Question Time 26.07.2023

Anthony Albanese was in the House for the first few questions, sitting beside Annette King and the National Party. Lots of Aussie media around. 4-6 TV cameras around the gallery, for 5-10 mins! 🤣 - 1. Luxon to Hipkins 'The trans-Tasman relationship is the strongest it has been for decades.' - Hipkins. Parker has resigned as revenue minister due to a difference of opinions, and is replacing Michael Wood as the Minister of Transport. 'When I make a commitment on tax, I will stick to it' - Hipkins. 2. White to Sepuloni St. James theatre (Auckland). $15 million to support restoring it from central government, matching the $15 million from the Auckland Council. Sepuloni was occasionally hard to hear over the heckling. Gary said he went to that theatre a lot in his younger days. 'We want to see the city centre revitalised' - Sepuloni 'Is this a sign of more good things to come?' - Swarbrick. 3. Court to Parker .. the new Minister of Transport. 'Sydney flows better than Auckland' - Parker. The Harbour Bridge in Auckland is increasingly congested. 4.5 hours of congestion on the Manukau-Albany highway. PPP's? That's a new term for me... 'public-private partnerships' - Gary, who hates those and reckons we should restore the Ministry of Works -- classic socialist nostalgia. 4. Willis to Robertson An odd question. Robertson was laughing as she asked some of the questions, which is possibly what led to the question where she attacked his character, which is apparently against the rules of the House. 'One is a man of principle, and the other is not.' - Willis. That's regarding David Parker and Grant Robertson respectively, and it was a shock IRL. There were gasps! 5. Halbert to Woods spruiking a National Infrastructure Pipeline and priority list of $92 billion (costed .. i think?) of projects. 'We are the Government of Infrastructure' - Woods. $100 million dedicated to infrastructure in the 2023 Budget. 'let's talk about the money logging companies should pay to fix the broken bridges' - Gary. 6. Bishop to Radhakrishnan $1.4 billion in Emergency Housing Special Needs Grants from 2017-2023. 'the fantabulous work of the Housing Minister' - Radhakrishnan. 1 in 7 state homes are newly built since 2017. She's doing really well. 'that question about people living in cars is a bit rich from that side of the House' - Radhakrishnan. 7. Omer to Little Cybersecurity. This was a tough on crime question disguised as something else. 'This Government is committed to staying ahead of the hackers' - Little. 'the system was fragmented' .. they've conglomerated a few government bodies together. $5.8 million losses from hacking in NZ (first quarter). 8. Upston to Tinetti I'm not fond of Upston. She's one of the attack dogs for the National Party. 'did you hear the dog-whistle?' - Gary 211,000 children in benefit-dependent homes, but apparently on most other measures of child poverty, Labour has improved those statistics. 9. March to Sepuloni - why are under-25's $44 per week less well-off from the benefit than over 25's? Sepuloni said the mechanism was established in the 1980's, and some maths thing that I didn't understand. Sepuloni agreed with the thrust of the questions, but said Labour would not have the time to alter that until after the election. That's a half-promise, I guess... [shrug shoulders] 10. Kanongata'a to Andersen Nationwide tactical response models for all 12 police districts in NZ. 'the rules and the tools' to keep people safe - Andersen. Full roll-out by September. The trials cost $78.2 million, and the full implementation is $122 million. Gary - 'I'm not anti-police, but I think they're being set the wrong tasks' 11. Mitchell to Andersen 'How does the member define safety?' - Mitchell 'Get a dictionary' - Andersen 12. Twyford to Webb Until 2025 to implement new fairness measures for financial services companies. Fair conduct principles will apply to finance products. 'putting consumers interests first' is the key principle - Webb. That's very capitalistic...