The Insider
Wrong lunch?
Journalists travelling to Melbourne last week for Jacinda Ardern’s oneon-one with Scott Morrison were right to speculate that the Aussies are watching our Reserve Bank with some alarm. Not only is the RBNZ upsetting trading banks with proposed increases to capital requirements, but its refusal to approve AMP’s sale of its life insurance business last week knocked a billion dollars off the AMP share price. But, when asked after a lunch with investors whether she’d taken any heat, Ardern said the issue had never been raised, prompting 1 News’ Maiki Sherman to quip: “Were you at the wrong lunch?”
Silent attack
Irony surrounds the Greens’ withdrawal of their social media attack ad which exploited National leader Simon Bridges’ Kiwi accent: an estimated 90 per cent of such social media ads are watched without sound, using subtitles.
Sophisticated repartee
The Greens’ mockery of Bridges doesn’t compare to a few hours in the House. NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell continues to find it amusing to call National’s Paul Goldsmith “Mr Goldstein”, and saying he has Tourette syndrome.
Behind closed doors
Green MPs are preparing for their upcoming conference with unusually restrictive access for the media, who are not welcome at anything but set piece events like the co-leaders’ speeches. This may avoid a repeat of voters seeing cringeworthy scenes such as folk-dancing MPs, but it also stops some of the tensions within the party being seen by the public. The kiss of death for many members must have been Mike Hosking applauding James Shaw for saying the Government might have to rethink some of the more stringent laws on gene editing — a no-go area for many Green supporters.
Toning it down
Ruth Dyson’s appointment as Assistant Speaker will interest Parliament-watchers. Once known for her sharp partisan tongue, Dyson seems to have mellowed, judging from her first admonishment of an MP. National’s Andrew Bayly has a tendency to raise his voice when launching into political rhetoric. Dyson tried to point this out, saying: “he may not be aware — he does have a live microphone in front of him . . . it does amplify the voice, so there's no need to raise his own voice. It's quite well amplified just by the technology.”
Just not cricket
MPs returned to Parliament this week after a three-week adjournment, with members of the parliamentary cricket team licking their wounds after being thumped in every match in the UK. The would-be cricketers said much of what happened to them was just not cricket, with their Pakistani counterparts fielding an English county cricket-level opening bowler to lay into them.
Taking it slowly
Parliament’s return also showed how light the Government’s legislative agenda is. The first evening sitting had the Government making progress on a number of non-controversial bills through their committee stage. This brought the unusual sight of ministers almost outnumbering backbenchers to ask questions of other ministers, and those ministers in turn giving long-winded answers to soak up time. This included one senior minister waxing lyrically on the history of perpetuities case law. It wasn’t exactly filibustering (one minister described it as a slow canter) and some might say it is good to see members of the executive take such a keen interest in parliamentary debate. Opposition MPs just think it shows inept organisation.
Hard yards, soft beds
Former Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf (pictured) put in the hard yards in his last few months in the job, before departing to run Ireland’s central bank. In all, he declared $47,854.52 in travel expenses since January. Most was for a trip to Brussels, Paris and London between January 19 and 31, part of which involved accompanying the Minister of Finance. Airfares cost $11,800. Another trip to Houston and Washington in April cost almost $14,000 in airfares, and there were also trips to Nadi and Singapore. The expenses show how accommodation costs can vary: two nights at the Stanhope Hotel in Brussels cost $688.07; three nights at Paris’ Le Metropolitan $1181.30; five nights at the St James Trafalgar Square $2745.92; and two nights at Singapore’s Shangri-La cost $1619.33. But Washington DC was the most expensive, with four nights at The Melrose Georgetown costing $3283.50.