Chris Bishop and staff celebrate the 100-day mark with crayfish

Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Minister Chris Bishop intends to celebrate his office’s hard work with a crayfish and wine. But don’t worry, the taxpayer isn’t footing the bill.

Crayfish is on the menu for Chris Bishop as his office celebrates surviving the first 100 days in Government.

The routine celebrations of an office ‒ even in the Beehive ‒ typically don’t make the news.

But after a whiff of the coming seafood dinner was smelt by a press gallery reporter on Wednesday, questions abounded about whether it was appropriate for Bishop to wine and dine his colleagues with crayfish as a cost-of-living crisis rolled on.

Bishop later confirmed that yes, a celebration was planned. But no, the seafood was donated and the function would be paid for by him, personally.

The Hutt South MP appears to have sufficient political savvy to avoid a ministerial credit card scandal.

“In the last 100 days we’ve developed a fast track consenting regime that ordinarily would have taken a year or more. A group of senior officials have worked day and night to make it happen, and I’m hosting a small function to say thanks,” Bishop said.

“I am serving a crayfish and some paua donated by Paul Eagle when he was in Wellington recently, plus some wine and beer.

“There will also be sausage rolls. Chris Hipkins is not invited. I am paying for the function personally.”

Eagle, it should be noted, is not short a crayfish or two. The former Labour MP is now the chief executive of the Chatham Islands council, where the crayfish had flown in from.

Shane Jones, left, and a marlin weighing over 300kg. A spokesperson for Jones said the minister wasn’t providing kaimoana for Chris Bishop’s party.

Bishop confirming that Labour leader Hipkins was not invited was presumably intended as a joke, and not a childish rejection, because Hipkins’ affection for sausage rolls is widely-known.

Another crayfish and wine loving minister, Fisheries Minister Shane Jones, told reporters that he was going to hold “many parties this year in Parliament” and it was only right Bishop held such an event.

“Hell yeah, we’ve done two years of work in six weeks, and it came from the NZ First coalition and anything that achieves an item in our coalition agreement must be celebrated.”

The National-coalition Government will cross the 100-day mark on Friday.