Beehive Diaries: PM judges his sporting pedigree, Parliament’s Dolly Parton farewell and outgoing MP finds unlikely ally

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has given a frank assessment of his sporting ability in his youth. Photo / Mark Mitchell

As his fight to stay Prime Minister rumbles on, Chris Hipkins has seemingly ruled out pursuing a career in football with a frank assessment of his ability in his younger days.

“I was a hopeless soccer player. I was the one on the side looking at the daisies while everybody else played,” Hipkins remarked, speaking at the Labour Māori caucus campaign launch in Auckland last weekend.

While he is known to be a sports fan, a close associate of Hipkins has given Beehive Diaries an updated assessment of the Prime Minister’s sporting prowess.

It’s understood Hipkins was once a member of a trophy-winning indoor netball team, but his teammates’ greater shooting and rebounding ability saw Hipkins play most often as a centre, where he was reportedly an “enthusiastic” runner.

Stilted rugby league banter with Aussie PM Anthony Albanese last month was enough to reveal Hipkins’ shortcomings in this area off the pitch or court.

He’ll need to swot up quick - the All Blacks play France in the World Cup opener in two weeks - while the mighty Warriors look odds-on to secure their first home playoff in 15 years.

Ill-informed reckons on the outcomes of both could be critical to his re-election hopes.

National MP plays jobseeker for outgoing Labour MP, temporarily deafens colleague

Resigning Labour MP Stuart Nash needn’t worry about his future job prospects with National’s Andrew Bayly in his corner, advocating for Nash to become the proposed Water Services Commissioner.

The commissioner’s role forms part of the Government’s intended water reforms and under the proposed legislation, the commissioner would need prior experience in water services or other industries.

National MP Andrew Bayly is renowned for giving quite emphatic speeches in the House. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Bayly took issue with there being no requirement for water services experience and in a speech during the second reading of the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Bill, he made his case for Nash’s appointment in his traditionally emphatic speaking style.

“That means you could be a politician like Mr Nash, who’s just joined us. When he leaves here, he could be a commissioner because he’s got experience in other stuff,” Bayly exclaimed.

“Mr Nash, he’s got experience in commerce, he’s got experience in economics ... I reckon Mr Nash should be the next water commissioner because he doesn’t have to have experience in the water services industry ... that’s how ridiculous this is.”

Bayly was so impassioned in his support of Nash that fellow National MP Melissa Lee joked she’d been left “half-deaf” after sitting beside Bayly during his speech.

Lee has confirmed to Beehive Diaries that her hearing has recovered and she wouldn’t be shying away from sitting close to Bayly again, calling his enthusiasm “infectious”.

Dolly Parton makes surprise appearance in MP’s final remarks

It’s been a week of valedictory statements at Parliament, with the likes of Todd Muller, Eugenie Sage, Poto Williams and Jan Logie bowing out.

Most valedictories end with a waiata in te reo Māori.

Logie somewhat broke the mould. As her valedictory ended, her supporters in the gallery rose to their feet and belted out 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton.

Labour and National MPs in the chamber didn’t know what had hit them. Andrew Little’s jaw dropped in awe.

According to a Greens staffer, Logie is quite the fan of Parton’s “worker’s anthem”, which makes several references to working under subpar bosses.

The staffer strenuously assured Beehive Diaries that Logie’s song choice was not a veiled comment on the ability of party co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson.

Logie confirmed this herself, revealing sections of the song were taken out to avoid people reaching that very conclusion.

Green MP Jan Logie was bidding farewell to Parliament earlier this week.

Chris of the Week

Labour’s worst result in six years of TVNZ polling on Monday should have been enough to secure National’s Christopher Luxon this week’s honours.

However, it was Hipkins who could sit back and enjoy Luxon dealing with one MP getting the hump because of his list ranking, and another getting stripped of his portfolios for displaying threatening behaviour towards a Labour MP - two things distracting the National leader from talking about his shiny new health policy.

It’s a timely reminder that not only Labour MPs can get themselves into strife and the reason Hipkins narrowly wins this week.

Transport Minister evades Green MP’s emissions-seeking missile

Green Party transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter had a probing question for Transport Minister David Parker in Question Time this week.

“Had he done a climate assessment of the Government’s new transport policy, which includes the building of several emissions-inducing roads?”

Climate assessments of Cabinet papers were brought in under the last Government to force officials to measure the emissions impacts of government decisions.

Parker was surely on the ropes - the Government’s road-heavy transport announcement will certainly increase emissions.

But he replied that no emissions assessment had been undertaken as the policy was only a draft, with an emissions assessment only for the final document.

“As was the case with the draft GPS released in 2021 by, amongst others, the then Associate Minister of Transport, no climate change impact assessment is done at the time of the draft; it’s actually done at the time when individual projects are committed to,” Parker said.

And who was the Associate Minister of Transport at the time? None other than Julie Anne Genter.