The House: Open mic night at Parliament
Debate in Parliament reveals a patchwork of roles and purposes: representational and legislative; government and governance; personal and political. The political weight of everything rises incrementally in an election year.
The variations are most prominently on display in the weekly Wednesday General Debate – the only regular event that has no set agenda, topic or outcome.
It's like open mic night at Parliament. Every speech can be different, and things may change markedly from week to week.
It's not first-come-first-rant though. The parties are rostered slots by proportion and choose who will speak.
Sometimes the General Debate includes some genuinely funny political stand-up. More often, MPs' attempts at humour fail horribly. This week had neither, but there was still plenty to note, especially regarding treaty clause edits, party leadership, rest home exits, the India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and of course, the election.
ACT's Parmjeet Parmar spent her time promoting the benefits of the India FTA, specifically, and immigration generally. It was a pretty traditional, straightforward rhetorical policy defence.
"Migrants are not on the sidelines of our economy; they are part of our economy. This 'butter chicken tsunami' [attack by Shane Jones] is just a slogan. It's a slogan that has been created to do two things. One is to create fear, and the second is to grab attention. I say this to New Zealanders: don't fall in that trap."
The India FTA has been a point of discord within the governing coalition, and Parmar's speech may have been themed to counter an expected General Debate attack from New Zealand First's Shane Jones, who has been throwing grenades into the FTA debate.
But Jones avoided the topic entirely. His very individual approach to speechifying had a drill-baby-drill energy.
"Now, it was a fateful and very bleak day when Jacinda Ardern made her captain's call and condemned the oil and gas industry to a deep-freeze virtual type of termination. It took our government to come, change the law, reverse that juvenile climate-riddled type of analysis, and provide an opportunity for investors," he said.
The National Party provided five of the twelve General Debate speakers. Unusually, most were Cabinet ministers. The sole backbencher who spoke was Dan Bidois, whose speech was electoral, but also felt like a plea for internal unity among a list of most of the presumed main party faction contenders (missing only Mark Mitchell).
"Resource Management Act reform, which Minister Chris Bishop is doing a great job with. We've got education reform-isn't Erica Stanford doing a great job… We've got Nicola Willis making sure we actually get back to surplus… We've got Minister Simeon Brown, who is doing a great job of turning our healthcare system around.
"And at the helm of this is our Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, who's knitting together three different coalition partners, knitting together a broad coalition of National MPs, getting us moving in one simple direction."
National Party minister Simeon Brown spent all of his speech time attacking the Labour Party.
"Labour has learnt nothing in Opposition and nothing from their time in government. If they are elected in November, they will go back to their same old policies of tax, borrow, spend. New Zealanders know better, and that's why they'll re-elect National in November."
Nicola Willis also spent almost all of her time attacking the Labour Party. A core theme of attacks was that Labour wasn't yet revealing its own election policy, but was instead focused on government policy.
Ironically, both these speeches were equally focused on the opposition.
Paul Goldsmith also attacked the opposition, but unlike Brown and Willis, remembered to praise the prime minister. Goldsmith also praised his own and Mark Mitchell's work within the Justice and Police portfolios.
Mark Mitchell was the odd man out among National's ministers (and purported leadership options). As Emergency Management and Recovery Minister, he has a role that allows a less political, less divisive approach.
If the General Debate were an election debate, you might call him the unity candidate. He praised the work of the related spokesperson from every single party – quite a sharp change in tone from the other ministers who spent most or all of their time raging against the Opposition.
On the Opposition side of the House, Labour's Ingrid Leary used the General Debate to pressure the government on a specific policy – capital repayments to residents exiting rest home properties.
"The government is proposing to change this after enormous pressure… But… the proposed time is 12 months, which is ludicrous, as has been said by Consumer NZ, and, perhaps even more unfairly, will not apply to existing residents."
Three different MPs from three different parties attacked the government over recently revealed efforts to water down Treaty provisions in existing legislation. Debbie Ngarewa Packer for Te Pāti Māori tied the plan to the politics of distraction.
"We've got a climate crisis… We literally have seen cars on fences…What does it do?… It starts a culture war, because that is exactly what the playbook of Trumpism does… Epstein files. What does he do? Start a war. What does this government do? Start a war on Te Tiriti-slyly, quietly, without integrity."
Green Co-leader Marama Davidson took a gentler approach, but also tied the Treaty clause project to the regular marae role in responding to disasters; "In the face of all of that example of Te Tiriti beauty, this government is choosing to create hate."
For Labour, the MP who focused on legislative Treaty provisions was Camilla Belich, with "National members are too busy fighting with themselves and doing covert, secret operations to remove Treaty clauses, to actually focus on what matters to New Zealanders".
Most speeches were in some way an election speech, most obviously the all-attack speeches from National's Simeon Brown and Nicola Willis. Labour leader Chris Hipkins' speech was very election-oriented but also drew on National's recent issues.
"New Zealanders are looking for some reassurance that the government has a plan… They're getting slogans, blame, and excuses. A government more obsessed with their own jobs than obsessed with the jobs of New Zealanders who are losing theirs."
The Sunday edition of the House is available from the link above.
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