Question Time 25.07.2024

Slightly hungover today. I saw a protest on Parliament Grounds about students being killed in Bangladesh, and Nanaia Mahuta was visiting Parliament: I saw her walking around the ground floor. Darleen Tana was sitting with Te Pāti Māori, which might suggest that she's considering defecting. 1. Edmonds to Willis BE 5, NW 6 517,024 people have used the budget calculator to date. How many are worse off? 5,000 will receive no reduction, but she didn't mention anyone being worse off. Fewer than 3,000 will receive the $250 per fortnight touted during the election. Though I disagree with her, Nicola was quite good at spinning these questions to suit her agenda. 2. Carter to Chour KC1 5, KC2 5 7AA. 70% of children are placed with whānau of some kind or other. 'A child must be safe first' - Chour 'Which iwi's hurt the child?' - Rawiri, who interjected frequently. 'I, once again, acknowledge the failures of the past' - Chour 'Abuse in state care is political' - Rawiri Safety and wellbeing over hapū and iwi - Chour (paraphrase). 3. Hamilton to Willis RH 5, NW 5 Personal tax thresholds haven't been adjusted since 2010. 727,000 homes will benefit by $75-100 per fortnight under the new rules. 4. Prime to Chour WJP 6, KC 5 Boot camps question. Are the people in the programme from state care? Yes, and 9 out of 10 are Māori. Chour was much more confident-sounding today than she was a few weeks ago. 'Do what's right and cancel the boot camp' - Shanan Halbert, interjecting. 5. Butterick to Brown MB 5, SB 6 New railway investments for the Wairarapa and Manawatū lines. Speeds on the Wellington to Masterton line will increase from 90 km/h to 110 km/h. Platform upgrades and track upgrades are part of the plan as well. 'On this side of the House, we deliver. On that side of the House, they just talk' - Simeon. That got a good laugh. 🤣 6. Andersen to Chour GA 6, KC 5 Family and sexual violence. Police have investigated 3000 fewer claims since December 2023. 'People are getting the right response for their needs' - Chour, stating that Police weren't the only agency that intervenes in these situations. 7. Ricardo to Upston RM 9, LU 5 Child poverty. Ricardo was really fired-up! 'Progress in reducing child poverty is miles short of expectations' - Upston, who also said that material hardship increased during the previous Government. National's policies are also projected to increase material hardship. Ricardo brought out a chart that demonstrated this. Upston still sounds disingenuous imo. Like, how much more was the DPB worth when she was on it back in the day? My Mum bought a house for $100,000 or something like that in the 1980's, and was able to capitalise the benefit for her down payment. Repeating myself... Pippa likes to tell that story. FamilyBoost will reduce child poverty? Yeah, right. 8. Garcia to Upston PG 5, LU 5 'We are resetting the welfare system because too many people were on the jobseeker benefit' - Upston, who wasn't mincing her words. Jobseeker numbers will continue to increase until January 2025. 9. Parker to Penk DP 6, CP 4 ICJ ruling: is Israel an occupying force? A lot of waffle from Penk. Parker was keen for a yes-no answer, but Penk wasn't. 10. Weenink to Bayly VW 5, AB 7 Consumer data rights. Well worth watching for all the boffins. They want to establish consumer data rights and data registers that banks and service providers can use to speed up the process of switching providers. This has important privacy implications; Bayly said that it was an opt-in process, and therefore safer than those same providers scraping the data in other ways. 11. Mariameno to Stanford MK 7, ES 7 Abuse in Care: it seems that National are keen to implement most of the suggestions, though they didn't give a numerical figure. Some dispute about whether the supplementaries were in scope. Brownlee decided that they were, despite some opposition from National. 12. Arena to Penk AW 6, CP 5 Housing stock question. Way over my head. 'MBIE should pay more attention to coal-face builders' - Penk.