Beehive Diaries: Chris Hipkins joins Maureen Pugh in the reading room after blunder, and what happened to Jacinda Ardern’s whisky stash

PM Chris Hipkins joins National MP Maureen Pugh in the reading room:

On Tuesday, National’s leader Christopher Luxon said he was sending his MP Maureen Pugh off to the reading room to study up on the causes of climate change after she said she was waiting for evidence it was human-induced.

On Wednesday, Hipkins joined her. He made a blunder in his first Question Time as Prime Minister – telling Act Party leader David Seymour that the amount of tax the Government raked in as a proportion of the size of the economy had shrunk since 2017. It had not. It had grown slightly.

So the next day Hipkins fessed up to being wrong – and made a futile attempt to convince people the fault was on David Seymour’s side for asking questions Hipkins couldn’t answer.

“I’ll own it. I wasn’t perhaps as well-prepared for a pop quiz on the Government’s numbers as I should have been. I’ll make sure I’m better prepared next time.” He said he’d be boning up on the books to ensure he was better prepared before Parliament returned after a week’s recess.

His predecessor may well have a quiet smile on her face now he’s discovered the job isn’t quite as easy as he thought he’d made it look up till then.

A correction:

The Countdown to a Bombshell article on nzherald.co.nz last Friday detailing events leading up to former PM Jacinda Ardern’s resignation stated her office staff drowned their sorrows with four bottles of whisky on the day she announced her resignation.

Evidence has since emerged that it was actually six bottles of whisky (including a “mid-range” Glenlivet and an Arran single malt from Ardern’s personal stash), two buckets of wings from KFC and two large pots of potato and gravy.

The author regrets the error.

Grant Robertson, Cyclone Tzar:

Finance Minister Grant Robertson may have thought life would be a bit easier after the change of leadership saw him drop from being Deputy Prime Minister and drop the Infrastructure portfolio he once held. Alas, Cyclone Gabrielle had other ideas. It meant of all the senior ministers, Robertson had the lightest load (on paper at least) when it came to deciding who would be Cyclone Recovery Minister.

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At least he had the treat of hosting his long-time socialist hero, singer Billy Bragg, for a tour of Parliament and dinner over a Thai curry. He told Beehive Diaries they had some contact during Covid-19, so he had Bragg’s details.

Robertson admitted being a Bragg fan since he was a student in the 1980s – and had remained such a fan he had bought tickets for both the Saturday and Sunday night concerts. He had to pull out of the Sunday because of cyclone duties (a visit to Hawke’s Bay to inspect the damage).