Beehive Diaries: PM Jacinda Ardern's brain fade, National's ad backdown

Shane Jones, displaying his guns with a gun on holiday in Thailand. Photo / Facebook

Monday: Shane Jones' post-holiday show and tell

Shane Jones had a very refreshing and therapeutic holiday, according to photos posted on Facebook by his wife Dot Jones.

The photos showed food, pools, sunsets, elephant encounters and oh, a bit of a shoot-out with semi-automatics at a rifle range.

The latter photos caused a bit of kerfuffle given Jones had voted to ban the very same guns from use in New Zealand as part of the gun reforms.

But another offensive item in the photo also got some attention: Jones' attire.

Beehive Diaries asked National Party leader Simon Bridges for his opinion of Jones' antics.

"I was offended by him showing off his guns," Bridges said. "That T-shirt needed sleeves."

That sleeveless T-shirt – more commonly known as a singlet – carried what appeared to be Jones' political motto "Hang Loose" on it.

Beehive Diaries can also report the trip enhanced Jones' wellbeing. He has since gone on a diet.

Tuesday: Brain-fade strikes Ardern.

Back in 2012, John Key was pilloried after he blamed a "brain fade" for forgetting what he was told about Kim Dotcom.

Ardern had her own run-in with this malady this week, when she insisted at the post-Cabinet press conference that former Wellington Mayor Justin Lester had not stood as a Labour candidate but as an independent. She went on to insist that there was little that was overt about Labour in Lester's campaign.

Labour Party mayoral candidate Justin Lester. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Lester had stood as a Labour candidate and there were plenty of screen shots of the voting papers boasting him as a Labour Party candidate, and of advertising material with the Labour logo.

Ardern had to backtrack, saying she had been under the misapprehension that Lester was in the same boat as Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, who was endorsed by Labour but resisted standing on the party ticket and instead stood as an independent.

Either way Ardern won in the end: everybody was so preoccupied with her brain-fade that they forgot about the initial question, which was how she felt as a Labour leader that he had lost on a Labour ticket.

So she did not have to answer it.

Thursday: The Speaker's 'divide and conquer' dinner

Speaker Trevor Mallard sparked some division between the "haves" and "have nots" of the Press Gallery after he invited a select group of about 16 journalists for dinner.

The Speaker, Trevor Mallard. Photo / Mark Mitchell

After news leaked out that his selection criteria was the Press Gallery executive and "up and coming" journalists, it sparked quite the debate about which category journalists were in, and why other journalists were not included.

A rebel "Down and Outers" dinner was arranged for those who did not make the grade.

That was scuppered after the Speaker got wind of it and moved to entice some of the core Down and Outers to his dinner instead. One of those - yours truly - resisted the invitation on principle, but another proved less resistant and broke the group up.

The main meal was duck. We will remember, Mr Mallard.

Friday: Eudaimonia restored

The National Party's decision to fold to the Speaker's demand that it take down various ads featuring Parliamentary television footage of Labour MPs brought to an end (for now at least) the great attack ad stand-off.

The Speaker had sought to enforce a rule that Parliamentary television footage could only be used for political advertisements with the permission of the MP who featured in them by demanding National take the ads down.

It was sparked after Labour complained about an ad featuring MP Deborah Russell talking about wellbeing in ancient times – including the philosophy of eudaimonia: happiness.

National fought against the demand to take down the ads, so Mallard started reducing the number of questions National Party leader Simon Bridges could ask in Parliament by one a day, saying it would continue until the ads came down.

By the time it caved on Friday, National had discovered it could survive quite well without them anyway.

National set about deleting all the tweets it had earlier ordered its MPs to re-tweet – resulting in a very busy time for the @politwoopsNZ account that tracks tweets MPs have deleted.

The Politwoops Twitter account shows the National Party ads being deleted. Photo / Twitter

National's backdown was possibly also because it had discovered it could survive without Parliament TV. It had not produced a new ad using Parliamentary footage since October 5. It had instead produced its ads using footage and audio from other media.

The rule that anyone wanting to use Parliamentary TV footage had to get the MP's permission was the pettiest of the lot, and is now under review by the Standing Orders Committee.

But National warned the truce might not last if that committee did not address the issue of the use of the footage.

It has at least temporarily restored the eudaimonia of the Speaker, who responded with:

"A stand-off between the leader of a major party and the Speaker is not healthy and I'm pleased it has been resolved."