Revealed: New Zealand’s most talkative MPs

Sunday, 7 June 2026

Lawrence Xu-Nan is not a native English speaker. But he speaks it a lot.

The first-term Green MP has spoken more in Parliament than any other MP this term. Not by a little either - Xu-Nan has said 420,000 words, over four times the 102,000 words the average MP has managed.

That’s about the length of Moby Dick twice over, about 120,000 words more than his closest opponent, and about 26 times as many words as the least talkative MP, Melissa Lee. If he spoke at the normal conversational pace of 130 words per minute it would be about 54 hours. (He does not speak at a normal pace.)

Xu-Nan’s chatterbox nature is revealed in a data analysis by the Sunday Star-Times of every word spoken in this term of Parliament thus far.

The analysis excludes words spoken “from the chair” by the Speaker or others acting in his role, focusing instead on MPs themselves. MPs who served severely shortened terms before leaving or came in seriously late are generally excluded from averages to not skew the data.

The results show much about the nature of Parliament and the 123 Kiwis who inhabit it day in and day out.

The Opposition dominate

Those who only tune into Parliament for Question Time are used to seeing Government ministers go off on long-winded answers - often to questions from their own side.

But Question Time is just a small segment of Parliament by total words spoken - about 12.5%. Committee stage, where bills are picked apart clause by clause, is the single largest stage, and here the Opposition speaks more than twice as much as the Government.

This makes the Opposition’s dominance across Parliament unsurprising.

Of the top 10 most talkative MPs, just two were from the Government - Chris Bishop in number four (283,00 words) and Nicola Willis at number eight (241,000 words). Their “speeches” - which can include anything from a full-bore general debate speech to an answer to a question to a shouted interjection - are far more numerous than the Opposition MPs they compete with, who tend to make fewer but longer speeches.

After Xu-Nan the second most talkative MP were Labour’s Arena Williams and Duncan Webb.

The dominance by the Opposition was also visible when zooming out. By party the Greens were by far the largest contributor, with 124,000 words on average per full-term (or near) MP. Labour came in second with 112,000 words per MP, followed by NZ First with 81,000, Te Pāti Māori (TPM) with 71,000, ACT with 66,000, and finally National with 65,000. (For the purposes of this analysis, newly-independent MPs Tākuta Ferris and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi are treated as TPM MPs).

As the largest party in Government National had many very quiet politicians, including the least talkative full-term MP, Lee, who has said just 16,000 words, a touch below her National Party colleague Miles Anderson. Lee has been asked for comment.

Luxon talks more than Hipkins - but comes second at Question Time

The Opposition domination was not total, with ACT leader David Seymour the most talkative party leader.

Seymour was the 13th most talkative MP with 193,000 words, followed by National leader and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at 16th (177,000 words), Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick at 31st (132,000), Labour leader Chris Hipkins at 33rd (124,000), NZ First leader Winston Peters at 34th (121,000), and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer at 39th (105,000). Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi was further back at 71st with 64,000 words. Green co-leader Marama Davidson was ill and not working for a significant portion of the term.

Luxon unsurprisingly spoke a lot at Question Time, with about 80% or four in five of all of his words spoken in Parliament this term happening there.

Willis was also heavily Question Time-focused as Finance Minister, with 62% of her words spoken there — and she topped the Question Time rankings overall, edging out Luxon who was second. Unlike Luxon, though, she was still a significant presence in legislation outside Question Time, ranking among National's most active MPs in committee stage and the readings.

Peters, as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, was similarly answer-heavy: 55% of his words came from Question Time, where he ranked fourth overall.

Seymour, by contrast, was notably more engaged in the legislative side of Parliament than his coalition partners. He ranked seventh in Question Time with 61,000 words — but only 32% of his total, with the remainder spread across committee stage, readings and debate.

Hipkins ranked ninth in Question Time with 58,000 words.

The most-debated bills

The more controversial and technical the bill, the more likely it got a lot of debate.

By far and away the most debated bill in the House this term was the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. 53 MPs contributed to 120,000 words to the debate on this one.

Second was the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill, with 49 MPs contributing 104,000 words across seven sitting days to the debate over the Government’s replacement of Labour’s Three Waters programme.

Third was the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill - the legislation to lift the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration. It generated 98,000 words from 50 MPs. Most was from the Opposition: National MPs contributed just 4800 words to the debate, while Labour MPs contributed 57,000. Labour's Megan Woods contributed 27,700 words — more than five times the entire National caucus combined, and more than any single MP on any other bill this term.

So why do you talk so much?

Xu-Nan told the Star-Times he talked a lot in Parliament because making sure that the laws that passed had been properly scrutinised was incredibly important, and he had the privilege of leading the committee stages for his party very often.

He suggested that Government MPs should be scrutinising bills just as closely as Opposition MPs.

“A fundamental tenet of the political system here in Aotearoa New Zealand is that the the role of the legislature, as elected members of Parliament, is to scrutinise and analyse the bills being proposed by the executive by the ministers. That’s not simply a responsibility for opposition MPs. That should be a responsibility for every single MP.”

Xu-Nan said he loved deadlines and found the pressure to find out about bills in time for making speeches on them a great way to learn quickly.

Williams said she spoke a lot as she was often a deputy lead for other Labour spokespeople during debates and she genuinely believed in the importance of scrutinising bills properly - particularly given the Government’s often use of all-stages urgency to fully skip select committees, or abridging select committee processes at other times.

“This government has used more all stages urgency from the first reading until the final reading, and so the only opportunity for questions has been that committee stage,” Williams says.

“An example of that is recently on a building and construction bill, I got a huge number of emails from homeowners who had concerns that would have usually been surfaced in the select committee process - where they would have been able to turn up in front of a group of cross-party MPs and be asked questions - but often now people have to get straight in touch with a [Opposition] spokesperson to be able to put their questions on the technical issue.”

She noted that it wasn’t just Opposition MPs giving great committee stage contributions however, calling out NZ First MP Andy Foster as a particularly strong scrutineer of new laws.

Bishop, who has a past as a university debater, said people had different opinions on those who talked too much.

“Loquaciousness is either a sin or a virtue, depending on who you talk to. In this case it is part of the job description.”

How to speak more - tips from the pros

Both Xu-Nan and Williams are fairly fast talkers, but they said there were many other ways to get more words in Parliament.

Xu-Nan said he rarely wrote down entire speeches but instead just bullet points and closing lines to finish. He also drank warm water in the House - although he noted it would be lovely if tea was allowed.

Williams said getting a mentor was crucial. She had been lucky enough to learn the House from Grant Robertson but still went back to Hansard debates from past Labour greats such as Michael Cullen.