Chippy, the classroom tattle tale.<\/p>\n
That sort of back-patting carry-on wasn\u2019t about to happen under Chris Hipkins\u2019s watch \u2013 not when he, too, finally<\/a> has a few policies of his own to promote. He rose a point of order. \u201cMinisters answer questions as ministers of the Crown\u201d \u2013 they\u2019re not there to be the spokespeople of their party policies.<\/p>\n Well, replied Brownlee, he would have to come back on that one \u201csimply because I don\u2019t recall, actually, the words that were just said\u201d. Then Act leader David Seymour piped up. \u201cIf we were to have such a change in rules, wouldn\u2019t it disadvantage parties that don\u2019t have any policies of their own?\u201d<\/p>\n Squabbles over policy talk came around again, when Green Party co-leader Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick took her turn to ask Luxon if he agreed with his finance minister that extreme wealth inequality was a bad thing. Luxon wouldn\u2019t answer that, but what he did agree on is that recently proposed tax changes<\/a> from the Greens amounted to \u201ceconomic lunacy\u201d. This quickly turned into a pile-on with the leaders of the coalition taking aim Swarbrick and her party\u2019s unfortunate recent number stuff-ups.<\/a> Brownlee took his time to cut off the bickering.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me just make it very clear to the House that question time is to ask the government questions about government policy,\u201d Brownlee declared. \u201cIt would be unfortunate if, each day, I\u2019m having to rule on matters that are more about parties\u2019 policies than government actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s question time opened with the same warning from Brownlee: \u201cShow some restraint and stick to the standing orders.\u201d But his authority did briefly buffer when he responded to a point of order from Labour MP Ingrid Leary, except Brownlee referred to her by the name of RNZ\u2019s Morning Report co-host Ingrid Hipkiss. Leary took it in her stride until Brownlee informed her that if she \u201cknew the opinion I hold Radio New Zealand in, you\u2019d find it most strange\u201d.<\/p>\n With Christopher Luxon in Auckland for a primary industries summit, and deputy PM Seymour also in the big city to celebrate his 43rd birthday, Greens co-leader Marama Davidson\u2019s questions to the prime minister went to Peters, who has done this gig a few times before<\/a>. But her concerns over the government\u2019s Conservation Amendment Bill<\/a>, which Forest & Bird argues would make land in 60% of our conservation areas available for sale, were brushed aside by the rangatira.<\/p>\n Davidson\u2019s questioning was a \u201ctotal misrepresentation of what the 60% means\u201d, Peters claimed. \u201cThe Greens won\u2019t be happy until 100% of the land is state owned, and we all know what that is called. We don\u2019t want to take advice from the dancing tussocks over there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It was a near-perfect deployment of the old \u2018don\u2019t look at my values, look at theirs\u2019 strategy. And Peters still had a zinger up his sleeve: \u201cThe Greens like to touch grass, but only when it\u2019s rolled.\u201d Brownlee wasn\u2019t impressed and wanted Peters to withdraw the comment. \u201cI can\u2019t,\u201d replied Peters. \u201cHalf of it has been smoked.\u201d His guffawing ripped through the House like a bulldozer tearing down 60% of the country\u2019s bush.<\/p>\n By Thursday\u2019s question time, it was clear that the government should have spent less time talking about opposition policies and more time brushing up on what it\u2019s promising. Questioning from Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP Oriini Kaipara over the Conservation Amendment Bill led minister Chris Penk (stepping in for out-of-town conservation minister Potaka) to inform the House that Potaka will \u201crecommend to fellow ministers the removal of the particular clauses in relation to the disposal or exchange of conservation land\u201d.<\/p>\n After spending days dismissing criticisms of the bill, Potaka and his caucus came back to the House with their tails between their legs. Turns out, the only policies the government needed to worry about were its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Never mind our bills, here\u2019s what we think of the opposition. With nine sitting weeks left before parliament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111794,44152,1389,248300,54505,176629,111,43,139,69,135,136],"class_list":["post-496222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-chloe-swarbrick","tag-chris-hipkins","tag-conservation","tag-debating-chamber","tag-echo-chamber","tag-gerry-brownlee","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-winston-peters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496222","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=496222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What\u2019s the point of playing the scrutiniser when the government see you as the scapegoat?<\/p>\n
Tell us how you really feel, Gerry.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kinda scary when he looks like he\u2019s having too much fun.<\/p>\n