Below the Beltway

This last week of the sitting block has seen plenty of fireworks in Parliament. Here’s who is up and who is down going into a recess.

UP

■ Golriz Ghahraman has been pushing for state funding for political parties for a while. This week the Green list MP gained the unlikely ally of former National Party PM Jim Bolger.

■ Chris Hipkins announced on Monday that roughly nine in 10 eligible schools have signed up to scrap school donations in favour of a cash grant from the Government. National had been talking up how these complicated grants wouldn’t be taken up but it seems most principals liked them.

■ Agnes Loheni may have lost her bid to be the Botany candidate for the National Party, but this backbench list MP is the obvious choice for the brand new electorate of Flat Bush in South Auckland, which will neighbour the Labour safe seat of Manurewa, where she is based now.

DOWN

■ Winston Peters’ party NZ First has been asked by the Electoral Commission for more documentation about the New Zealand First Foundation, after

Stuff revealed that it appears to operate as a political slush fund.

■ Jacinda Ardern should have had a good week with her Stephen Colbert video rolling out around the world. Instead she spent the entire week having to defend Winston Peters.

QUOTE

‘‘I don’t think the Government has been transformational. There’s been pockets of transformation, but you know, I don’t think historians are gonna look back at it and say ‘This was a turning point on the scale of the 1930s or 1980s’. And I think that’s desperately needed.’’