Labour slams Govt with thousands of questions
The Opposition has been busy putting pen to paper - inundating the new National-coalition Government with more than 3000 written questions over a two-day period.
The questions from Labour MPs, which span the new Government’s transport, tax, and environmental policies, appear designed to overwhelm the ministers and their offices, which have a week to respond in writing.
There were 655 written questions to new Cabinet ministers on Wednesday and another 2767yesterday - bringing the total to 3422 over the two-day period the 54th Parliament has sat so far. The Green Party lodged about 70.
A sample of the questions lodged by Labour MPs yesterday include 426 by Tangi Utikere, 305 from Kieran McAnulty, 258 from Ginny Andersen, 229 from Ayesha Verrall, 203 by Deborah Russell and 193 by Jo Luxton.
The written questions returns fire from National starting in 2017, when more than 6000 were asked to then new Labour-led Government over a month, with RNZ reporting 42,221 questions were asked from National MPs in that government’s first year.
Labour’s written assault on the Government came as the Opposition tried its hand at extracting answers from the new regime during the first Question Time of the Parliament, yesterday afternoon.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins took aim at Prime Minister Christopher Luxon over the Government’s stand on the Israel-Hamas conflict, after a lengthy debate on a motion proposed by Foreign Minister Winston Peters ended with Parliament agreeing to call for “steps toward” a ceasefire, instead of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
“We would like to see a ceasefire, but in order to achieve a sustainable ceasefire... both sides actually need to be able to do so, and that means that they both have to agree to be able to put down their arms,” Luxon said.
Hipkins needled the new prime minister: “So is it the Government's position that New Zealand should only call for a ceasefire once it's already happened?”
A feisty exchange between Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Labour’s finance spokesperson Grant Robertson marked the resumption of the pair’s regular battle, but from different sides of the House.
Robertson questioned Willis on what revenue measures would be used to fund the Government’s promised tax cuts.
“Is she now regretting saying that the Government's tax cut policies would be paid for by rolling back the smoke-free law changes?” Robertson asked.
“To quote a member of this House I admire very much, one Judith Collins, ‘I regret very little’,” Willis said.
To which Robertson replied: “That was actually Édith Piaf, if I remember correctly”.
But the Government also used Question Time to attack the recently deposed Labour administration. NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft threw a question to Peters about the rebuild of Scott Base on Antarctica, which has suffered cost blow-outs and issues with contractors.
Peters said he had serious concerns and was “looking at the situation with urgency”.
“What happened to that was, of course, that one party was governing by itself and what a mess that was — unbelievable: unleashed with no experience, no understanding of business, couldn't run a corner dairy, and they did this.” Asked what the Government might do, Peters said that various options have been considered by Antarctica New Zealand “and we made it clear to officials that we will only consider options that are costed to remain within the overall project budget that was originally agreed” and as as close as possible to the initial time of delivery.