Parliament resumed this week following a short recess amidst the ruins of the careers of Messrs Sharma and Uffindell, a changing of the guard in terms of the Speaker of the House, and against the backdrop of a mass protest which turned out to be a pantomime party launch rather than a serious attempt to remove the democratically elected government of Aotearoa in the name of err, democratic freedoms.
Chris Bishop proved he was the biggest prat in parliament yet again by having a rant in the media about Trevor Mallard when the convention is to welcome the new guy and wish the old one luck. Meanwhile Gaurav Sharma announced his new independent status with a hearty "hold my beer" to Mr Bishop in response.
Aotearoa elected only the second Maori Speaker of the House - Adrian Rurawhe, which gave the leaders of all parties a chance to speak and welcome him.
The Prime Minister was warm and relaxed, for once having the opportunity to speak in parliament without having to respond to the sort of idiotic, cringe-inducing questions from the National Party, the sort of inane repetitive dribble, that makes you wonder if Jason Walls has left his role as Newstalk ZB commentator to become a PR person for the National Party until you remember that they are the same job.
There were nice speeches from the Greens and the Maori Party with humour and a bit of cheekiness, a classless speech from Christopher Luxon choosing to put the boot in to Mallard on the way out to state yet again that he lacked Nationals confidence. But the prize prat award went to someone else.
David Seymour's speech was less a welcome to the new speaker more a victim impact statement from David as to how mean Trevor had been to him ever since he started school. I mean parliament - why he had only just arrived and there was Trevor telling him “you boy, pull your socks up”, no wonder Gaurav Sharma said Mallard was a bully - mind you Gaurav thinks that everyone that is not Gaurav is a bully, which is ironic in a pot/kettle fashion.
Meanwhile Dr Sharma rose to speak from his new home in the nose bleed seats and boy did you see how enthusiastic his ex-colleagues were when the new speaker told him to stop talking off the topic and sit down? You almost got the impression they don’t really like him very much - can’t think why.
National confirmed their Sam Uffindell enquiry will be kept secret and not shared once they got their voices back from clamouring for a QC investigation and full transparency in the “Gaurav Sharma goes rogue case”.
But the big news of the week was Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out a deal with the newly forming Freedoms Party.
His refusal to rule out working with Brian “he’s not the messiah” Tamaki’s mob is not because he wants the best possible government for New Zealand but rather that he is willing to do a deal at the crossroads at midnight with the cult leader, nothing off the table, if it means gaining power. Power itself is the one true goal.
What sort of coalition accommodation could National reach with the Freedoms Party? What policy concessions could they make with a party who seem to exist for two purposes. Firstly to make the Tamaki’s richer and secondly presumably to replace democracy with a theocracy headed by God’s retailer on earth intent on rolling back social progress such as the rights of gay folks and women.
Seriously - think about what could possibly be in such a coalition agreement- it isn’t good. How about for-profit indoctrination camps instead of public schools to spread the word? And the word is “cha-ching” I’m kidding, you don’t need cash to receive god’s love from Brian, he takes Pay Wave.
Interesting performances by the two parties most likely to secure power for Christopher Luxon - the ACT party who stand for more wealth for the wealthy and the Freedoms Party who want fewer freedoms for those who are not heterosexual men.
If you ever need help remembering the name of Seymour’s party just remember ‘A’ is for austerity (for the poor) ‘C' is for cake (their social welfare safety net i.e. let them eat…well you get it) and T is for Tax (slashing). Fortunately for Christopher these are all already National Party policies although Nicola Willis is concerned that the cake solution sounds a bit generous.
There is another acronym they will use once they are in power “BAU” which is a way of hiding the dastardly nature of what they have planned on the regular. A phrase that will give the future coalition an appropriate name - “Bastards Are Us”.
So you have the arch conservative religious (fewer) Freedoms nuts on one side of National and the libertarian small-government ACT party on the other. I guess that is what happens when as a party you claim to be a broad church and to represent the most conservative 1950s values but also the least state intervention and most personal freedoms simultaneously.
Either way New Zealand the Freedoms/ACT/National coalition (BAU) will be like a friendly priest who can help you either pray the Gay away or tell you you can be whoever you want to be with no restrictions. Let’s be honest the only thing you can be certain of with National in the mix is someone is going to get reamed and it is not the priest - it’s you New Zealand.
Meanwhile Christopher probably wondered how the more liberal members of his caucus (Willis and Bishop) would handle the fact that he was leaving open the possibility of teaming with the destiny church mob who despite dressing like a certain member of the Village People also partial to black leathers hate homosexuality.
He’ll likely use one of their old approaches "neither confirm nor deny" which ironically many in his party in the fundamentalist section of the back bench still probably think is a very enlightened policy for dealing with rainbow issues.
On a personal note I was the Project Manager for a version of a software package called asTTle, used by intermediate aged children to assess and focus learning in Maths, Reading, and Writing with Maori equivalents, when Trevor Mallard was the Minister of Education.
His ministry people seemed highly professional and really focused on good outcomes for student learning whereas I found people I worked with, from other areas of government, under different ministers, sometimes more focused on being considered important and having people kowtow to them.
Those Health and Education projects I worked on certainly had a feel good factor. Mallard seemed to care about his ministry and instil a good culture. Steven Joyce on the other hand, well his ministry seemed to be there to bleed millions in taxpayer’s money putting systems in place to help business people avoid taxes on their income and personal liability for their actions. Yeah - not so much feel good factor there.
I digress, but I suspect Mr Luxon has not heard the end of concern at what he might give away to the absolute worst people in order to gain power. I mean Brian Tamaki’s assortment of mixed nuts, not business lobbyists - that goes without saying.
Not ruling out working with the assorted looneys will come back to bite luxaflake....and please let him keep asking those ridiculous patsy questions in the house it makes him look like a man so far out of his depth he is drowning
Thinking about the exclusive brothers who backed Mr Brash in a election not so long ago, and it all blew up badly for the Nats. "Gotta keep the loonies on the path" Roger sang.