In question time, sometimes a question is not really a question. Or is it?
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.
No one can shut up about the cost of living. And fair enough – butter is, like, a million dollars, and tens of thousands of people who are essential to our health system are walking off the job today because they’re still not paid enough for the work we applauded them for doing through the worst years of our lives. With all of this going on, the pro-growth (of the good kind, not the bad kind) government has been very keen to remind the nation of all the great work they’ve done to improve our lives. But, they’re definitely not panicking or anything – they’re just setting the record straight, of course.
Which is why Monday’s post-cabinet press conference began with ten minutes of prime minister Christopher Luxon and finance minister Nicola Willis rattling off a list of their pro-growth achievements this term. And why the minister kicked off Tuesday’s question time session with patsies from National backbencher Suze Redmayne, reminding the House of the government’s efforts in tax relief and Family Boost.
But there was this annoying little voice that kept popping up (amid all the other heckling). Was it Karl Marx himself, risen from the dead to personally punish Willis? No, it was just Greens’ co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, on a mission to set her version of the record straight. “Road user charges!” Swarbrick reminded the minister. How about putting a price-tag back on prescriptions? Or the price of butter? There was a distinct look of disgust from Swarbrick when Willis wrapped up.
Up next was Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who questioned Luxon over – you guessed it – the cost of living crisis and nurses, but when he began a supplementary by using the word “so”, a smart aleck on the front bench thought they’d pull a fast one. “Point of order, Mr Speaker,” said Act leader David Seymour. “Speakers have ruled that you cannot begin with a word like ‘so’ … Usually a question must begin with a question word.”
Ummmm excuse me teacher
Well, Gerry Brownlee replied, the member used “so does”, and I’ve overlooked the “so”, so it does go – and haven’t there been occasions when the minister himself has done the same thing? “I got away with it,” Seymour quipped. “Yeah, well, guess what’s happening here,” Brownlee replied.
Armed with a pile of notes, Luxon rejected Hipkins’ characterisations and claims – but he seemed to lose his cool after so much back and forth. “If you’re really serious about the cost of living, will you support a rate cap on councils? Yes or no?” Luxon challenged his counterpart in red, but that earned him a cuff around the ear from the speaker.
The prime minister cannot ask questions, Brownlee reminded him. “It’s a rhetorical one,” Luxon replied. “Rhetorical or not, it’s a question,” Brownlee countered. “It was just a rhetorical answer,” Luxon grumbled. Not much achieved thus far.
There were fisticuffs again when Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds questioned Willis over whether the country was truly “back on course” – kinda like “back on track”, but just a bit different. And again the minister rattled off a list of figures of where inflation was at in 2022 and 2023 under the Labour government to prove a point that the current state of inflation is simply all inherited and not really her fault, until Brownlee cut her off with “that’s enough”.
Nicola Willis, setting the record straight.
“Ruth Richardson would be proud,” Hipkins cried.
Later, famed orator Shane Jones, minister for resources, struggled through his sentences despite NZ First MP Jamie Arbuckle giving him a wide open pass to boast about his portfolio, ahead of the final reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill on Thursday. Though he did find his flow while trashing the “unicorn-kissing, shallow green ideas” that led to “the perfidy of the cancellation of the oil and gas industry by Jacinda Ardern” that he is trying to repeal (despite being a cabinet minister in the government which enforced the ban).
But Labour MP Kieran McAnulty wasn’t having a bar of it: point of order – but aren’t these remarks a clear example of the very thing you’ve warned this government about multiple times, using questions to express their thoughts on previous policies? McAnulty kept going, but Brownlee cut him off by saying that while he agreed, it was fine to talk about “factual matters”, just as long as they’re not attacking the opposition.
The one and only mate of mining.
“Point of order,” Jones rose again. “I’m very happy that you used the word ‘factual’. It is a fact that the oil and gas industry was chilled, halted, as a consequence of a decision announced by so said woman” (aka his former colleague, Jacinda Ardern).
A groan rippled through the House after that one. Jones is a minister who likes to bark out words like “fiction!” when his opponents across the aisle are speaking about climate change, and “mining!” at random intervals to remind the House of his dedication to the kaupapa. So Swarbrick gave Jones a taste of his own medicine when he came to boast about his plans to travel to Taupō – “the heart of geothermal potential” – today to begin consultations to identify what “red tape” might be “blighting” the acceleration of the industry.
“Are you talking about the lobbyists?” she called. “Tell us about your fossil fuel lobbyist mates.”