Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. New Zealand's
Speaker 2: Parliament is a house of chaos. At least that's how
Speaker 2: our own Deputy Prime Minister described the debating chamber last week.
Speaker 2: The sea bomb was dropped in Parliament last week by
Speaker 2: Brook van Velden, quoting a stuff column by Andrea Vance
Speaker 2: that was criticizing the government's changes to pay equity.
Speaker 1: It's muddied an already.
Speaker 2: Dirty debate over women's pay that is set to overshadow
Speaker 2: the budget this year, and at the same time Debati
Speaker 2: Maldi's co leaders have been threatened with suspension from parliament
Speaker 2: dropped three weeks over last year's headline, making Hucker today
Speaker 2: on the front page to help us make sense of
Speaker 2: all the chaos, We're joined by News Talk ZB political
Speaker 2: editor Jason Wolves. Jason Winston Peters has called it a
Speaker 2: house of chaos. Audrey Young wrote that it has been
Speaker 2: an appalling fortnight.
Speaker 1: How would you describe it?
Speaker 3: Unprecedented would be the word that I would describe it.
Speaker 3: On many levels. I mean, obviously we haven't seen the
Speaker 3: sea bomb used in the House like that. There was
Speaker 3: one time where I think David Carter might have used
Speaker 3: it accidentally, but using it in the way that Brook
Speaker 3: van Velden did certainly unprecedented. She didn't call another member
Speaker 3: of the Sea words. She was using it, or was
Speaker 3: quoting from a newspaper opinion piece which used well in
Speaker 3: seed dot dot dot. We can all figure out what
Speaker 3: it was that the columnist actually meant there, but very unprecedented.
Speaker 3: And Winston Peters, you know, a stickler for the rules,
Speaker 3: doesn't like to be a sweary fairy, was obviously a
Speaker 3: little bit aggrieved by this. But I think it is
Speaker 3: a touch ironic because Winston Peters does fly very close
Speaker 3: to the sun when it comes to Speaker's rulings. I mean,
Speaker 3: at any given time on any given Thursday, when he's
Speaker 3: answering for the Prime Minister, Kieran McNulty, who is the
Speaker 3: Shadow Leader of the House for Labor, will stand up
Speaker 3: and question elements of what it is that Winston Peters
Speaker 3: is doing. For example, he quite often likes to use
Speaker 3: government questions to attack the opposition, which is out of
Speaker 3: order in the House. So it is a bit ironic
Speaker 3: for Winston Peters to be kicking up such a stink
Speaker 3: over this when he is one of the one of
Speaker 3: the greatest offenders when it comes to the standards of
Speaker 3: the house at the moment.
Speaker 4: I disagree with the comments made, and particularly the note
Speaker 4: of the use of the term backhanded, which refers to
Speaker 4: Andrea Advance's article which was quoted from this weekend. And
Speaker 4: I do not agree with the clearly gendered and patronizing
Speaker 4: language that Andrea Advance used to reduce your cabinet ministers
Speaker 4: to girl bosses, height squads, references to girl meth and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think the sea word being said in
Speaker 2: the house was on my bingo card for this week,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't in the newspaper either.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I mean it was just c dot dot
Speaker 3: dot in the newspaper. But Brooke van Velden afterwards we
Speaker 3: questioned her about her use of the word and she
Speaker 3: could have just said the sea word, but she argued
Speaker 3: that media wouldn't have covered it if she had just
Speaker 3: said the sea word, and I do disagree with her.
Speaker 3: We would have covered it nevertheless, But I do agree
Speaker 3: in the fact that it wouldn't have made such a
Speaker 3: splash because it was such an unprecedented moment. And I'll
Speaker 3: tell you what. I was sitting in the press gallery
Speaker 3: when it happened, and as soon as she said the word,
Speaker 3: the oxygen just evaporated out of the place and everybody
Speaker 3: kind of took a backward step on that one. So
Speaker 3: she does have a point. It did certainly did capture
Speaker 3: people's attention, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: So if we move on to the issues of the week,
Speaker 2: can we start by cutting to the facts on these
Speaker 2: pay equity changes. What has the government done here with
Speaker 2: this change in legislation.
Speaker 3: Well, they've essentially changed the law and they did it
Speaker 3: under urgency in the House to kind of change the
Speaker 3: scope of how pay equity is dealt with. Their argument
Speaker 3: has always been throughout this whole the whole saga is
Speaker 3: that the original pay equity legislation was was too broad
Speaker 3: and it led to and you would have heard this
Speaker 3: phrase being thrown around quite often, people like library workers
Speaker 3: being compared to fisheries officers. And because of that, the
Speaker 3: unions and labor have been using that to ratchet it
Speaker 3: up people's pay where it wasn't based on sex based discrimination.
Speaker 3: So the government have clawed it back somewhat and said
Speaker 3: that we're going to refocus the law so it is
Speaker 3: just specifically focused on this issue of sex based discriminations.
Speaker 3: And the unions and the lab and the Labor Party
Speaker 3: and the Greens have jumped on on top of this
Speaker 3: and said that you're quote cutting women's pay, and there's
Speaker 3: been quite a bit of back and forth over that.
Speaker 2: And is that because most of the claims that are
Speaker 2: being thrown out by women, the thirty.
Speaker 3: Three pay equity claims the moment in there, essentially, I
Speaker 3: mean a lot of them are having to be reset.
Speaker 3: And the argument from the opposition is, and this is
Speaker 3: what Chris Hipkins said, is that because the future pay
Speaker 3: packet of the women in question through some of these
Speaker 3: settlements would be lower because of what the government is doing,
Speaker 3: it does mean that insofar as the fact of their
Speaker 3: pay in the future, that will be being cut. So
Speaker 3: it means that it is a cut from women's pay.
Speaker 3: Now the National Party have listened to his explanation on
Speaker 3: this and say that it just doesn't make sense and
Speaker 3: it doesn't actually pass the sniff test when it comes
Speaker 3: to this blanket and quite definitive statement that the government
Speaker 3: is cutting women's pay. So there has been quite a
Speaker 3: back and forth over the semantics of this issue. I
Speaker 3: say semantics. I think the people involved probably think that
Speaker 3: it's a lot more than that.
Speaker 1: This debate.
Speaker 2: For a little while there felt like it was going
Speaker 2: well for labor and the left. But then of course
Speaker 2: the Andrea Vance column for stuff with the sea word
Speaker 2: was written referring to those six female government ministers as
Speaker 2: girl bosses as well. And we all know what the
Speaker 2: sea word is, Like you said, we don't need to
Speaker 2: say it. That's just hijacked this whole debate now to
Speaker 2: make it one big debate about misogyny towards politicians kind
Speaker 2: of hasn't it?
Speaker 3: Oh? Absolutely? I mean if we spent the last week
Speaker 3: with the unions and labor basically at every opportunity they
Speaker 3: could get talk about how the government was cutting women's pay,
Speaker 3: and I think it Gimmy Anderson at one point was
Speaker 3: asked about the government's policy to crush cars, and she
Speaker 3: brought it back to women's pay by saying the government's
Speaker 3: better than crushing women's dreams than they are crushing cars.
Speaker 3: So they were really really on a one track sort
Speaker 3: of mind over this issue, and they were developing quite
Speaker 3: a lot of momentum and then the column hit and
Speaker 3: then Nikola Willis wrote an article in response, essentially saying
Speaker 3: this a sexist and then she was able to lay
Speaker 3: out her argument against all the criticism, and then that's
Speaker 3: where it kind of took off. Now where the Labor
Speaker 3: Party went wrong is that the question in the House
Speaker 3: that led to the now infamous sea bomb was quoting
Speaker 3: directly from that piece in the Sunday Star Times. Labor
Speaker 3: weren't shying away from it. It was the question on notice,
Speaker 3: which means that we get a copy of all the
Speaker 3: oral questions that are going to be asked during a
Speaker 3: parliamentary sitting day. And if it's on notice, it means
Speaker 3: that the government party can see it and they can
Speaker 3: prepare for it. So it wasn't an accident. This was
Speaker 3: a pre planned tactic by the Labor Party that backfired significantly.
Speaker 3: I mean everyone everyone from the I mean Helen Clark
Speaker 3: called out the comment, but yet the Labor Party still
Speaker 3: decided that they would use it in a oral question,
Speaker 3: which meant that the government had yet another opportunity to
Speaker 3: not address the issue of pay equity, but to address
Speaker 3: the issue of misogyny. And it turned the whole argument
Speaker 3: around No one is talking about pay equity anymore. Everybody
Speaker 3: is talking about misogyny. And as sad as it is
Speaker 3: and as horribly callous as it sounds, that's good for
Speaker 3: the government because it means that they're not focusing on
Speaker 3: what was quite a damaging issue for them. They're now
Speaker 3: talking about something that they actually looked like they're the
Speaker 3: victims of.
Speaker 2: The Other big controversy at the moment is around the
Speaker 2: Privileges Committee and Tibati Moldi. The Committee has ruled that
Speaker 2: Titi and Debbie Nadewa Paka be suspended for three weeks
Speaker 2: without payover last year's huka during the Treaty Principle's Bill debate.
Speaker 1: Hannah Ralfit the Mighty Clark got one week.
Speaker 2: So this is a harsh punah and it's the harshest
Speaker 2: ever in Parliament's history.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like an overreaction, Well.
Speaker 3: Technically it's not the punishment yet. What Jerry Browne was
Speaker 3: very careful to do when he made his ruling on
Speaker 3: Thursday was to say that Parliament will have the opportunity
Speaker 3: to debate this on Tuesday and it will be up
Speaker 3: to parliamentarians whether they accept the recommendations of the Privileges Committee,
Speaker 3: which you quite rightly point out it was seven days
Speaker 3: for Hannah Arapti, Mighty Clark and twenty one days for
Speaker 3: Debbie Natty Whapacker and at Our Hitt. And it's an
Speaker 3: unprecedented debate because for a number of reasons, he's allowing
Speaker 3: members to make various different changes to the recommendations of
Speaker 3: the Privileges Committee. So members could get up and they
Speaker 3: could ask Judith Collins, the chair of the committee. They
Speaker 3: can say that this is far too excessive. We want
Speaker 3: the punishment to actually be maybe four maybe five days.
Speaker 3: The other thing is that it is going to be
Speaker 3: essentially a limitless debate. Jerry Browne ruled this. Members can
Speaker 3: speak a number of times and there's not a time
Speaker 3: limit on, however how much they want to speak, which
Speaker 3: is the debate could go on for as long, I mean,
Speaker 3: how long is a piece of strength te Party Marty members.
Speaker 3: If Degree members want to keep getting up and making
Speaker 3: various different points, they're absolutely free to do that. And
Speaker 3: that comes on a budget week that's happening on Thursday.
Speaker 3: So the government ministers are quite worried that the House's
Speaker 3: time is going to be used debating this when the
Speaker 3: budget is just on our doorstep. And I can understand
Speaker 3: why the likes of Judith Collins and Shane Jones, who
Speaker 3: made the point in the House on Thursday that Tea
Speaker 3: Party Marty have already had the opportunity to front up
Speaker 3: to the Privileges Committee. They've had multiple opportunities to front
Speaker 3: up to the Privileges Committee to to lend their side
Speaker 3: of the story to what the deliberations might be. At
Speaker 3: every opportunity they've chosen not to do that. Not only this,
Speaker 3: they've also decided and they've also chosen to do things
Speaker 3: like some of the confidential recommendations of the committee on
Speaker 3: Facebook in the form of a joke poll to say
Speaker 3: how long do you think we're going to be banned for?
Speaker 3: And how would be White Titty went as far as
Speaker 3: calling it a silly little committee and showing absolute contempt
Speaker 3: for the Privilege's Committee. So you can understand why there
Speaker 3: would be some members that are feeling quite upset at
Speaker 3: the fact that the Privileges Committee has been meeting for
Speaker 3: some time to make this determination, and Jerry Brownlee is
Speaker 3: giving members another opportunity to say, well, hang on a second,
Speaker 3: is this too harsh of a punishment.
Speaker 2: Well, it puts the government between a rock and a
Speaker 2: hard place, right because, on one hand, particularly from a
Speaker 2: global level, given how viral that Harker video went last year,
Speaker 2: if you dish out a harsh punishment, you could get
Speaker 2: global you know, discontent right. On another hand, it could
Speaker 2: create a precedent. I mean something like doing that in
Speaker 2: Parliament is unprecedented, like you said, and what's to stop
Speaker 2: someone else from doing it again?
Speaker 3: Well, the problem that Jerry Browne has and government has
Speaker 3: is that the nuances of the punishment and the reason
Speaker 3: behind it have been completely lost. They're not being punished
Speaker 3: because they did a harker in the house. You're allowed
Speaker 3: to do hawkers in the house. They're being punished because
Speaker 3: they did a harker during the voting session, which you're
Speaker 3: not allowed to do it. It's completely off the table.
Speaker 3: And also they approached David Seymour, the leader of the
Speaker 3: act Party while they were doing it, in a way
Speaker 3: that the Privileges Committee has ruled was an intimidating way.
Speaker 3: So those are the reasons why they may be suspended.
Speaker 3: But that nuance is going to be lost when you
Speaker 3: read the BBC and CNN and all these other outlets
Speaker 3: that carried the initial video of the Harker, they're just
Speaker 3: going to say they got banned from Parliament because they
Speaker 3: did the Harker, which is not strictly speaking true. So
Speaker 3: there is a problem there, But that ship has already
Speaker 3: essentially sailed. That is how this is going to look
Speaker 3: to an international audience. Closer to home, I think the
Speaker 3: nuances have been well demonstrated and well communicated to us
Speaker 3: on on a more domestic level, But there is a
Speaker 3: problem with the president. I mean, if this goes through
Speaker 3: and there is a lesser punishment, what's stopping the likes
Speaker 3: of Julia and Jena the next time when she's before
Speaker 3: the Privileges Committee saying, hang on a second. I know
Speaker 3: the Privileges Committee has ruled, but why don't we have
Speaker 3: another debate, for a limitless debate to say, well, shouldn't
Speaker 3: my punishment be lesser? In saying that though twenty one
Speaker 3: days is unprecedented, Jerry Browne said, the last longest time
Speaker 3: somebody has been suspended from the House was three days,
Speaker 3: so twenty one days is enormous. So he feels like
Speaker 3: it might be a little bit too strict. But Judith
Speaker 3: Collins says, well, maybe this will teach them not to
Speaker 3: act like this again.
Speaker 5: I think the whole wooding and the attitude how personally
Speaker 5: offended they are by us just actually from our gut
Speaker 5: to the call piece of legislation that's been in here.
Speaker 1: Long story, Shoore.
Speaker 6: I think it just shows us exactly what they think
Speaker 6: about us set They still see us as a bunch
Speaker 6: of unruling people that they need to put back into order.
Speaker 2: It does feel like multi issues are remaining a point
Speaker 2: of contention in the House. A review into the Way
Speaker 2: Tonguey Tribunal has begun as part of the National Ends
Speaker 2: at First Coalition deal. The tribunal is urgently reviewing Acts,
Speaker 2: Regulatory Standards Bill, and last week Labor MP Willie Jackson
Speaker 2: was booted from the debating chamber while discussing multi issues.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not sitting down. I'm not sitting down.
Speaker 3: I'm not sitting down.
Speaker 2: You don't you don't walk over our copupperas it suits you,
Speaker 2: mister speaker.
Speaker 1: Leave the house. Retrojection down, Leave the house, mister Jackson.
Speaker 3: Leave the house.
Speaker 1: Mister Jackson, leave the house, mister Jackson.
Speaker 2: I think some people thought the treaty Principle's Bill being
Speaker 2: voted down would be the end of it to some degree.
Speaker 2: But it feels like it's just getting started, though, isn't it.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what some commentators said. Acting David Seymour wanted.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean exactly, and I think that we saw
Speaker 3: with the Treaty Principal's Bill, the every time it's in
Speaker 3: the news, Tea Party Marty's vote goes really high, and
Speaker 3: when it's not and they're a little bit more quieter,
Speaker 3: their vote tends to go down. So of course they'll
Speaker 3: be looking to bring these sorts of issues back to
Speaker 3: the fore. I mean, other issues in terms of the
Speaker 3: Regulatory Standard Bill nowhere near as big as the Treaty
Speaker 3: Principle's Bill, but you can be sure as heck to
Speaker 3: count on TI Party, Marty and other political parties really
Speaker 3: really making these issues a thorn in the government's side
Speaker 3: because politically it plays well for them.
Speaker 2: And finally, Jason, do you think the chaos will come
Speaker 2: down at any point or is it just about to
Speaker 2: ramp up, particularly considering the Seymour Peters deputy switchover is
Speaker 2: happening very very soon, It's going to ramp up.
Speaker 3: It'll be ramping up until election day. I mean, this
Speaker 3: issue isn't going to go away quietly. The big question
Speaker 3: mark that is hanging over Parliament right now is what
Speaker 3: happens next. I mean, do you think that Debbie Nardi,
Speaker 3: Wapaka and Atrawiti Waititi are going to accept this and
Speaker 3: just say okay and just go away. I don't think that.
Speaker 3: I think that they're going to be making a fuss
Speaker 3: and you know, all power to them to be able
Speaker 3: to do that. That is their prerogative. But it's going
Speaker 3: to be an uncomfortable time for parliamentarians and especially for
Speaker 3: Speaker Jerry Brownly as he looks into what is essentially
Speaker 3: uncharted territory here.
Speaker 1: Where's Luxon in this debate?
Speaker 3: Luxon has been very absent from this, and I think
Speaker 3: it's by design. The National Party don't want him caught
Speaker 3: up in any of this this situation because you know,
Speaker 3: it reflects negatively on his brand and the National Party's brand,
Speaker 3: So I wouldn't expect to see him being very front
Speaker 3: foot over this issue between now and the election at all.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Jason, No problem at all. That's
Speaker 2: it for this episode of the Front Page. You can
Speaker 2: read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at
Speaker 2: enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced
Speaker 2: by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our
Speaker 2: sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
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Speaker 2: behind the headlines.