Mallard flips wig as debate child’s play
For a sitting of Parliament, it was unusual in a number of ways.
Firstly there were windows and an outside world beyond. That world, as seen from Te Ha¯pua School, showed not a dreary Wellington day but sun above the Far North’s Parengarenga Harbour.
Secondly, Parliament’s Speaker Trevor Mallard was able to exercise control without an unhealthy red creeping up from the neck. It’s an easier task when your Parliament acts like children — and are.
This was the Speaker’s Outreach Tour, which had come to the Far North on its mission to invest in our newest generations a taste of debate and democracy through role play and debate.
At Te Ha¯pua School, a classroom was organised to provide Parliament’s debating chamber. At one end, a large photographic canvas of the chamber was erected across a frame. Chairs for the politicians had cloth sleeves across the back, marking out roles in Government and Opposition.
Mallard, in ceremonial wig and robes, was led in by a Sergeant-at-Arms with a replica of the official mace (carefully drawn onto paper, cut out and stuck to a long ruler).
Then Parliament got down to work. The proposed law up for debate was the banning of single-use plastic bags. Prime Minister Tia Waenga kicked off with a call to end them, rejected by Opposition leader Connor Sproats with a short speech on their practical uses.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to take the wig off,” said Mallard, once debate began. “The wig is hot and scratchy.”
In Wellington’s Parliament, the Speaker stopped wearing a wig outside formal occasions in 1999. The pomp of Parliament has increasingly shrugged off formality, but never more so than since Mallard took on the role.
The Outreach programme is one such move. It started in South Auckland in 2018. This time, for the first time, it was an overnight trip courtesy of the visit to Te Ha¯pua.
This tiny community of 150 (on a good day, in summer) is right at the top end of the North Island. Isolated barely begins to describe it. The drive for groceries — aside from a few staples at Waitiki Landing’s petrol station — is an hour down State Highway 1 to Pukenui. For those attending Kaitaia College, it’s a daily return bus trip of up to four hours.
It’s the furthest reaches of Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime’s electorate. She was along, as was National MP Barbara Kuriger, whose own Taranaki-King Country electorate is no stranger to remote.
Te Ha¯pua knows distance and size is no bar to effecting change. Labour’s legendary Minister of Ma¯ori Affairs, Matiu Rata, was born here. His biography sits in the trophy cabinet in the staff room, where kids zip through for brekkie. He attended here when it was Te Ha¯pua Ma¯ori School, an aged sign still declaring it so on the side of a classroom.
This was where the 1975 Land March began, led by Dame Whina Cooper. Nga¯ti Kuri kuia Saana Murray, born here in 1925, marched alongside her. So, Te Ha¯pua knows how to turn Wellington on its ear.
Back in the classroom, the debate on plastic bags was gaining momentum. Once plastic bags were linked to littering and danger to sea life, it was a topic every child in this coastal community could speak on.
“Do you know,” interjected Peiyton Neho, 5, “last time me and my brother went fishing we caught a big snapper? On my rod.”
The divide between Government and Opposition was weakening. Mallard called a vote and the “ayes” had it — the bags would go.
Questions followed, and the MPs answered.
Then Poroa Reardon asked the question to which he very much wanted an answer.
“Mr Speaker, is it lunchtime now?” And it was.