Nicola Willis takes aim at Shane Jones, while Winston Peters clarifies he\u2019s not a student of \u2018Woketown University\u2019.<\/p>\n
It was the right week for a huge development at\u00a0 parliament: the reopening of Pint of Order. A month-long dry spell was broken on Wednesday after renovations on the building\u2019s exclusive bar were completed, creating more corners for staffers to leak stories and journalists to slur their words. Either way, plenty of people would have felt like a drink by the end of this week.<\/p>\n
Equally important as the Pint of Order\u2019s reopening, though not as beloved by New Zealand First staffers, was the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with India on Monday. Finance minister Nicola Willis began Tuesday\u2019s question time by sinking her teeth into the deal\u2019s economic benefits, and all the \u201cavocados, persimmons, blueberries and cherries\u201d to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside the House on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
But there was that grating little voice that always seems to pop up when the National MPs want to pat themselves on the back for things, the devil on the coalition\u2019s shoulder. NZ First leader Winston Peters quoted\u00a0Indian High Commissioner Neeta Bhushan\u2019s assessment of the deal\u2019s investment pathway in which NZ would contribute US$20bn into India\u2019s economy as \u201caspirational\u201d, and wondered whether the finance minister was telling New Zealanders the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m simply saying is that the Indian side are using a different turn of phrase to describe that aspiration,\u201d Willis replied. \u201cJust as that member\u2019s colleague uses a different turn of phrase of refer to Indian New Zealanders than I would ever use.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was, of course, talking about NZ First\u2019s deputy leader Shane Jones controversially describing the Indian immigration tied to the deal as a \u201cbutter chicken tsunami<\/a>\u201d. Jones got the reference and cried \u201cFree speech! Free speech\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Her coalition partner\u2019s India obsession was something that was still on Willis\u2019s mind on Wednesday. So during general debates, she took another opportunity to stick a shiv in the side of NZ First. \u201cShame on you, Shane Jones,\u201d Willis cried. \u201cI enjoy working with you around the cabinet table, but that kind of race-based rhetoric has no place in New Zealand politics.\u201d You have to feel for the National Party: it sucks when the person you get into bed with turns out to be exactly who you suspected they always were.<\/p>\n The House also managed to get through a few first readings of members\u2019 bills on Wednesday. First up was the joint Labour-National Modern Slavery Bill<\/a>, which marked a first for parliament \u2013 the use of standing order 288, which allows a bill to be progressed if it has the support of enough MPs outside of the executive (as in, the ministers, associates and undersecretaries). By requiring corporations to report on the slave labour in their supply chains, the bill is not a \u201csilver bullet\u201d to modern slavery, said National MP Greg Fleming, who linked his arms with Labour\u2019s Camilla Belich to take her bill to the House, \u201cbut it is an important part of addressing that evil\u201d.<\/p>\n Later in the evening, Green MP Kahurangi Carter delivered an emotional speech during the first reading of what\u2019s been nicknamed her good samaritan bill. The bill would protect those who call for emergency help for a drug overdose from low-level drug offences. With a framed photo of Jacob Gunnell on her bench, Carter told the story of the 24-year-old who died after an adverse reaction to LSD. His friends didn\u2019t call 111 for fear of \u201cgetting in trouble with the police\u201d. National and NZ First didn\u2019t support the bill, but the Act Party threw its weight behind it allowing it to progress to the select committee.<\/p>\n And just before parliament wrapped up that night, speeches began for the first reading of Act MP Laura McClure\u2019s bill to criminalise the creation and sharing of pornographic deepfakes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Labour MP Helen White, who is in support of the bill, seemed slightly confused about the kind of online porn being discussed. \u201cI just wanted to talk about something I\u2019ve never heard about before, which is a form of fiction, and it\u2019s called dark romance,\u201d White told the House. \u201cThose are like fan fictions, and what people are doing is they\u2019re contributing to a story which is basically one of abduction, rape, and then turning the rapist into your lover.\u201d There was a puzzled look from assistant speaker Maureen Pugh, who no doubt was learning about fan fiction for the first time and was getting one hell of an introduction.<\/p>\n Moving on. There was time on Thursday to pull four new members\u2019 bills from the biscuit tin. For those who haven\u2019t had the privilege of seeing how this democracy sausage gets made, here\u2019s how it works: all 76 members\u2019 bills (well, there\u2019s only 72 left in the tin now) are represented by a numbered tile, which are placed on paper and tipped into the tin. Someone will pull a tile, and there will be a faint \u201cwoohoo!\u201d from the respective party rep in the room, and then it\u2019s all over.<\/p>\n They bills plucked out of the tin in parliament\u2019s library were Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishan\u2019s bill to criminalise virginity testing, Labour MP Tangi Utikere\u2019s amendment to the clean slate law (which would widen the clean slate eligibility), National MP Tom Rutherford\u2019s bill to deny those charged with murder parole if they won\u2019t reveal where a body has been hidden, and Tim Costley\u2019s Better Regional Boundaries Bill. The latter does exactly what it says on the tin, but might prove too costly an exercise for parliament to pass.<\/p>\n On the way into the House for question time, ministers would\u2019ve caught a whiff of the buffet lunch being served at Copperfields: butter chicken. There was also a smell \u2013 delicious to some \u2013 of an enemy confessing it was a mistake to say he\u2019d made a mistake. Yes, it was Winston Peters and he was changing his mind on whether it was a mistake or otherwise to release emails between himself and his and 1IC about New Zealand\u2019s position on the US-Israel attacks on Iran<\/a>. No wonder he was slightly cranky over Labour\u2019s foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walter\u2019s questions about the war.<\/p>\n Asked whether legal advice was sought \u201cfrom officials on whether the strikes on Iran were lawful under the UN Charter before the Government settled on its public position,\u201d Peters reminded Walters who she was dealing with. \u201cBecause the job I am entrusted with is the minister of foreign affairs of New Zealand, not the professor of international law at Woketown University,\u201d he said. \u201cWe take judicious, prudent decisions based on the national interest rather than offering empty virtue signalling.\u201d<\/p>\n By now, most of our parliamentarians will be back in their electorates, looking forward to next week\u2019s recess. They\u2019ll need it to survive the three-week sitting block coming up, which will end with Willis presenting the 2026 budget. Of course a week-long recess is only a week, but also a whole week, and as they say, a week in politics is a long time. Long enough to potentially see cracks in a coalition turn to chasms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicola Willis takes aim at Shane Jones, while Winston Peters clarifies he\u2019s not a student of \u2018Woketown University\u2019.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54505,210286,111,43,139,5650,69,135,12243],"class_list":["post-408624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-echo-chamber","tag-india-fta","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nicola-willis","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-shane-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Nicola Willis, seen here unleashing over the \u2018butter chicken tsunami\u2019.<\/p>\n
Kahurangi Carter presents the House with a photo of Jacob Gunnell.<\/p>\n
David Wilson, clerk of the House, presents the members\u2019 ballot.<\/p>\n