Echo Chamber: Is this a policy platform or a debating chamber?

Never mind our bills, here’s what we think of the opposition.

With nine sitting weeks left before parliament dissolves ahead of the general election, you would think time in the House would be considered precious and urgent. The government and opposition, however, just can’t agree on the best use of this time. While the opposition believes the debating chamber exists to scrutinise ministers, the government increasingly seems to think it’s actually the perfect stage to trash-talk the competition.

Tuesday’s question time was a great example of this. Following the usual Chris vs Chris episode (which saw Luxon inform the House that he was “close to God” but not close enough to predict wars in the Middle East), finance and expenditure committee chair Ryan Hamilton handed off patsy questions to the finance minister.

Nicola Willis waxed lyrical about the benefits of the recent rise in default KiwiSaver contribution rates, but her words prompted a bit of cheek from New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Perhaps stung by National’s Simeon Brown referring to National as the country’s parents and Act and NZ First as children over the weekend, Peters asked whether the party’s new “baby boost” KiwiSaver policy – startlingly similar to a previously announced NZ First policy – was a sign that “Mum and Dad are finally listening now?” Willis stood her ground: “It’s a great idea, and I hope that a future government gets to deliver it.”

That sort of back-patting carry-on wasn’t about to happen under Chris Hipkins’s watch – not when he, too, finally has a few policies of his own to promote. He rose a point of order. “Ministers answer questions as ministers of the Crown” – they’re not there to be the spokespeople of their party policies.

Well, replied Brownlee, he would have to come back on that one “simply because I don’t recall, actually, the words that were just said”. Then Act leader David Seymour piped up. “If we were to have such a change in rules, wouldn’t it disadvantage parties that don’t have any policies of their own?”

Squabbles over policy talk came around again, when Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick took her turn to ask Luxon if he agreed with his finance minister that extreme wealth inequality was a bad thing. Luxon wouldn’t answer that, but what he did agree on is that recently proposed tax changes from the Greens amounted to “economic lunacy”. This quickly turned into a pile-on with the leaders of the coalition taking aim Swarbrick and her party’s unfortunate recent number stuff-ups. Brownlee took his time to cut off the bickering.

“Let me just make it very clear to the House that question time is to ask the government questions about government policy,” Brownlee declared. “It would be unfortunate if, each day, I’m having to rule on matters that are more about parties’ policies than government actions.”

Wednesday’s question time opened with the same warning from Brownlee: “Show some restraint and stick to the standing orders.” 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’s Morning Report co-host Ingrid Hipkiss. Leary took it in her stride until Brownlee informed her that if she “knew the opinion I hold Radio New Zealand in, you’d find it most strange”.

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’s questions to the prime minister went to Peters, who has done this gig a few times before. But her concerns over the government’s Conservation Amendment Bill, which Forest & Bird argues would make land in 60% of our conservation areas available for sale, were brushed aside by the rangatira.

Davidson’s questioning was a “total misrepresentation of what the 60% means”, Peters claimed. “The Greens won’t be happy until 100% of the land is state owned, and we all know what that is called. We don’t want to take advice from the dancing tussocks over there.”

It was a near-perfect deployment of the old ‘don’t look at my values, look at theirs’ strategy. And Peters still had a zinger up his sleeve: “The Greens like to touch grass, but only when it’s rolled.” Brownlee wasn’t impressed and wanted Peters to withdraw the comment. “I can’t,” replied Peters. “Half of it has been smoked.” His guffawing ripped through the House like a bulldozer tearing down 60% of the country’s bush.

By Thursday’s 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’s promising. Questioning from Te Pāti Māori 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 “recommend to fellow ministers the removal of the particular clauses in relation to the disposal or exchange of conservation land”.

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.