KEY POINTS:
John Key will not be impressed - again.
Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee mucked up in the House last night and the result was Government could not do what the Government wanted to do, which is a major embarrassment within the confines of the parliamentary precinct.
He didn't get the wording right when he sought to take the bill repealing the Electoral Finance Act into urgency. Labour pulled him up on it.
Brownlee, a popular figure in the House, did a Mea Culpa, admitting the muck-up. Trevor Mallard, having scored the point with his superior knowledge of how the House works, tried to help Brownlee out of the mess.
Mallard sought the leave of the House to let the Government do what it had wanted - give the bill its first and second reading last night. (The House can do virtually anything if no one objects). Only the Greens objected and so the Government had to change plans and move on to other legislation sooner. The bill did not even finish it first reading.
Procedurally it will cause inconvenience for the Government and disrupt the plans of various MPs and officials plans and restricts what it can do next week. The whole thing is not a good look for the Leader of the House. Governments like to look like they know what they are doing.
It is not the first time either. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, an error by Brownlee caused the business committee to be reconvened because he had omitted to give it the notice required under standing orders (55/2/b) to have get the extended sitting hours he wanted.
Brownlee made errors in the House last December soon after National had been elected. Former Leader of the House Michael Cullen smugly helped him out of that one. That was forgivable because it was such early days. Last night's incident was very untidy.
Next time? There shouldn't be a next time for a long time. Maybe His colleagues are not impressed. If John Key is outcome driven, perhaps Mr Brownlee should be put on a final warning.
National does not have the institutional House skills that Labour has in Cullen, whip Darren Hughes and in Mallard.
Mallard learned his House rules early in his career as a whip for Labour in the 1980s. He actually lost a vote once - just a procedural one to close debate on a bill - despite Labour having a huge majority. As he tells it, Whetu Tirakatene Sullivan had been hosting a fashion show in the banquet hall and had the division bells turned off so that the noise would not disrupt the show. About 17 MPs missed the vote.
Mea Culpa has been the phrase of the week in the House. Before Brownlee's Mea Culpa, Labour's David Parker had offered his own in the House for the sins of the Electoral Finance Act.
And here I offer my own about Lockwood Smith as Speaker, about whom I had strong misgivings.
At the end of the first week of the year I have to say he has been quite impressive: he has been fair in his rulings, willing to immediately reverse decisions if someone convinces him he is wrong eg when he suggested a member did not have the right to seek leave to table a certain document, and as my colleague John Armstrong has already note, insistent that ministers answers give direct answers to direct questions.
David Farrar on on Kiwiblog, is not quite right when he says I thought Locky would "bomb" as a Speaker. I think it was rather more hedged. This is what I did say back in December:
"I don't see the Smith risk in terms of partisanship. He will try to be fair to a fault - if Labour lets him. He will also learn the rules well.
"The risk will be that he approaches the job too correctly, too technically, and too clinically, that he will be unbending when flexibility, patience, and gut instinct are called for. I'm not sure that Lockwood has gut instinct (or even abs instinct).
"The result for a Parliament steered by someone who does not know when to give and take is brittleness and an environment where people snap easily.
"The Speaker has to make fine judgments calls quickly. Smith is better known as a careful planner, finessed in his forensic approach to the Ingram report on former Labour MP Phillip Field.
"I am not saying Lockwood will be hopeless. But I don't have confidence he will be a success."
So my major misgivings were that he would not have the instincts to respond to the changing mood of the House and on the basis of this week's efforts, they were misplaced.
Lockwood indeed showed he alter his judgments for the circumstance in dealing with - or not dealing with - Jim Anderton. Anderton sought leave of the House to table a framed award given to him by Federated Farmers for his service as form Agriculture Minister (in response to Key saying farmers had been glad to see the back of him). Lockwood reminded Anderton that standing orders had changed and that if leave was given for something to be tabled, it must be tabled that day. I checked with the tables office and what Anderton actually tabled was a press release from the Feds congratulating him on his award. The rules were rightly bent by the Speaker in order that Anderton not have to surrender his framed award to the annals of the parliamentary archives.
Some MPs have sniggered at his changes to the daily procession as vainglorious - he has changed the route to walk past the public foyer into the chamber and had a couple of strips of shiny red satin sewn down his gown - I think a little bit of pomp and ceremony is no bad thing.
When he walks into the chamber behind the Sergeant at Arms carrying the golden mace, Lockwood follows behind at a very slow pace, I guess trying to inject a sense of dignity into the occasion before they start heaving rocks at each other.
Audrey Young
