Parliamentary opening: Say what?
Parliament has opened with a lot of name calling, a complete Wayne-Brave from the Speaker, and not much else.
On the name calling, Angry Andy has disappeared into a focus group-sized memory hole as I predicted, to be replaced with “Andrew Dr DooLittle.” Geddit.
But Key even managed to muck this up. Yesterday he was saying that Little had no new ideas since becoming leader, but by this afternoon he’s saying Little has had two. At this rate of of Prime Ministerial idea-admissions, Little is on track to have around 1,900 policy ideas by the time of the next election!
In reply, Little was scathing about the government’s skill at window dressing, but not at actually delivering. The government’s shiftiness around the upcoming nine-figure bio from SkyCity for doing what it had already agreed to do without any cash payment at all is a good example. Nick “Dr Strangelove” Smith also came in for some stick, because he’s the mug who has been tasked with the government’s State House fire sale social housing agenda.
And then something very weird happened. Little was talking about how Mike Sabin was under investigation by the police, and that this was known by Key, when Key allowed Sabin to serve on a select committee overseeing the police. There is nothing sub judice about any of that. But then Speaker David Carter said:
I invite Members throughout this day to be vey careful. We know that there was a Court case, and we know that all details were suppressed. […]
That was a weird thing to say, because Andrew Little was not specifically talking about any court case where details of the case may or may not have been suppressed; he was talking about a police investigation into the alleged actions of Mike Sabin. If there is, in fact, any connection between those two events, then the Speaker himself would have been in breach of the suppression order he was seeking to remind people of, simply by reminding people of it. And in that scenario the Speaker of our Parliament, who would have had quite a while to think about what to say, wouldn’t be that silly, would he?
Very odd.