Beehive Diaries: How close Christopher Luxon came to going to Paris, new MPs grumble over office-sharing, and makeup tips for gangsters

Christopher Luxon arrives to speak to media in Auckland with wife Amanda. Photo / Thomas Coughlan

The politics of going to Paris

The three-week gap between election day and the final vote delivered an unexpected bonus for outgoing Sports Minister Grant Robertson, whose caretaker duties included jetting off to Paris to represent the New Zealand government for the Rugby World Cup final.

Beehive Diaries was told the decision for Robertson to attend was made after some agonising on PM-elect Christopher Luxon’s part. There was consideration given as to whether Luxon could go – or even if both Luxon and Robertson could go, with Robertson as the required official government representative and Luxon as the incoming.

Luxon could hardly go just for one rugby game and he is not yet officially the Prime Minister, which meant he does not yet have the required status to arrange the added meetings on the sidelines with other countries’ leaders or the likes of King Charles.

The extent to which Luxon regrets that will depend on the result of the game: if the All Blacks won, photos in the changing room would be priceless and something of a symbolic sign of the changing of the guard.

However, if they lost, Luxon will no doubt be happy to leave it as something that happened under a Labour Government. In one of the leaders’ debates, Luxon bragged that the All Blacks had never lost a World Cup under the last National Government, led by Sir John Key.

Strike Force Luminous Spheres

As National’s Mark Mitchell waits for his expected appointment as Police Minister, he has clearly been working up his plans for a dedicated Strike Force Wardrobe Unit within the police.

Talking to RNZ about his policy for police to require gang members to remove their patches when out in public, he mused about an Australian law that also required them to cover gang tattoos.

That, he said, meant gang members had to wear foundation over their tattoos. Beehive Diaries recommends police add stick foundations or heavy compact foundation to their kits while on patrol. The dewy or sheer glow varieties would not do the job, although a good BB cream for those with sensitive skins might work.

Police should also tell the gang members that blending around the jawline is important.

National's Mark Mitchell at a public meeting in Northland. Photo / Tania Whyte

The Big Squeeze at Parliament

Space issues at Parliament as it waits for a new building to go up have continued to cause headaches, and led to the new intake of MPs being told some of them would have to share offices.

Beehive Diaries was told some of New Zealand First’s new MPs were grumbling about the situation during the induction courses for new MPs. That caused raised eyebrows among some of the others, since it was NZ First’s leader Winston Peters who in 2017 put the kibosh on plans to build a new office building behind the existing Parliament buildings.

Had that gone ahead, the buildings would be ready by about now. As it stands, the work on them has just started and they are not expected to be ready until at least 2026. Then again, Peters was not to know Bowen House would have to be vacated to be earthquake-strengthened.