National's Chris Bishop stands his ground ahead of Berocca video please explain meeting

National leader Judith Collins, flanked by deputy leader Shane Reti, and MP Chris Bishop. Photo / Mark Mitchell

National's shadow leader of the House Chris Bishop is standing his ground in his latest stoush with Speaker Trevor Mallard over a National Party video labelled "misleading".

Bishop will this afternoon be forced to defend his video decision to the privileges committee – a group which acts as Parliament's rule keepers and can dish out punishments.

The video was posted on National's social media pages last week but was subsequently removed after an order from Mallard.

Mallard also ordered Bishop to appear before the privileges committee to explain himself.

The video showed new Labour MP Anna Lorck making a speech in the house, where she was talking up Berocca and other supplements.

National's video edited the footage so it looked as if it was an infomercial for Berocca – complete with a fake "buy now for $19.00" tag in the corner of the frame.

According to Parliament's rules, mis-editing parliamentary TV video for political ads is not allowed if it distorts the context.

But Bishop said the editing of the video was not misleading and, as such, it should not have been taken down.

And he seemed confident of his chances in the committee when speaking to reporters this morning.

"I hope you have all had some Berocca this morning," he said before answering questions.
His defence of the video was that it did not distort the context of the Lorck's speech.

In the past, problems have arisen when an MP in the House has been taken out of context by misleading editing, which made them appear to be saying something they were not.

But Bishop said in National's Lorck video, the party made it very clear where the cuts were and the context of what the MP was saying was not distorted.

"Our view is it's not misleading."

Bishop said he was not clear who made the initial complaint, but it is understood there have been several complaints made about the minute-long video.