Gruff as ever, NZ First leader Winston Peters rose for a point of order. It was a \u201ctotal lie\u201d to suggest any tax break had been applied, Peters said. \u201cIf less cigarettes are sold, there\u2019s less tax to collect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re saying that if someone\u2019s not charged a tax that they were previously being charged, that\u2019s not a tax cut?\u201d asked Labour leader Chris Hipkins.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you idiot,\u201d Peters grumbled<\/p>\n
Winston Peters.<\/p>\n
So, after some back and forth, Edmonds changed her wording to \u201cexcise levy breaks for heated tobacco companies that are only applicable to one tobacco company\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, when it was Labour\u2019s jobs and income spokesperson Ginny Anderson\u2019s turn to question Bishop, the minister went for a different line. Sacking nearly 9,000 workers shouldn\u2019t hurt, he argued, because \u201cin the private sector, people lose their jobs and go for new jobs every day of the week\u201d.<\/p>\n
Wednesday saw a marathon reading of members\u2019 bills. Act MP Laura McClure closed off the first reading of her deepfakes bill<\/a> and sent it on its way to select committee with the support of the whole House. Other bills headed to the select committee include Labour MP Lemauga Lydia Sosene\u2019s amendments to the Local Government Act, National MP Rima Nakhle\u2019s bill to prohibit Crown funding to gang-affiliated organisations and National MP Tim Costley\u2019s bill to match regional boundaries between government agencies and services.<\/p>\n Also read and voted through, despite raising the ire of the entire opposition, was NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft\u2019s bill to define a woman as \u201can adult human biological female\u201d, and a man as \u201can adult human biological male\u201d. Perhaps it will provide emotional stability to those who feel their world falling apart at the suggestion that not everyone who menstruates is a woman.<\/p>\n Possibly receiving a vision of JK Rowling dressed in Kate Sheppard\u2019s clothing, Marcroft said she was \u201chearing the words of our suffragist forebearers\u201d. She talked about the need to protect women from the threat of gender ideology, to protect the country from becoming a \u201claughing stock\u201d, to protect common sense. \u201cSocial cohesion is destroyed when a minority tries to use social engineering to redefine reality for the quiet majority.\u201d Who knows if she considered the irony that she spoke as a member of NZ First, the smallest, but arguably loudest, party in the coalition.<\/p>\n Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP Oriini Kaipara offered a less colonial perspective. There is no definition of man or woman in te ao M\u0101ori, Kaipara told the House \u2013 it\u2019s just \u201ctangata\u201d. Kaipara remembered her first k\u014dhanga reo teacher, a trans person who taught her her reo and identity. <\/p>\n \u201cI am a woman,\u201d Kaipara said. \u201cThe architect of this bill does not speak for me, does not speak for M\u0101ori communities who safeguard our trans wh\u0101nau, who are trans themselves.\u201d There were a few tears shed by opposition MPs after the reading ended.<\/p>\n On Thursday, six new members\u2019 bills were pulled from the biscuit tin. NZ First withdrew its M\u0101ori seats referendum bill that morning, replacing it with a bill concerned with free speech instead. But watch this space \u2013 it\u2019s not like NZ First to refrain from playing swapsies<\/a> in the biscuit tin.<\/p>\nOriini Kaipara\u2019s speech was impassioned and personal.<\/p>\n