Two MPs said goodbye and the days blurred into one as urgency ruled the week.

A hole was ripped in the space-time continuum by the House of Representatives this week. Thanks to urgency, MPs have been trapped in a never-ending Tuesday as the House kept its calendars stuck on August 25 all week. Outside, the days jumped to the left and stepped to the right. Inside, time meant nothing – and perhaps never would again.

With four sitting weeks left before the final adjournment of the House pre-election, this was to be a busy one. And a few MPs had a rough start: Labour leader Chris Hipkins had to kick off (the real) Tuesday’s question time with a glass of water (accidentally) spilled down his back by his chief whip Glenn Bennett.  And Chris Penk, of Public Works Act fame, has taken a new seat since his sacking as a minister. You can now find him in the backbenches next to Andrew Bayly and Shane Reti – the National Party exit row, which also happens to be right next to the door.

With election day looming, the House has entered a particularly frustrating period, with ministers more keen to repeat party lines than actually answer a question. Take, for example, prime minister Christopher Luxon, who responded to every primary question by talking about taxes. “Let me reassure the member,” said Chris, to the other Chris, taking a dig at Labour’s newly announced campaign slogan. “Better starts now with no new taxes.”

After question time, the House wrapped up its Budget 2026 estimates debates. Social development minister Louise Upston seemed keen to get hers over and done with as soon as possible, spending her last few minutes in debates telling the opposition she no longer had time to answer their questions. Assistant speaker Greg O’Connor allowed Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March to allocate 15 seconds of his time for the minister to take more questions, but it only saw the opposition continue to shout desperately into the wind. Tight-lipped, the minister left her seat, and then it was time to debate health estimates.

Wednesday would typically be a day for members’ bills, but urgency put that on hold. Question time saw finance minister Nicola Willis spar with Labour’s senior MPs, calling on the speaker to have Chris Hipkins apologise for suggesting she was  a liar. And the usual questions from Labour’s finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, saw the familiar war of figures and percentages.

Someone else along the government’s front bench decided to have a crack. “How does the minister of finance find it,” asked Act leader David Seymour, “taking lectures about prices from people who created more inflation than a bouncy castle?”

“Leave the jokes for the funny people,” Hipkins warned him.

It would have been wise for Seymour to take that advice when he rose next in his capacity as regulation minister, taking patsies from his colleague Simon Court. It was all going relatively well (save for the fact Seymour likes to treat his answers like TED talks), until changes to earthquake-prone building rules came up. It’s a work programme Penk had been heavily involved in as the former building and construction minister, and Seymour couldn’t help himself but make a weak quip.

“It’s very sad what happened there,” Seymour said of the sacking of Penk, who served in the Royal New Zealand Navy and the Australian defence force before he entered politics. “But when you get military people too close to government, they often try and take over eventually.”

Wednesday also brought a few firsts to the House. With the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill – the replacements for the Resource Management Act – now in committee stage, the minister responsible is expected to spend hours in the House going over the bill’s details. But RMA minister Chris Bishop is a busy man, so Act’s Court took the minister’s chair instead – the first time an under-secretary has done so in the MMP era.

And departing Act MP Mark Cameron became the first parliamentarian to deliver his valedictory speech over video call. Zooming into the House from his farm in Ruawai in Northland, Cameron remembered the moment he sat in the House with stage five chronic kidney disease and realised he was “stuffed”. “Man, I was pissed off,” he recounted. “I had lost my boy to suicide, and now this crap.”

Cameron has since experienced acute heart failure, and was once caught accidentally walking “bare-arsed” through a hospital ward. But he left his caucus with words of care: “I love you.” To Court specifically, “always be cautious of savings to be found in future lady products”. And to his fellow members of parliament, “please believe, as I do, in rural people”.

National MP Shane Reti’s valedictory followed, which saw him thanking the party leaders he had worked under: which included “myself for a week” – he held the fort briefly after Judith Collins was deposed in 2021. The former health minister spoke of “unfinished business” in his past portfolio, telling the fizzy drink industry “I was coming for you”. To his many supporters and whanaunga in the public gallery, the message was gentler. “Thank you all for your understanding when papa Shane missed your birthdays, recitals or sports events,” Reti said. “I will do better.”

By Thursday’s question time, the National Party was back to its old tricks. Following the announcement of Te Pāti Māori’s tax plan the day before, Bishop went full-throttle in promising no stamp duties (a tax imposed on a single property purchase). And revenue minister Simon Watts was unequivocal in saying “no” to increasing the corporate tax rate.

As for commerce and consumer affairs minister Cameron Brewer, he was perfecting a different delivery. Brewer is well-known among staffers for his impressions, and it seems he’s bringing his (in)famous Paul Goldsmith one to the House. As a wise woman once put it, Goldie likes to say the word “yes” as though he’s admitting to a crime – and Brewer has now taken on the same cadence. Unfortunately for him, the opposition have also noticed and taken to mocking his new oral eccentricity.

MPs returned to parliament on Friday morning to get through the slog that is the committee stage of the RMA reforms. They may be stuck there until midnight Saturday, but in the time warp that is the House, Tuesday, August 25 won’t end until next Tuesday rolls around.