It was a welcome point of order, at least for those familiar with the Parliamentary questioning procedure.
Peters said the question had been asked before.
Indeed, it had.
Question No. 2
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker. By some calculations, this identical question has been asked over 30 times by the same member, and surely around about now you should rule it out for being tedious, boring, and repetitive.
Alas, Speaker Brownlee was disinclined to rule it out.
SPEAKER: Well, the Speaker has—[Interruption] Excuse me. Just a minute. The Speaker’s got a number of responsibilities, but one of them is not for ensuring that members can remember what questions they’ve previously asked. The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins—question No. 2.
And so – yet again – those of us who were listening to Parliament at the time had to endure the tedium of Hipkins asking a question while knowing full well how the PM would reply.
Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:12) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:12): Yes.
It will be a red-letter day, here at PoO, when the PM says no, he does not stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions.
Hipkins, it so happens, was playing a silly game that MPs of all stripes have played for much too long.
Your PoO team can’t recall when it first became a part of Opposition tactics.
We do know the objective is to follow up the primary pointless question with an attempt at “gotcha”.
On this occasion, the hoped-for “gotcha” was –
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Who in his office received the 2024 briefing note prepared on behalf of the defendants in the Smith v Fonterra case, which proposed legislation to halt that litigation?
Nice one.
But the PM was in no mood to provide the information requested – and implied he hadn’t bothered finding out.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, it’s not in the public interest to identify specific members of staff, but I understand it was someone who left a while ago.
Question Three gave the Maori Party a chance to play the game.
DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (14:18) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:19): Absolutely.
The follow-up question this time was to learn how Luxon responded to RNZ findings that more than $1.2 million in political donations have been linked to fast-track projects since 2022.
Question Four was a variation of the “do you stand by” ploy aimed to trip the PM with the follow-up. This time a Minister was being quizzed
Question No. 4
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (14:23) to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Pacific Peoples) (14:23): Yes, including my statement at the Media Awards on Friday where I referred to the member as “my very good friend Carmel Sepuloni”, and I hope she won’t contradict me on that point.
Sepuloni’s real concern was to learn if the Minister had a target for reducing Pasifika unemployment, given an additional 14,000 Pasifika people are now unemployed compared to the March 2023 quarter?
Next we heard from Labor finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds.
Question No. 5
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) (14:27) to the Minister of Finance: Malo le soifua, manuia, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by all her statements and actions?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:27): In context, yes.
Willis then was asked how she could stand by her statement that her Public Service cuts won’t affect front-line services that people rely on, when she can’t say where those cuts will come from.
Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick’s variance was to flaunt her prowess in te reo.
But it was the same question.
Question No. 6
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (14:31) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?
[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:31): Yes.
Swarbrick’s follow-up revealed that her aim was to learn if Luxon had requested any advice or assurances that his Government’s $200 million subsidy for new oil and gas exploration is or is not in breach of our free-trade agreements.
Luxon plays silly games too and replied:
In answer to the first leg of the question, I reject the characterisation of that part.
This article skipped Question One. It was a patsy from a National back-bencher which got straight to the point of enabling a ministerial colleague to do a bit of bragging.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (14:04) to the Minister for Energy: What recent announcements has he made about securing New Zealand’s future resilience by supporting businesses to transition away from dwindling natural gas supplies?
Energy Minister Simeon Brown needed no further prompting to bang on about a Gas Transition Loan Guarantee Scheme intended to reduce demand on New Zealand’s dwindling gas supplies.
Question Seven was a patsy, too.
MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (14:33) to the Minister of Conservation: What funding from the international visitor levy has the Government committed to protecting New Zealand’s iconic landscapes and native environment from the spread of wilding pines, wilding conifers, and other invasive wilding tree species.
That was the cue for Tama Potaka to talk about a $79 million boost for wilding control.
PoO was braced for a return to the question that has been asked umpteen times.
It happened on Question Twelve.
Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (14:50) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?
[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:50): Yes.
The follow-up this time was to learn about Government housing policies.
But – as PoO hopes to demonstrate in this article – a great deal of Question Time in Parliament is squandered by Opposition politicians who ask much the same question and inevitably get much the same answer.
Running the New Zealand Parliament costs taxpayers just over $148 million a year, which translates to roughly $405,000 a day.
The “do you stand by your statements” question wastes money as well as time.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker. By some calculations, this identical question has been asked over 30 times by the same member, and surely around about now you should rule it out for being tedious, boring, and repetitive.
Alas, Speaker Brownlee was disinclined to rule it out.
SPEAKER: Well, the Speaker has—[Interruption] Excuse me. Just a minute. The Speaker’s got a number of responsibilities, but one of them is not for ensuring that members can remember what questions they’ve previously asked. The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins—question No. 2.
And so – yet again – those of us who were listening to Parliament at the time had to endure the tedium of Hipkins asking a question while knowing full well how the PM would reply.
Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:12) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:12): Yes.
It will be a red-letter day, here at PoO, when the PM says no, he does not stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions.
Hipkins, it so happens, was playing a silly game that MPs of all stripes have played for much too long.
Your PoO team can’t recall when it first became a part of Opposition tactics.
We do know the objective is to follow up the primary pointless question with an attempt at “gotcha”.
On this occasion, the hoped-for “gotcha” was –
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Who in his office received the 2024 briefing note prepared on behalf of the defendants in the Smith v Fonterra case, which proposed legislation to halt that litigation?
Nice one.
But the PM was in no mood to provide the information requested – and implied he hadn’t bothered finding out.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, it’s not in the public interest to identify specific members of staff, but I understand it was someone who left a while ago.
Question Three gave the Maori Party a chance to play the game.
DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (14:18) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:19): Absolutely.
The follow-up question this time was to learn how Luxon responded to RNZ findings that more than $1.2 million in political donations have been linked to fast-track projects since 2022.
Question Four was a variation of the “do you stand by” ploy aimed to trip the PM with the follow-up. This time a Minister was being quizzed
Question No. 4
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (14:23) to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Pacific Peoples) (14:23): Yes, including my statement at the Media Awards on Friday where I referred to the member as “my very good friend Carmel Sepuloni”, and I hope she won’t contradict me on that point.
Sepuloni’s real concern was to learn if the Minister had a target for reducing Pasifika unemployment, given an additional 14,000 Pasifika people are now unemployed compared to the March 2023 quarter?
Next we heard from Labor finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds.
Question No. 5
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) (14:27) to the Minister of Finance: Malo le soifua, manuia, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by all her statements and actions?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:27): In context, yes.
Willis then was asked how she could stand by her statement that her Public Service cuts won’t affect front-line services that people rely on, when she can’t say where those cuts will come from.
Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick’s variance was to flaunt her prowess in te reo.
But it was the same question.
Question No. 6
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (14:31) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?
[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:31): Yes.
Swarbrick’s follow-up revealed that her aim was to learn if Luxon had requested any advice or assurances that his Government’s $200 million subsidy for new oil and gas exploration is or is not in breach of our free-trade agreements.
Luxon plays silly games too and replied:
In answer to the first leg of the question, I reject the characterisation of that part.
This article skipped Question One. It was a patsy from a National back-bencher which got straight to the point of enabling a ministerial colleague to do a bit of bragging.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (14:04) to the Minister for Energy: What recent announcements has he made about securing New Zealand’s future resilience by supporting businesses to transition away from dwindling natural gas supplies?
Energy Minister Simeon Brown needed no further prompting to bang on about a Gas Transition Loan Guarantee Scheme intended to reduce demand on New Zealand’s dwindling gas supplies.
Question Seven was a patsy, too.
MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) (14:33) to the Minister of Conservation: What funding from the international visitor levy has the Government committed to protecting New Zealand’s iconic landscapes and native environment from the spread of wilding pines, wilding conifers, and other invasive wilding tree species.
That was the cue for Tama Potaka to talk about a $79 million boost for wilding control.
PoO was braced for a return to the question that has been asked umpteen times.
It happened on Question Twelve.
Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) (14:50) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?
[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:50): Yes.
The follow-up this time was to learn about Government housing policies.
But – as PoO hopes to demonstrate in this article – a great deal of Question Time in Parliament is squandered by Opposition politicians who ask much the same question and inevitably get much the same answer.
Running the New Zealand Parliament costs taxpayers just over $148 million a year, which translates to roughly $405,000 a day.
The “do you stand by your statements” question wastes money as well as time.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
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