I happened across this entertaining video of a lighter side in our Parliamentary history today, and I thought it was worth it to share once again. Also a nice cameo by Parekura Horomia at the end. From December 2010.
Agriculture spokesman dressed up as some form of Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy has continued in the path of David Carter and is lying about water.
Today Nathan Guy berates Labour for changing their policy on water storage. Maybe it has never managed to penetrate through Nathan’s monobrow or to the manor born outlook on life but Labour have never agreed to piss away money on bludging farmers. They have never had a policy on supporting a specific project, let alone National’s sop to bludging farmers, the $500m irrigation fund. This lack of insight means Nathan comes up with a particularly moronic statement.
Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy says he is shocked at the Labour Party’s u-turn on supporting the Ruataniwha water storage scheme in Hawke’s Bay, despite previously indicating their support. Read more »
This weekend’s National party Mainland conference in Hamner Springs will probably skirt around the most important issue…where is the new blood coming through to replace the inevitable retirements?
The latest Truth is on sale today.
News:
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Sport:
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Scott Yorke has some great suggestions for Labour to actually improve question without resorting to dummy spits:
So what should Labour and the Greens do? Here are some options.
Do a no-show
Just don’t turn up to the next Question Time.For: Everyone in Labour and the Greens would feel a buzz for a few minutes. It would get the attention of the media.
Against: John Key would crow about how scared Labour and the Greens are. The media would award Key the win, and raise fresh questions about the leadership capabilities of David Shearer. If he can’t handle a few barbs during question time, how would he cope during an election debate? Read more »
Question 12 today was pretty good, John Key rarked up the opposition and slammed Robertson’s question. Trevor Mallard and Chris Hipkins had a cry – then got rightly booted out.
Hipkins subsequent tweets put him in breach of privilege territory.
As much as I loathe David Carter – Mallard and Hipkins were deliberate dicks today.
Commenters have gone on and on about David Carter being useless. He is a list MP, he did nothing as minister and is being mocked for being useless as a speaker.
David Carter is a useless scum list MP. He lost his seat to Ruth Dyson and never regained it. His ministerial career was un-memorable apart from consistently lying about the One Plan Decision, and he is has failed to hold ministers to account in a way that makes question time meaningless.
At first reading I thought I was looking at a transcript of parliament yesterday, and then I realised that Scott Yorke at Imperator Fish had actually written a parody.
David Shearer: Thank you Mr Speaker, my question now to the Minister of State Owned Enterprises: Has the Government met the five criteria the Prime Minister laid out for proceeding with asset sales?
Tony Ryall: Blue cheese. Read more »
At first reading I thought I was looking at a transcript of parliament yesterday, and then I realised that Scott Yorke at Imperator Fish had actually written a parody.
David Shearer: Thank you Mr Speaker, my question now to the Minister of State Owned Enterprises: Has the Government met the five criteria the Prime Minister laid out for proceeding with asset sales?
Tony Ryall: Blue cheese.
Shearer: Point of order, Mr Speaker. What kind of answer was that?
Mr Speaker: The minister answered the question. He may not have given the answer you wanted, but he nevertheless gave an answer. Do you have any supplementary questions?
Shearer: When the Prime Minister said that the third criterion would be that companies would need to present good investment opportunities for investors, with which international investors had the Prime Minister had discussions that have yet to be made public?
Ryall: The capital of Hungary is Budapest. The capital of Romania is Bucharest.
Shearer: Point of order! Mr Speaker, shouldn’t the minister at least make some effort to answer the question? My question was not directed to European capitals.
Mr Speaker: The member well knows that matters of geography are directly relevant to the question. The member has asked questions about international investors, and some of those investors may well be from Hungary or Romania.
Shearer: But Mr Speaker—
Mr Speaker: I have ruled on the matter. Does the member have any supplementary questions?
The sad thing though about David Carter’s inept speakership is that he is still better than Margaret Wilson ever was. The only funny party about the travesty the speakership now resembles is the wailing from the left that the Speaker is no longer fair and impartial…two words: Margaret Wilson. Though it would be tempting to tell the left to suck it up, I don’t think a useless speaker does anyone any favours in the long run.
I don’t think that Carter is helping things. Scott kind of nails it with this…probably more true than parody:
I have written an opinion piece at Truth about the debacle that is currently unfolding in parliament under the Speakership of David Carter. It goes some way to answers the calls by some commenters here yesterday for Carter to be even more biased than he is currently exhibiting and offers a contrarian view of what is unfolding.
Lockwood Smith, though pompous, was at least consistent and after a legacy of poor Speakers from Jonathan Hunt to Margaret Wilson was a breath of fresh air.
David Carter is woefully ill-equipped for the role of Speaker and the Labour party knows it.
In one series of questions from Chris Hipkins you can see the demoralising effect of an inept Speaker attempting to protect an inept minister whose answers are filled with hubris. Read more »
The election of Speaker was held today and David Carter was elected Speaker.
With a shabby little stitch up by Bill English and his mates in order to get Nick Smith back into cabinet, John Key pretended that caucus had decided to nominate David Carter. Many caucus members I have spoken too were wondering if they had missed the caucus meeting where they decided on Carter, even those with perfect attendance records. The only thing missing from the dirty smoke-filled back rooms in this deal was the smoke.
Labour had a chance though to upset the march towards the speaker’s chair of Carter, if only the immense personal ego of Trevor Mallard hadn’t got in the way. Read more »
