But announcing major reforms so close to Christmas also means parliament was sent into urgency for the umpteenth time this year. Under urgency, every minute counts, whether you\u2019re on the government side trying to speed things up with a minute-long speech, or on the opposition side submitting as many amendments as possible to slow the process down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, take a moment to consider how speaker Gerry Brownlee must have felt to see members of the public disrupting Tuesday\u2019s question time session. It\u2019s bad enough to have to sit there and be lectured by the MPs, let alone the peasants in the public gallery having the gall to scream something about Palestine and throw leaflets into the chamber. Never fear: our brave speaker has now banned the public and their \u201cperformative art\u201d from the chamber<\/a> for the rest of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n That question time session also saw Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, who was reinstated as a Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP the week before, move a row forward in the seating chart, but still behind her estranged party leaders. And following question time on Tuesday, the House spent eight hours trying to pass an amendment bill to extend the duration of consents under the RMA as a stop-gap before the replacement bills are passed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The process vibed like those late nights in university spent trying to get something legible through to the tutor before you miss the deadline. But the bill was passed by Wednesday morning, and by that point, there was another sideshow to keep parliament entertained: the possibility of a showdown<\/a> between finance minister of the day Nicola Willis and Ruth Richardson, finance minister of days past.\u00a0<\/p>\n By question time on Wednesday, the RMA was still on the government\u2019s mind, but Labour leader Chris Hipkins\u2019 was stuck on more philosophical wonderings. He wanted to know if when Luxon \u201cbegins an answer with \u2018what I would say to you is\u2019, will he ever follow that with an actual answer to the question that\u2019s being asked?\u201d And Luxon rose to his feet: \u201cWhat I\u2019ll follow it up with is: outcomes, outcomes, outcomes.\u201d It\u2019s unfortunate there was no one in the public gallery to hear the prime minister\u2019s one good gag.<\/p>\n When Labour MP Willie Jackson got up to question M\u0101ori development minister Tama Potaka on funding for Te M\u0101ngai P\u0101ho and Whakaata M\u0101ori, the minister showed his age. In praising Whakaata M\u0101ori\u2019s programming, Potaka made sure to shout out Homai te Pakipaki, the M\u0101ori talent reality TV programme that debuted in 2007 and ended in 2015. The namedrop gave Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori co-leader Rawiri Waititi some pause: \u201cWhat are you watching? That show ended ages ago!\u201d<\/p>\n Following question time, the gears of urgency ground along. The Fast-Track Approvals Amendment Bill passed its third reading around 11.30pm that night, before the House moved onto the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill<\/a>, which replaces plans made by the last government to ban farrowing crates for pigs with a few tweaks to how long sows can spend in these crates, and the minimum spacing requirements.<\/p>\n The animal welfare bill \u201cgoes against the law and the courts, it goes against public opinion, and it goes against industry certainty\u201d, the Greens\u2019 Steve Abel told the House. \u201cIn every sense, it is a pig\u2019s breakfast.\u201d And then a little voice piped up: \u201cA \u2018dog\u2019s breakfast\u2019 is actually the saying,\u201d Act MP Todd Stephenson corrected him. \u201cA \u2018pig\u2019s breakfast\u2019 is a saying as well,\u201d Abel responded.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, it\u2019s not,\u201d Stephenson pressed. \u201cLook it up,\u201d Abel replied. \u201cChatGPT!\u201d cried another voice who wanted to have some kind of stake in this bet. To clear things up, The Spinoff has fact-checked these claims: \u201ca pig\u2019s breakfast\u201d is, indeed, another way of saying \u201ca dog\u2019s breakfast\u201d. Dog, hog or however you want to describe a mess, the bill passed its third reading after question time on Thursday anyway.<\/p>\nThe song of the people was: \u2018Luxon, you can\u2019t hide; you\u2019re supporting genocide.\u2019<\/p>\n
Funny guy alert!<\/p>\n
Abel set the record straight on pig crates and breakfasts.<\/p>\n