Go easy on the speaker – corralling 123 overgrown children must be every school teacher’s worst nightmare.
Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus.
It’s been nearly two weeks since the nation’s MPs were last gathered in the House. In the interim, prime minister Christopher Luxon travelled to India to launch free trade talks with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, David Seymour announced the Act Party’s foray into local politics, the Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick has been pushing to find six government MPs to support sanctions on Israel, and Andrew Bayly has returned from Mt Everest base camp with some new scruff on his face.
As per usual, readings of the petitions presented in the House that day preceded Tuesday’s question time. It’s usually a pretty droll list of appeals read out by the clerk which will almost inevitably never go anywhere, but this time a few prompted laughs, such as one urging the prime minister and governor-general to dissolve the current parliament and hold a snap election, and one submitted by a Facebook group calling for Seymour to be stripped of his portfolios.
The session began with the usual questioning of Luxon from Labour leader Chris Hipkins, whether he stands by his government’s actions or whatever – maybe one of these days Luxon will throw a spanner in the works and reply “no”, just for fun. Meanwhile, a big box of lollies brought in by Suze Redmayne travelled down the rows of the National benches (Penny Simmonds sifted through the liquorice, Stuart Smith only took the milk bottles and Tama Potaka picked a single orange gummy).
Hipkins’ supplementaries continued his questioning over school lunches, and Luxon continued his defensive, both of them acting out a question time rerun we’ve all seen before. Clearly Winston Peters was sick of the same old song and dance as well, because it only took him a few minutes of back and forth before he offered a supplementary, saying that Hipkins had pre-prepared his follow-up questions, so “no matter what the prime minister said, he wasn’t paying attention.”
Well duh. There’s a technique to this: swing the left hook patsy to the cheek while gearing up to come back in with a right hook gotcha to the jugular. The deputy prime minister’s own attempt at a gotcha was thwarted by speaker Gerry Brownlee: “I don’t think that the prime minister has any responsibility for anyone else’s concentration span.” Hipkins’ response was merrier: “Good to see he’s awake, though.”
Seymour leapt up from his seat and flashed a salesman grin. Was the prime minister aware that just last week, 99.8% of school lunches were delivered on time, with a 5.7% surplus in meals, and one teacher even reckoned the lunches were “varied, wholesome … [and] a meal”?
“That was more an advertorial than a question, but OK,” Brownlee responded. There was a hint of a fuse sparking behind his eyes, suggesting the imminent popping of a million blood vessels – maybe it’s because mercury is in retrograde, maybe it’s because telling a bunch of middle-aged people how to behave themselves is tiring, but Brownlee’s patience was wearing thin.
Lines of questioning from Swarbrick struck a bum note among the government benches – they couldn’t believe she wouldn’t be keen to see the “companies that the prime minister is asking to build our schools, roads and hospitals” turn a profit. Luxon saw the Green co-leader’s questioning over the country footing the bill for shareholder profits as a marker of her party’s “degrowth agenda”, a term that always gets some haughty chuckles along the government benches.
Transport minister Chris Bishop decided to join in on the fun: “Is it government policy that profit is a good thing, or a bad thing?” he asked the prime minister. “Profit is a good thing,” Luxon grinned. Seymour couldn’t help himself either, and took the opportunity to ask the prime minister whether he had “seen any reports” that profit is not a cost that can be charged to a customer, but instead a surplus gained from doing “a very good job of using your resources more efficiently”.
“Failing to understand that, [could this] be a reason why someone’s one-time business of a little hole-in-the-wall cafe on Mount Eden Road only lasted a few weeks?” It wasn’t a fair statement: the doughnut cafe Swarbrick once co-ran in the suburb was actually open for about nine months, and closed after she became a member of parliament. But don’t feel so bad for Swarbrick, because she got her own jibe in in response, telling Seymour, “You are a little man.”
“These little digs across the House are not acceptable, particularly from government ministers having a go at the opposition,” Brownlee said, but the voice of Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson broke through: “He can’t even run school lunches.” Both sides can give as hard as they get.
“Sorry, Mr Speaker,” Davidson offered. “That would be a good thing to be,” Brownlee replied. There has been a “move towards personal reflections” during oral questions, he said, and they are to stop. These are famous last words for Brownlee.
Only five minutes later a stand-off between minister of finance Nicola Willis and Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds ensued, with Willis labelling her opposition counterpart’s questions “patsy hour”. Why had Willis told investors at last week’s summit that the country needs more capital investment, Edmonds implored, while the government cuts back on hospitals, schools and roads?
That rubbed Willis the wrong way. This is a government whose first budget had led to “more schools”, over 4,000 state homes and $6bn worth of road construction, “so get your facts right!” Willis snapped at her.
“Oooh, nasty, nasty!” Sepuloni grinned. “It’s not Jerry Springer!” Megan Woods called.
It only carried on when Labour’s Ginny Andersen had a go at questioning Willis over job losses in the public sector and trades. A constant barracking had been echoing through the House, from those on the opposition side wanting to see Andersen go for blood ( something she’s good at), and those on the opposite side wanting to see Willis bury her foe.
Brownlee seemed to be wishing everyone could just get along. “Excuse me,” he said. “Put your hands up, who wants to go? Mr Bishop, do you want to go on your way?” The speaker’s former life as a school teacher must have flashed before his eyes, making his heart tighten with a dreadful knowledge: he had never truly left the classroom, the children never really grew up, we are all back on the playground playing pretend.
“How many times do I have to say don’t bring attacks on opposition members into it before I take some action?” the speaker asked. “I’ll get a ton of letters tomorrow saying I’ve been far too lenient, so I won’t be from this point on.” Great aspirations to have for the House, but it still takes two to tango.
