Political Diary

TUESDAY

No sooner has John Key sought to patch things up with the Maori Party following his refusal to vest ownership of the Urewera National Park in Tuhoe than Act launches another salvo in what is becoming an intermittent guerrilla war with National, its supposed ally.

Act has teamed up with Federated Farmers in a last-ditch attempt to get the greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme cancelled. National MP Shane Ardern suggests Act leader Rodney Hide put his money where his mouth is and reconsider its confidence and supply agreement with the Government if he is really committed to stopping the ETS.

In Parliament, Hide effectively asks the Prime Minister if he shares the same view as his backbencher. John Key takes a less-casual view, replying that it forms the basis of a "very positive and very healthy relationship". Hide appears to have taken note of those within his party who are worried Act is losing its identity under the support arrangement with National. In the last three months Hide has become increasingly outspoken and critical of National while stressing Act's promise to guarantee stable government through this parliamentary term.

WEDNESDAY

Gerry Brownlee would have known someone was going to ask him whether he had heard of the saying "When you're in a hole, stop digging".

So the Minister of Energy was well prepared when Green MP Catherine Delahunty made the remark after Brownlee told Parliament around 35,000 submissions had been received on his stocktake document listing possible mining sites in national parks and on other high-value parts of the Conservation estate. Replied Brownlee: "I say that if one is in a hole and one is getting a good mineral deposit, one should keep going ..."

Weirdly, Speaker Lockwood Smith interrupts, telling the House that he has not had a sex change operation. Brownlee takes this revelation in his stride: "I would expect not. There would have been a statement to Parliament, surely." Brownlee had had a subconscious flashback to the Margaret Wilson era and addressed Smith as "Madam Speaker".

THURSDAY

Bill English was praised for his Budget and then lambasted for daring to raise the possibility of privatising part of Kiwibank.

Greens co-leader Russel Norman asks whether English knows how much in dividend payments has been sent overseas to the Australian owners of ASB, ANZ National, Westpac and the BNZ over the past five years. When English is unable to give a figure, Norman asks if he can confirm that, according to Reserve Bank figures, the overseas-owned banks drained about $9 billion out of New Zealand.

"If Kiwibank is sold to Australia," Norman asks, "will the Government require Kiwibank to change its theme song from God Defend New Zealand to Advance Australia Fair, or perhaps to "Advance Australian Profits"?" English tells the Brisbane-born Norman: "I would find that question easier to answer if it were not asked with an Australian accent."