Paula Bennett, then Minister for Social Development, tells Labour MP Jacinda Ardern to 'zip it, sweetie' during Question Time in Parliament, November 2012.
Photo / Sky News
Paula Bennett, then Minister for Social Development, tells Labour MP Jacinda Ardern to 'zip it, sweetie' during Question Time in Parliament, November 2012.
Photo / Sky News
Opinion by Paula Bennett
Former deputy prime minister and Herald on Sunday columnist
At times there is nothing worse than a man believing he needs to stick up for you because you are incapable of sticking up for yourself. That’s what happened to Jacinda Ardern many years ago in Parliament.
My (now largely forgotten-about) quip “zip it, sweetie” won the Quote ofthe Year Competition in 2012, but it wouldn’t have if Trevor Mallard hadn’t stood in defence of Ardern.
Ardern was then in Opposition and I was Minister of Social Development. Ardern was asking me, at question time in Parliament, about young people in boot camps.
She would question me regularly. She would ask her question, plop herself dramatically back in her seat, and then proceed to shout at me as she didn’t like my answer.
Now before I go on, I think this needs more context. Parliament Question Time can be about theatre at times. Often it is serious (as it should be) but it is a debating chamber and is purposefully set up with opposing sides facing each other to duel it out. The distance between where the Government and Opposition sit is 2.5 sword lengths, as in the old days they wanted to stop them from stabbing each other.
The debating chamber in Parliament.
Before I became an MP I found the behaviour of shouting at each other and side quips to be childish and demeaning of Parliament. When I became an MP I believed my behaviour would be better than what I had witnessed. It wasn’t. There is something about the adrenaline of being in there. You want to win the moment, win the day. It doesn’t matter much to the public but it is about morale and momentum.
You definitely don’t want to blow it. We all make mistakes, we all have better days than others but, if you lose confidence in the debating chamber, you could lose your job. Think Clare Curran.
There is drama and there is theatre and some do it better than others. My description of Ardern asking questions was not a criticism but an observation. So, she is shouting at me, so are others and the House is really noisy. In the middle of answering and with a lot of noise in the House I said, “Zip it, sweetie” and kept talking.
The Speaker didn’t hear it and this would not have been picked up, in fact barely anyone heard it and it certainly didn’t register as a moment (even with me) until Mallard jumped to Ardern’s defence. Mallard insisted that it was “exceptionally offensive”, his stance being that I was picking on her because she was young.
To be fair Ardern laughed it off and looked more miffed with Mallard for drawing attention to it. I went on to have a wine label called “Sip it sweetie”. T-shirts were made and even a coffee cup with the quip and when asked about it, Ardern laughed and said she hadn’t been sent a bottle of the wine.
So, thanks Trevor. I finally won a competition and to this day I still have people telling me to “zip it, sweetie”.
Paula Bennett is a former Deputy Prime Minister and National Party politician who now works at Bayleys Real Estate as national director-customer engagement.
Hear more from Paula on her podcast with the NZ Herald - Ask Me Anything!
