Question Time 14.02.2024

Well, this was a slightly better day than yesterday. I saw Tamatha and James Shaw while I was warming up for my guitar video. Gary filmed me after Question Time, and I'll be releasing that next week. In my notebook, I saw a lyric from The Sands of Time that wasn't in my demo, but it got me thinking: Relationships form and mend, Then relationships end. That line about 'the climate was darker than I understood' is quite OTT, though that's really the vocal tone and the chords underneath rather than inherent to the words. - 2pm - mic distortion during the opening prayer. Gerry Brownlee ruled on Ricardo's point of order about whether questions are allowed to begin with political attacks. He said that they shouldn't. This was a really chaotic day: Gary had some choice words about the Speaker. - 1. Shaw to Bishop Infrastructure question - fast track consenting... are there any coal mines in the list of fast-tracked projects? - Shaw. A lot of waffle from Bishop. Chloe accused Winston Peters of calling James Shaw a liar during a supplementary. JS 6/10, CB 4/10 - 2. Tim Costley to Nicola Willis The Government has been in deficit since 2019. The country's going broke. I think that the neoliberal revolution is happening again. I wonder what they'll sell off this time? TC 5/10, NW 5/10 - 3. Carmel Sepuloni to Louise Upston

Child poverty question. 'Not one policy that will have a significant impact on child poverty' - Upston. I'm not sure if she misspoke or not, but I'm pretty sure that she said this. 'Most useless speaker ever' - Gary. This question was derailed by points of order. Nicked myself shaving my arms yesterday. Perils of being a trannie! CS 7/10, LU 4/10 - 4. Parmjeet Parmar to David Seymour. A jerk-off patsy question about the Treaty Principles Bill. 'foreign infiltrator' - Gary, referring to Seymour's background in think tanks. Will it rewrite the Treaty? No. 'We are democratising the process of defining its principles' - Seymour Willie Jackson: which Iwi are supporting the bill? He couldn't name any. Chris Hipkins showed some experience and leadership with points of order today. 'More points of order than questions' - Gary Rawiri had some supplementaries, testing Seymour on Treaty general knowledge. PP 5/10, DS 5/10 - he was quite articulate today. RW 8/10. - 5. Marama Davidson to Winston Peters Has anyone been kicked out of the House yet? A Māoritanga question; Marama asked her questions in Te Reo. 'He's not adressing the questions because he can't understand them' - Gary. MD 7/10, WP 3/10. - 6. Vanessa Weenink to Louise Upston More beneficiary bashing. I feel like Upston has got a cloak of invulnerability now that she's been on the air about being a single mum on the DPB. However, I wonder how long ago that was. My Mum raised her first set of kids as a single mum on the benefit, but back then you could capitalise the benefit to pay the deposit on a house. She bought her first home for $20,000 in the early 1980's. Times are different now. I wonder if any National MPs have been on the dole in the last 15 years or so. VW 5/10, LU 4/10. - 7. Robertson to Willis I started zoning out around this question. It was a shambolic day. GR 6/10, NW 4/10 - 8. some NZ first MP to Winston Peters I came to Parliament with my musician hat on today, so I was getting restless as this session dragged on. 'Does he sound drunk to you?' - Gary. NZF 3/10, WP 2/10 - he was really not with it at all. - 9. Brownlee got lost and said that this was Question 10! 🤣 Ayesha Verall to Shane Reti. AV 6/10, SR 6/10. - 10. Debbie to Louise Upston Debbie wanted evidence about the indexation to wages versus other tools for benefits, and Upston gave some long but unrelated answers. It's becoming a running theme that National MPs are very unlikely to answer questions in a straightforward manner: I think that's another area where Brownlee's approach seems somewhat partisan. TPM 7/10, LU 5/10. - 11. Utikere to Simeon Brown. I've been really impressed by Tangi Utikere now that he's asking questions. Simeon misquoted himself, deliberately eliding the $500,000 speed bumps that were apparently an invention of the media. 'I may have misspoken' - Simeon after he was called out. He also referred to a project that had been cancelled (the Eastern Busway). TU 9/10, SB 4/10. - 12. Brewer to Goldsmith More crap about cultural reports and the cottage industry that National claims has been built around them. Paul Goldsmith took a moment to take a potshot at Harry Tam. It's a far cry from when Marama and Paul Hunt visited the Mongrel Mob. 'He is fucking incompetent' - Gary, referring to Gerry Brownlee. CB 4/10, PG 5/10, Duncan Webb 7/10.