Beehive Diaries: Census’ extra-marital affair, dancing queens and who won Chris of the week?

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins chows down on a pie from his favourite shop from the Hutt. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion:

The mystery extra-marital affair in the Census

Act MP Damien Smith has got to the bottom of a mystery in the Census: the person apparently having an extra-marital affair on the Census letter.

The cartoon pictures on the Census instructions sheet showed a two-adult, two-child household. On Census night, one of the adults left for a trip and, in their absence, another adult arrived.

In the final scene, the new person was shown holding hands at the table with the remaining adult.

Smith asked Statistics Minister Deborah Russell whether it was a deliberate choice to depict an extra-marital affair – and was told it was a formatting issue rather than a salacious Census night drama. Russell’s reply said the same cartoon ran in the 2018 Census letter, but vertically down the page. It had to be re-sized to run horizontally this time round.

“Unfortunately, re-sizing of the image made the stick figures appear to be holding hands.”

Dancing queens:

PM Chris Hipkins added himself to the chronicles of politicians’ dancing at Pasifika last weekend with his rendition of the awkward palagi-sway-and-wave.

Previous entrants include Sir John Key, who did the woman’s part of a dance on his visit to Niue in 2009, and followed it up with an abysmal effort at Big Gay Out later in the same year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQcISky549A.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' first visit to Polyfest. Photo / Brenda Leasi

Former Labour leader Andrew Little tried out Gangnam Style in Parliament. Simon Bridges’ enthusiasm made up for the lack of skill in his go at a Cook Islands dance at a National Party conference. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/cook-islands-dancing-at-national-party-conference/JX27NGKX25TXRZ2VC4H6CYBHQE/ although Alfred Ngaro did it much much better. David Seymour did something that was supposed to be dancing on Dancing with the Stars.

The unusual chicken-duck polka by Trevor Mallard and Pete Hodgson in 2006 remains the epitome of the genre. Truly awful.

Chris of the Week:

The two Chris’s went back to basics this week, one personally and the other politically as the pair took their battle to the playground.

Hipkins, keen to move on from his Stuart Nash-sized headache, named Hutt neighbour Ginny Andersen as the next Police Minister. Unfortunately for the PM, Andersen became mired in a pie plunder - a scandal Hipkins could have easily avoided had he offered to shout Andersen her steak and kidney pie.

Hipkins was given the celebrity treatment during his visit to his alma mater, Waterloo Primary School, but appeared to value healthy eating over honesty when he claimed his favourite food was pasta instead of the expected answer of sausage rolls. His affinity for pastry was only reinforced when he chose a steak and cheese pie for lunch. Peer-pressured into a bite on camera by the press pack, Hipkins avoided an embarrassing spill down his front and managed to escape to safety with a Coke No Sugar in hand.

Hipkins and Luxon went back to school this week. Photo / Rod Emmerson

Luxon, on the other hand, emerged from seven days in Covid-19 (and political) isolation with a brand-new education policy that was back to basics and, somewhat, back to National Standards. While he appeared fresh-faced, Luxon’s visit to Silverstream Primary School indicated he may be suffering from a bit of brain fog when he referred to pupils’ classmates as “colleagues” and incorrectly named Australian comedy duo Hamish and Andy, as “Hamish and Angus”. His choice not to participate in musical exercise programme Jump Jam’s Who Let the Dogs Out may point to Luxon’s reluctance to develop long Covid.

But new policy is new policy, all while battling the after-effects of a gnarly virus, so the National leader takes the cake.

Luxon: 6

Hipkins: 5