Desperate first-day deal with Nats
The Government had to cave to the Opposition’s demands on its first day in the House after it failed to have the numbers to comfortably elect its new Speaker, Trevor Mallard.
National and Labour have been clashing for days over the Government’s plans to cut opposition MPs out of select committees.
Leader of the House Chris Hipkins had proposed the number of committee seats be reduced to 96, meaning 11 National MPs would miss out.
National jumped on Labour’s failure to count how many MPs it had in the House when electing its new Speaker yesterday and used it to their own advantage to get 108 MPs on select committees.
National’s shadow leader of the House Simon Bridges said he could see the ‘‘situation evolving and who was away’’ and brought that to Hipkins’ attention.
‘‘It was a disorganised Government that we saw today that didn’t know its numbers, which meant we were able to get what we thought was important and what is important for New Zealanders.
‘‘I hope the new government has learnt a lesson and will pick up its act,’’ he said.
It’s understood the Government had the numbers to elect Mallard but fell for National’s bluff as the pressure ramped up in the House and things ground to a halt while a deal was done.
The shambles began when Labour MP Ruth Dyson nominated Mallard for the Speaker role. Bridges raised a point of order, asking for clarification about whether absent MPs, who hadn’t been sworn in yesterday morning, had a vote on the Speaker role.
As the House took a break to work out the order, Bridges taunted the Government with shouts of ‘‘where’s Winston when you need him?’’
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Trade Minister David Parker have already left for an Apec meeting in Vietnam and several other Government MPs including, Labour’s Poto Williams and Priyanca Radhakrishnan and the Greens’ Gareth Hughes, were also absent.
That meant National could ‘‘assume the majority’’, leader Bill English said. During the commotion in the House it became apparent National’s nomination for deputy speaker, Anne Tolley, could end up as Speaker.
‘‘It was always possible but we came to an agreement,’’ English said.
Hipkins, who was under pressure and had embarrassingly not done a count of MPs, had to con- cede to the Opposition and give them their 108 MPs on select committees along with five chairs and five deputy chairs.
A number of National MPs took to social media about the Government almost losing their own as Speaker of the House.
After Hipkins and Bridges did the deal and shook on it in the House, normality resumed and Mallard was appointed unopposed.