National Party leader Simon Bridges says that lockdown 'has gone on too long' and that 'we don't want to flatten the economy'.
The most dramatic thing about the return of Parliament was perhaps Act leader David Seymour's lockdown hair - a luxuriant, springing bouffant so large nobody could have sat within 2m of him even if they had been allowed.
Beyond that, the much-anticipated event after five weeks of lockdown was astring of speeches and questions about the handling of the Covid-19 responses, which elicited little by way of new information.
It was, however, the first chance National's leader, Simon Bridges, had had to question Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern directly in five weeks.
It was also a chance for him to redeem himself from the drubbing he received after his initial responses to the announcements she had made about lockdowns.
In that regard, Bridges did what he had to do. He did not set the world alight with rhetoric, although he did have a few strong lines.
While Ardern focused on emphasising the benefits of the lockdown, and the steps the Government had taken, Bridges acknowledged that but then focused on those who were hurting as a result of it.
He pointed out the lockdown was not so bad for those who were still being paid – including politicians and bureaucrats. Then he pointed out that for the thousands who had lost their jobs, it was a disaster.
He did not get an inch out of Ardern, but he did peg himself and National firmly on the side of workers, small business – and the economy. His job was to try to nudge the debate over to an area in which the Government might not shine so brightly.
He deployed a few of Ardern's own tricks in doing this (admittedly old tricks). Ardern regularly raises emails or cards she has had from children, or admirers of government policy.
Bridges had Margaret, who had had to delay a colonoscopy to check for bowel cancer. He had a chiropractor, who could not tend to his patients, and a baker.
He pushed at Ardern's apparently instinctive reluctance to involve the private sector too much in that recovery, saying these were not times that should be left solely to "a committee in Wellington".
Parliament returned, with MPs sitting at distance from each other. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Ardern did him the favour of not making a jibe about his own woes since they had last met, the rumours and the leaks – perhaps because of her own ban on politicising the issue. In face, she gave the Opposition credit for backing the lockdown.
The day also allowed the other party leaders a chance to set out their respective positions on what lay ahead.
Seymour may not have had a hair cut, but he wanted a pay cut even more. He used it to try to get leave for legislation to cut MPs' pay by 20 per cent as ministers had done. That was, unsurprisingly, vetoed by the Government for reasons of complexity rather than self-interest.
The Greens co-leaders, James Shaw and Marama Davidson, pushed for conservation to be a beneficiary of economic stimulus packages. They may want to boost the conservation estate by declaring Seymour's hair a national park.
Then there was Winston Peters. He began by quoting Gandhi talking about the seven sins. Peters went on to say the economy was doomed from 2008 and 2009 and double-doomed now.
Then he set out his prescription: a dish he had prepared earlier. Decades earlier, in fact.
It consisted of a plan to boost manufacturing in New Zealand instead of importing from overseas, giving New Zealanders jobs over foreigners, and "putting up the shutters to more offshore ownership of this country's economy." It could have come from a 1990s manifesto.
The more things change, the more some things change the same.
