Drizzly weather today, which moved a ban live exports protest from outside to inside. I saw Steve Abel and Karen O'Leary in the crowd. Marama is on leave, so Tamatha was sitting in her seat. Most of Te Pāti Māori was absent, which Gary reckoned was because of the schools kapa haka competition. One of the secret service blokes was sitting next to us for the first half. The NZSO's 2022/2023 report was tabled today, so I'll see if I can find that. 1. Uffindell to Willis SU 5, NW 4 Personal income tax. Thresholds will rise from 31 July, with the intention of reducing income tax by $40 a fortnight for the average New Zealander. Always fortnights... even though most people budget their lives week-by-week. Patsy question. I thought the numbers that Nicola laid out were pathetically small. 'Taking money off disabled people' - Gary 'Tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders' - Nicola. 2. Chippy to the Prime Omelette CH 7, PO 4
There was a bizzarre theme today, which was National ministers spruiking their new cancer funding, even though it had been left off from the initial Budget. 'You are the cancer' - Gary re: the Omelette. Then Luxon was like Teflon, ducking questions on first home buyers and the ferries. 'He isn't aware and doesn't care' - Gary. 3. Debbie to the Prime Omelette D 8, PO 4 This really wasn't the Omelette's day. It seemed like Winston and Nicola were giving him easy supplementaries, and he was still struggling. Debbie brought up the war games with Israel, which was something that was mentioned at the Hawaiian forum she attended during the break. Then she brought up Indonesia and West Papua... another non-answer. Rawiri had a supplementary about the minimum wage and disabled people, which involved more impersonal comments about severely disabled people from Luxon. 4. Campbell to Reti HC 4, SR 5 'Increasing access to vital medicines is important' - Reti 'Everyone still thinks you're shit' - Gary Public feedback? 'Give us some anecdotes' - Gary. 5. Woods to Willis MW 6, NW 4 Are better times ahead? Well, probably not for beneficiaries! Nicola said that MBIE's unemployment statistics are projecting a drop across 2025 and 2026, but that information wasn't in the Budget. 6. Trask to Seymour LT 5, DS 4 'If his own team didn't ask him questions, then nobody would' - Gary 'More medicines for Kiwi patients' - Seymour. 'Billions on landlords, millions on medicines' - Gary. 'An entity that is on a growth curve' - Seymour on Medsafe. Strange choice of words... 7. Avocado Princess to Prime Omelette AP 8, PO 4
Chloe was quite good today. 'We need to make sure we have gas ... we have an energy security crisis in our country' - The Prime Omelette. A factoid that Chloe dropped into her questions: it takes 16 years from initial exploration to actually mining oil and gas. 'Bumper sticker, post-it note policy from the previous Government' - Omelette 'Where are the 10,000 EV charging stations?' - Gary. 8. Sepuloni to Upston CS 6, LU 3 9,000 beneficiaries are worse off after the 2024 Budget. More on disabled workers, and supplementaries by Priyanca and Helen White. 'She's well out of her depth and has zero empathy' - Gary on Upston. She was quite difficult to hear from where I was sitting. The mic level might have been a bit low. 9. Weenink to Stanford VW 5, ES 5 $89 million for specialist schools. 'This Government believes in parental choice' - Erica. 'Black mould: bad in schools, ok in rentals ... special needs kids need an education so that they can make $2 an hour' - Gary. 10. Utikere to Goldsmith TU 8, PG 5
New ferries ... 'great new ships on the Cook Strait' - Goldsmith. 'The contract has been repudiated' - Goldsmith on the previous Government's iRex plan. Good questions from Tangi, one of which was will there be new ferries by 2026? Goldsmith waffled, but didn't really say much. 11. Tamatha to Seymour TP 6, DS 4 'On behalf of...' - Seymour taking the hit on the boot camps for Karen Chour. 'A world where an action has no consequence' - Seymour on the previous Government. 'Why are you covering for your minister? ... boot camps for life ... you're a childless child hater' - Gary's interjections. As always, Gary thinks that Winston should be disciplined, and he stirred up some shit in some of the earlier questions. 'A paint-by-numbers, cartoonish approach' - Seymour characterising Tamatha's line of questioning. 12. Rutherford to Mitchell TR 5, MM 4 More cops... an additional 21 cops in Central Auckland from July. Mitchell was banging on about 'the effectiveness of highly visible beat constables' Boring! Ginny Andersen asked why this plan is going to take two years to deliver an extra 10 cops in Christchurch, which wasn't really answered. 'Always reacting to the symptoms rather than dealing with the cause' - Gary. - As for the boot camps: I think they're stupid, and if it was white kids that they were planning to use that shit on, then they'd probably call it barbaric.👍🏻 Like that episode of The Simpsons...
To be snarky, I'm fairly sure that Luxon is aware of me. I get the sense that my theatrics, alongside publishing Gary's snide remarks, have definitely pissed off the top National brass. However, I think my protest is well within the law. There's no rules about what to wear, and being rude about my enemies is hardly illegal. For me, it's fantastic! I wasn't sure what would happen when I gave scores out of 10, but it seems to have really annoyed some politicians.