The 54th parliament has risen for the last time, with leaders saying nice things about their friends and not nice things about their enemies, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

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Yesterday, parliament adjourned for another term, with party leaders using the final debate before being dissolved on October 1 to land pre-election blows and talk up about their records, RNZ’s Lauren Crimp and Giles Dexter reported.

Prime minister Christopher Luxon opened by defending the governing coalition’s stability, saying it had delivered “strong and stable government” and that three parties had shown they could disagree honestly and still work together. Nice. He called this “a policy election” and repeated National’s “no new taxes” line multiple times with MPs “echoing it in chorus” according to RNZ (no word on whether they followed up with a rousing rendition of “fixing the basics”).

Labour leader Chris Hipkins ran it straight at Luxon’s claim of coalition strength, recalling his own 2023 prediction that David Seymour and Winston Peters would run rings around National. He offered three stories to illustrate the government’s record – an ED nurse, a Wellington business owner whose turnover fell after public sector cuts, and new parents who couldn’t make ends meet.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick came armed with print-outs of headlines she said illustrated the government’s failings. She noted the irony of a prime minister who believes Māori ceded sovereignty working alongside Peters – “the most self-sovereign individual this Parliament has ever seen.”

Act leader David Seymour thanked his coalition partners for working together “more successfully than our worst enemies’ worst nightmares,” claimed $14bn in savings and welcomed Luxon to “the Church of No New Taxes, no matter how recently he may have sinned.”

NZ First leader Winston Peters referenced the 56 members’ bills NZ First had submitted, defended his foreign affairs record, and finished: “Stand back sunshine. I’ve got news for you. I’m coming back real big time.”

And Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi called it “the most anti-Māori, anti-Tiriti, anti-taiao, anti-worker government in a generation,” and on November 7 the opposition would “issue their move-on orders” from Parliament.

What happens now?

Helpfully, The Spinoff’s Now You Know sets out the procedure. Parliament officially ends when the New Zealand Herald of Arms Extraordinary to the King reads a proclamation signed by the governor-general – this year on Thursday, October 1. The government continues running the country through executive decision-making, but there is no more legislating or responding to petitions.

After the election, the government moves into a caretaker role until a new one is formed. Once official results are known – which could happen on election day (November 7, but remember you have to enrol to vote by October 25 this time) or some time later – the Governor-General must summon the 55th Parliament within six weeks.

Parliament’s top five

Yesterday in the Herald, Audrey Young named the MPs she considers parliament’s “high-impact players” of the term. Speaker Gerry Brownlee tops the list, for “his judgment, which is usually excellent, and his humour, which is always excellent” – a little odd considering it’s followed by an account of, in her words, his “outrageously disproportionate” suspensions of three Te Pāti Māori MPs for their haka during the Treaty Principles Bill vote in November 2024.

Chris Bishop gets a less-controversial shout out for his “his ability to think on his feet, answer questions comprehensively and rark up his own side all at once” and a little too much attention is paid to Nicola Willis’s appearance for my own personal comfort levels (which, admittedly, sit at zero). But it’s not just National MPs – she also has nice things to say about the Greens’ “question machine” Lawrence Xu-Nan and Labour’s Arena Williams.

And the Golden Gerries go to…

Meanwhile, The Spinoff’s Lyric Waiwiri-Smith has marked the end of term with the inaugural Golden Gerries awards.

Luxon took the Tubthumping Trophy for never being kept down, and the Air NZ Award for highest earner of fly-bys, for getting through a term without directly answering most questions. Act’s Treaty Principles Bill won the Flag Referendum Award for biggest waste of Parliament’s time – “a fuck-around for something eventually voted down 112-11.”

Willie Jackson won the Loose Cannon Certificate, having been ejected twice for calling Seymour a “liar” and once for labelling an assistant speaker a hypocrite. Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke won the Officeworks Award for significant use of stationery, for tearing the Treaty Principles Bill. National, ACT and NZ First shared the MAFS Medallion for forcing the marriage to work, with Chris Penk runner-up “for dutifully taking his place in the backbenches while the country watched his career crash and burn.”

If that’s not enough content to mark the end of the term, Waiwiri-Smith also memorialised this parliament’s final question time, including the first time in its 172-year history the words “I seek leave to table this can of spaghetti” were spoken – Arena Williams correcting Cameron Brewer’s claim that the price of a tin of spaghetti had fallen 1%, when it had actually risen 8%. The Speaker declined: “There’s not enough to go around.”