappiness at his leadership. He was also nowhere to be seen, apparently attending a “longstanding personal appointment”.
For hours, the media circled outside, and went into a flurry when speaker Gerry Brownlee, who does not attend caucus and whose presence signalled a major development, appeared. There was a mad mob rush when Luxon left the meeting with finance minister Nicola Willis, while the rest of caucus remained behind closed doors.
Then it was all on. Luxon emerged in the Banquet Hall to say he had moved a confidence vote and it had landed in his favour – he was still the prime minister. He refused to answer reporters’ questions and strode off with the media pack squawking “You can’t avoid us forever”.
The palaver was over in time for Luxon to resume his throne in the chambers for Tuesday’s question time. A smug Chris Hipkins gave Luxon a few good kicks, like asking if the prime minister was confident he had the confidence of his caucus? And “What’s going to run out of fuel first: New Zealand or his leadership?”
Luxon smiled through the pain, but if you asked Chippy, transport minister Chris Bishop – who has denied coup rumours but is continually painted as a threat to Luxon’s leadership – seemed a little too comfortable watching his leader’s roasting. “Why do you look so happy today?” Chris called to the other Chris across the aisle. “We’re all happy,” replied a very deadpan voice from the government benches.
The awkwardness continued in Wednesday’s question time, when NZ First leader Winston Peters hijacked patsy questions between Redmayne and trade minister Todd McClay over the India free trade agreement (FTA). It was the continuation of a theme. Earlier in the week, Peters had acted as coup kaumātua telling the media that he’d read the tea leaves and Luxon’s confidence vote would only lead to trouble for the National Party.
Act MP Parmjeet Parmar tried to get her two cents’ worth in, asking whether the FTA would lower the cost of butter chicken. It was a reference to a comment made by NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones, which sparked huge outrage and accusations of racism. Minister McClay is “responsible for a lot of things, but I wouldn’t want to eat his butter chicken,” Brownlee replied. When Act Party leader David Seymour tried to push for McClay to answer it, he got a warning from another voice on the government benches: “Don’t try to curry favour.”
The rest of Peters’ unusually long questioning of McClay felt dire; like watching a couple on the verge of a bad breakup. It all stemmed, of course, from NZ First’s refusal to back the FTA, forcing its coalition party, National, to beg for Labour to back it. “Maybe you guys should just have a conversation with each other,” Green MP Steve Abel called across the House. But McClay took it all in his stride: “It’s an election year, there’s always a bit of kicking and screaming in New Zealand.”
But the standout moment of the session was still to come. Hipkins put his foot in his mouth when suggesting Willis “may need medical help” after the finance minister made a particularly odd noise in the House. An uncomfortable chill fell over the House when she sneered back that she was “in great health” – after all, she just went for a run with Australia’s Treasurer and the British Chancellor in Washington.
Not a great move for a man recently savaged by his ex-wife. And it only got worse when, speaking to reporters on the way out of the chambers, Hipkins offered to apologise to Willis who, by some divine fate, showed up at that exact moment.
‘Would you like to apologise?” Willis asked. “I’m happy to, if you were genuinely offended by what I said,” Hipkins began, only to be iced out by the minister: “I think you know exactly what you were meaning.”
By Thursday, everyone seemed a bit deflated after a hectic few days. Then Shane Jones decided to continue the drama, taking a dig at Willis. Maybe her suggestions that NZ First is trying to position itself with Labour is “the outcome of losing too much weight,” he claimed.
When it rains, it pours. The mist may have cleared over the National Party’s state of emergency, but that only revealed a caucus supported by a janky little umbrella and a dream. How will the party stand up to a new storm cloud overhead in the shape of NZ First? Meanwhile the other third of this “coalition of chaos”, the Act Party, seems to be left out in the cold.
