Yesterday Christopher Luxon took the day off and went to Australia to see his daughter’s graduation. I’m not going to criticise the guy for that, I want the person who’s in charge of our country to be someone who is there for important family occasions.
Of course if, as others have pointed out, it had been Jacinda Ardern taking time for a family event the messages on social media, and some in the regular media, would have ranged from appallingly nasty to mildly critical, with an added side of sexism. But there’s no reason to stoop to that level.
Luxon’s absence did however mean someone else had to act as PM. Plus of course that some poor bugger had to cross the Tasman hearing how the bloke sitting next to them used to run the airline.
Before the election one of the things that caused concern, some might say horror, was the prospect of what would happen if Christopher Luxon was otherwise indisposed. Who would be in charge, and OMG did that mean David Seymour would be the Prime Minister?
Well we have that little delight awaiting us in 18 months time. For now we had Winston, who has managed to act like a Prime Minister in the past.
I thought he acquitted himself pretty well when Jacinda was on maternity leave. Compared to the comically awful thought of Seymour actually running the country the prospect of Peters didn’t really worry me.
Mind you, that was the old Winston. Prior to him going down the rabbit hole in search of votes.
Sadly somewhere along the way New Zealand First lost the old Kiwi battlers who didn’t like National backing the rich, or the tree huggers and socialists on the left, so they had to go in search of voters new. Something to do with having let everybody else down catching up with them.
Fortunately for old Uncle Winnie he found fertile pastures amongst the fact phobic and the conspiracy theorists and got back into parliament. So yesterday that guy, the hero of the anti vaxxers, became the acting PM.
Would he be able to crawl back out of the hole and rejoin the non-nutters? Or had he gone full Shane Jones and left any pretense of being in touch with reality long behind?
Yesterday in his capacity as Acting PM he had to answer three questions in parliament, one to each of the opposition parties. What could possibly go wrong?
Note, if you want to you can check out the video of each question by clicking on the underlined link.
Question 2 - Hon Marama Davidson to the Acting Prime Minister
MARAMA: Does he stand by all his Government's statements and policies?
WINSTON (Acting Prime Minister): With regard to evidence and information at the time of those statements, yes. But, of course, where new information or evidence emerges, we acknowledge that and don't just carry on like a bigoted lefty shill.
What a great start, referring to the co-leader of an opposition party as “a bigoted lefty shill”. How very Prime Ministerial.
Actually, how bloody rude. During a campaign when other political leaders treated Winston as if he was a deranged old fool, well past his use-by date, Marama always spoke to Winston politely and respectfully. Quite frankly I think she deserves a little more courtesy than being used by Peters to show off his anti left credentials.
As for being a shill, I’m sorry but this from a government who has sold out the interests of Kiwis to those of tobacco and oil companies? You’re taking the proverbial. If you want to see what a shill looks like you could check out this clip of Chris Bishop in a previous role:
The Greens then asked him a series of questions on fossil fuels, including whether he agreed with then Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in 2018, that the oil and gas ban “makes sense” and that introducing the ban was the change that New Zealanders wanted?
Winston unfortunately seemed to be having some sort of out of body experience as he spoke of another time and place. It wasn’t clear whether he was answering for himself, the actual Prime Minister, or one of his warren dwellers. But what was clear was that he was more interested in avoiding questions than answering them.
Ah well, perhaps Chippy would have more luck.
Question 3 - Rt Hon Chris Hipkins to the Acting Prime Minister
The Labour leader also wanted to remind Winston of things he had said in the past. Things that were either in contradiction of his recent actions, or were less than complimentary about his now coalition colleagues.
For example, whether or not he agreed with David Seymour that “you can't trust Winston Peters, and a lot of things will be much, much harder than they otherwise would." Or that Winston Peters is “just a muppet; the problem is he can't work with anyone. The good news is he's going down in flames; he's yesterday's man.”
Peters replied that “even politically, as the Good Book says, nobody's beyond redemption”. I had visions of Seymour fleeing from a confessional in flames complaining that he’d hardly even started, and besides which even Jacinda wasn’t allowed to call him an arrogant little prick. So there.
Question 8 - Debbie Ngarewa-Packer to the Acting Prime Minister
After a series of questions from Debbie her fellow co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, stood to ask a supplementary. He spoke in Te Reo, and Hansard records the english translation as follows.
“What is your response to the groups that are working for underprivileged children that are calling for a reduction in the number of underprivileged people by the pen, by raising wages, by making it easier to buy food and medication?”
What followed was a bit farcical with nobody seemingly knowing what to do when Winston failed to answer and Rawiri confirmed he was not intending to provide a translation himself.
For those who aren’t familiar with Question Time, Te Reo is sometimes used and all MPs have access to an earpiece which provides translations for them.
Eventually Gerry said “OK. The question doesn't need to be answered if the Minister—or the Prime Minister in this case—doesn't feel like he wants to answer it.” Sorry what? The acting Prime Minister of this country, doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to? Pretty sure that’s not the intention of Question Time.
In the end Winston did choose to answer, but expressed that he was concerned at the public being unable to understand. Saying, “it's not just about 5 percent; it's about the other 95 percent as well. It's called ‘one people, one country’.” I have no idea why the Acting PM was choosing to do Pauline Hanson impersonations, but it was about to get worse.
Megan Woods intervened, attempting to help Winston move towards an actual answer. The acting Prime Minister of New Zealand said to her: “No, no, no. On the marae, Megan, you keep quiet. You do. Willie knows that; he keeps quiet too. You don't shout out like some bunch of clowns at university.”
The whole thing got a bit silly to the point where Chris “tobacco shill” Bishop, provided something of a voice of reason.
Yes, that Chris Bishop. No, I’m not kidding.
Grant Robertson had already spoken about the translation service, Mr Bishop’s suggestion was that Ministers could be warned if a question was going to be in Te Reo, so they could use the earpiece. Personally I couldn’t understand why Winston hadn’t just said, “I didn’t have my earpiece in, could the member please repeat the question?”
There were a series of exchanges, and no one seemed to know quite what to do, certainly not Gerry Brownlee. Shane Jones raised a Point Of Order (a POO) saying “the reality is that there was a slight delay in the translation, reflective of the rudimentary nature of the Māori language and my ability to make it sound more sophisticated in English.”
Some of you might have thought I was a bit rough on Shane in an earlier comment, I bet you don’t after reading that POO.
Eventually the question was answered and some sort of order re-established but it was certainly not helped by new speaker Gerry Brownlee who seemed like he hadn’t done his homework. And it certainly wasn’t helped by some very un Prime Ministerial behaviour from Winston, who was supposed to answer as if it was the actual PM speaking.
I thought it was utterly disgraceful conduct. Te Reo is an official language in this country and there is, and was, a translation service available for those who, like Mr Peters, don’t speak the language.
If there is an issue with the service not working, or keeping up, then for goodness sake say so. People will accept that you cannot understand something, but simply acting as if there is no role for Te Reo in our parliament, that people cannot use it to ask a question and expect to be answered, was shameful to watch.
We’re better than this, aren’t we?
Just a reminder, for anyone thinking of joining the protest in support of keeping Aotearoa Smokefree - it’s today at 1pm. There are rallies in Wellington on the Parliament forecourt, and in Auckland at the domain, outside of Auckland Hospital.
Rug up warm and make your voices heard, like the good people in the photo above. I’d love to hear if anyone went to the Make Cancer Great Again comedy evening in the Hawkes Bay last Thursday.
I love the original version of this from Uncle Bob, but really enjoyed this cover - especially hearing Joe Strummer.
It's like an unfolding horror show. Winston took the opportunity to swipe back, often answering for himself and NZ First rather than as PM (which is what he was supposed to be doing). The house has gone into urgency ; I just watched the last contribution from Grant Robertson on the committee stages of the Reserve Bank Bill last night ; Nicola Willis cackling loudly in embarrassing and childish response. She needs to understand that when sitting up there next to the speaker, the microphone is on and everyone can hear her. House resumes at 9am if anyone has the stomach for it. I'm guessing FPAs will be up after that.
Thanks Nick for actually watching the debacle yesterday. I gave up listening to Winnie as he is an angry old man who has a big chip on his shoulder. He’s not there for the people but for his own self gratification. As for Shane Jones he lacks credibility as he is a pompous, arrogant man who loves to be in the limelight with his divisive rhetoric. What a clown show!