Question Time 06.03.2024

I'll preface this by saying I wasn't really feeling 100% ... I was quite hungover today. - 1. James Shaw to Winston Peters Gaza question. 'The International Court of Justice .. has not made a ruling yet' - Winston. 'Use of starvation as a weapon of war' - James. Winnie was reading off his briefs. 'When the ICJ brings out a ruling, I suggest that people read it closely' - Winston. JS 7/10, WP 4/10. - 2. Megan Woods to Simon Watts Land transport .. emissions debate. 'Emission budgets, not reductions' - Gary. 'While I have received advice, I have not received specific advice' - Watts. Wtf! MW 7/10, SW 4/10. - 3. Suze Redmayne to Nicola Willis $8.8 billion this year on servicing debt, mostly interest payments. $9.3 billion projected for 2025. $1666 per person! Has Brownlee thrown anyone out of the house yet? 'Sounds like we need a wealth tax' - Gary. After all that noise for Palestine, this is a total slog. - 4. Tangi Utikere to Simeon Brown Transport question; more rattling off stats from Simeon's sheets of paper. 'We have a proud record on public transport' - Simeon ... yeah, right. Scrapping $20 million for coastal shipping. 'Fucking pathetic' - Gary. TU 7/10, SB 5/10. - 5. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer to Winston Peters Free school lunches question. 'Food being sent home isn't wasted' - Gary 'The real world of Māori and Polynesians' - Winston, talking as if he knows. 🤣 Then Rawiri asked some supplementaries about those military schools .. leading to this quote from Winston: 'this is one utility that will connect them [youth offenders] to the rest of the country and make them real' - nice turn of phrase. Debbie 6/10, Winston 4/10. - 6. Tanya Unkovich to Shane Jones The Minister of Resources said that lobbyists were the first people that he'd spoken to regarding future oil and gas exploration! He's a good orator, that Matua Shane. Steve Abel had a good supplementary. TU 5/10, SJ 6/10 - 7. Ayesha Verrall to Nicola Willis Finally, a non-finance question for Nicola! She holds the Public Services portfolio too. The thrust: are they going to cut frontline Fire and Emergency services? Answer: unclear .. hiding away. 'Answer the question' - Gary. AV 6/10, NW 6/10. - 8. Nancy Lu to Chris Bishop 'Tax refunds for landlords' - Gary. 'One of our Government's priorities is to end the large scale use of emergency housing ... kids growing up in motels' - Bishop. Summary: more victim-bashing, more means testing .. 'deserving poor' bullshit from the Tories. NL 6/10, CB 5/10. - 9. Julie Anne Genter to Simeon Brown Green vs. Blue transport clash. Multi-modal vs. roads of significance. Submissions on National's proposals are open until April 2. JAG 6/10, SB 6/10. - 10. Tom Rutherford to Simeon Brown. Patsy questions. 'He never mentions transporting freight on trains' - Gary.

National 5/10, SB 4/10. - 11. Helen White to Andrew Bayly Speeding up payment times to small businesses from bigger fish ... Bayly and National have put together a voluntary code that businesses can sign up to, rather than a new law preventing people from delaying payment to small businesses or sole traders. Helen White wants to make those companies liable for interest payments if they take more than 30 days to pay their invoices. HW 7/10, AB 5/10. - 12. Cameron Brewer to Paul Goldsmith I love the prosody of Paul Goldsmith's voice; he has a very unusal tone: slightly amused. The content, however ... ditching cultural reports, abolishing prisoner reduction targets, more firearms control and more anti-gang rhetoric. Dark times ahead. CB 4/10, PG 5/10. - On the steps afterwards. Gary bumped into Tanya Unkovich, and asked her this: 'Do you feel any shame when you're punching down?' Tanya's answer: 'no.' 😲