OPINION
It’s been a scratchy week in Parliament, with MPs embarrassing themselves at every opportunity.
Weeks away from the last sitting day and the Parliament’s dissolution, there could be no surer sign politicians are ready to get out of The Building (capital “T”, capital “B”) and onto the hustings than day upon day of grumpy unforced errors from some of our front-bench MPs.
We started the week when the simmering tetchiness between Nicola Willis and Grant Robertson finally boiled over.
Willis had spotted a legitimate mistake in Labour’s GST policy - leaving a quarter of a billion dollar mistake in the costings.
The hole was a 6/10 on the Goldsmith scale. It was only made in one edition of the party’s policy, not the more widely circulated one, and it did not ultimately undermine the rest of Labour’s costings, as the party took a one-in-one out approach to the GST policy, axing another tax cut to pay for it.
But it was certainly embarrassing. The error was actually not far off Paul Goldsmith’s 2020 “fiscal hole”, which originated after National forgot to copy over the most recent NZ Super Fund contribution projections into its plan. Labour too, forgot to copy its most recent figures.
But the numbers were less important than the symbolism: the error broke National’s six-year monopoly on ropey numbers, proving Labour, which is equal parts battle-hardened and tired, is once again fallible.
Willis used the error to publicly theorise a rift between Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, with no evidence other than the pair’s disagreement on the wealth tax, and Robertson’s prior opposition to the GST policy.
This is of course a little bit naughty, but well within the norms of political behaviour. Robertson will, most weeks, insinuate with equally little evidence that Willis is eyeing up the National leadership, readying to roll Christopher Luxon.
It’s water-off-a-duck’s-back sort of stuff. In both cases, the allegations are usually quite funny. Not because they’re wrong, but because they contain a nugget of truth. Willis’ ambition is obvious - as is Robertson’s frustration and unhappiness with Labour’s populist turn on tax. It’s written on his face.
Robertson’s tantrum on Newstalk ZB that Willis’ theory was tantamount to a lie was a humourless tactical error.
Willis’ allegation had not been picked up by any media, and had been seen only by the handful of tragics watching the livestream of her press conference. His blow-up fuelled a 24-hour news cycle in which he could have been talking about making food cheaper.
Willis doesn’t escape from the episode entirely without blame. The positing of her “theory” wasn’t as much about getting to the truth of the matter as it was needling the finance minister. She wins, however. He took the bait.
This biffo swiftly receded into the backdrop as a new one emerged. Associate Housing Minister Willie Jackson thundered at National’s Chris Bishop to get something through his “thick head”.
National quickly cut the clip from Parliament TV and added it to an embarrassing 10-year-old blog post from Associate Revenue Minister Deborah Russell arguing against what is now Labour tax policy (limiting interest deductions for residential landlords).
National was overreacting with this one, though. Jackson might have been over the line - but only just. If the boot were on the other foot, National would complain of Labour’s pearl-clutching approach to the House. You can’t have a whole Parliament of Willie Jacksons, but it would be a fairly dull place if there were none.
National had an unfortunate Thursday.
Tim van de Molen forgot to call for a party vote on David Parker’s Tax Principles Reporting Bill, meaning the party forgot to vote against a bill it had previously described as David Parker’s “pet envy project”. It was only a second reading, so the party will be able to vote against the bill (if it remembers) at third reading. Sloppy from an alleged government in waiting.
Things got worse in the afternoon. Labour gave National the gift of a promise to bump up petrol taxes by 12 cents a litre to fund its transport budget.
National enjoys all the benefits of opposition on this issue, with Labour constrained by the rules of Government.
It’s been able to use old, cheap costings for its transport policies, rather than being forced to make its sums add up by having the roads re-costed a la Labour. By most accounts, National’s roads will cost more than $2b more than they’ve planned.
Labour had to raise petrol taxes to raise $1.4b of the $20b programme, a figure smaller than the alleged hole in National’s. In opposition, it could fudge such a hole and not have to put up any taxes, in Government, the rigours of public accounting have forced it to hike fuel taxes to fill it.
National somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of defeat. Its transport spokesman Simeon Brown had previously said it had no intention of raising fuel taxes in its own transport budget.
No “intention” isn’t quite a “no”, but it’s close.
Brown and Willis emerged on Parliament’s black and white tiles on Thursday with a far more confusing formulation of the pledge, saying they would not contemplate a fuel tax rise until the cost of living crisis was over, and inflation was below 3 per cent.
Robertson had his revenge.
Inflation falls below 3 per cent, on current forecasts in the July-September quarter of 2024, the very quarter Labour promised to hike fuel taxes by 2 cents.
For a few hours, National’s position on Labour’s taxes was that it might contemplate doing the same thing.
A rapturous Parker returned to Parliament from Auckland on Thursday afternoon bouncing off walls, and you could see why. Within about three hours, National had accidentally supported his tax bill, and said it might hike fuel taxes when Parker said he would.
This is not where National wants Parker - they want to turn the screws on his grumpiness over Labour’s tax policy and perhaps get another ministerial resignation before polling day. It was only later that afternoon that Willis clarified that National’s promise not to consider fuel tax hikes would mean no hikes in their first transport budget, which would cover 2024-2027. In other words, the very position Brown had held prior to Thursday. A senseless own-goal from two MPs who have a history of being better on these sorts of details.
As if that wasn’t enough, the biggest mistake of the week was David Seymour’s, making a joke about allowing Guy Fawkes to get rid of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples. The joke was poor taste, and dangerous. It showed poor political judgement.
The ministry has already made the case for its own abolition - Seymour didn’t need to go further.
The joke doesn’t even work.
Seymour’s got the wrong Guy. As anyone focused on outcomes would know, Fawkes is history’s most famous underachiever. He’s the only person whose failure to get the job done is celebrated as a quasi-holiday in multiple countries, including this one. You couldn’t trust him to blow up a balloon.
Seymour should consider apologising. Humour is essential in politics, but humour will only survive if MPs are able to own up when they get it wrong, as everyone does from time to time.
These are all senior MPs. They are exhausted. They are making senseless mistakes. They have an eye on the hustings, not on Parliament. This week this Parliament seemed to beg for its own dissolution and a new, fresh, rested crop of MPs to return.
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