Tanya Unkovich and Winston Peters received a petition from Family First called "what is a woman?" - 23,000 anti-trans signatures. Woman = adult human female according to those wankers. Personally, I could give a toss what those people think, but it's going to severely affect a lot of people that are living in stealth or semi-stealth. Helen Clark popped into the Speaker's Gallery for the final few questions, so this was a fairly interesting day.
Chippy to Prime Omelette CH 7, PO 3 First up, the Omelette plugged energy services, saying that he intended to 'restore confidence in New Zealand's energy industry' Then Hipkins brought up the anti-Mexican slur that happened to Ricardo ... the Omelette characterised that as 'friendly banter' Winston's speculation on the gender of Olympic athletes was brought up, and Winston took a moment to lash out. Matariki invitations: 'we value Te Reo' - that got a big laugh!
Lu to Willis NL 5, NW 6 Budget 2025: 'a very high bar for new initiatives ... significant savings ... no additional funding for government departments' Performance plans are in place for these departments, with the intent of focusing on 'medium-term fiscal responsibility'
Avocado Princess to Prime Omelette AP 5, PO 3 'We need more gas and renewable energy' - Omelette Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga: Chloe challenged the PM to define the articles, and he used Act's definition for article 3, which was also the only article that he bothered to answer regarding. That's a bad sign.
Edmonds to Willis BE 5, NW 4 Same questions as yesterday. 21,000 additional people on the benefit. 'We want to rebuild this economy' - Willis Today was a very anecdotal day; the anecdotes in this question were mildly effective.
McCallum to Stanford GM 5, ES 4 Patsy question. Erica rushed through her answers. reading off the sheet of paper. 'We are moving Heaven and Earth' - Erica.
Debbie to Prime Omelette DN 5, PO 4 Same as yesterday, except that the PM said the ICJ has 'confirmed New Zealand's long-standing view' regarding the war in Gaza.
Willie Jackson to Paul Goldsmith WJ 5, PG 4 This was when Helen arrived. More on the Matariki invitation, which seems to have really pissed off the Māori MPs.
Cheung to Goldsmith CC 5, PG 6 Gangs... 'gangs cause misery, fear and intimidation' - Goldsmith More anecdotes. This time, Goldsmith used statements from Green MPs about gang colours as a way of legitimising the new laws. Quite successfully, which is why it's a 6/10.
Verrall to Costello AV 7, CC 4 Cancer drugs. 'Health NZ has taken a pragmatic approach' - Costello. Ayesha was fired-up.
Stephenson to Van Velden TS 5, BVV 6 Passport waiting times have halved from 10 weeks to 5 weeks. Took me about 6 weeks to get my passport, so I can attest to that. 91% of new passports were online applications, following 'the largest upgrade to the passport system in a decade' - Van Velden.
Carter to Chhour KC1 6, KC2 4 OT questions ... savings by asking for money back from failed projects. Family Start Nelson have lost 40% of their staff, which proves that the savings are causing front line service cuts. 'Oranga Tamariki are not reducing front line services' - Chhour. The Opposition had a good laugh at that.
Russell to Simmonds DR 7, PS 5 Te Pūkenga. Lots of chatter. The key point was that she'd been given expert advice by what Russell termed 'specialist advisors' to keep Te Pūkenga running. Simmonds rejected the characterisation, stating that 'they were not my specialist advisors; they were Te Pūkenga's.' International student numbers haven't recovered as fast for polytechs, and Simmonds said that one of the benefits of decentralising (again) would be that they could set fees for domestic and international students.
Factoring in travel time, I spend roughly 4 hours reviewing Question Time. It's an unpaid gig, but I do take it seriously. Then it usually takes another couple of hours to get off my soapbox and relax. 🤣