November 9 2021
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the messages from anti-vaxxers or protesters marching to parliament today did not represent the majority of New Zealanders.
Many Auckland MPs made a long-awaited return the house on Tuesday after Speaker Trevor Mallard dropped a requirement that any MP travelling from a level 3 area isolate for five days before going to Parliament.
For many National MPs, it was a case of be careful what you wish for.They walked into the firestorm of an assumed coup to topple incumbent leader Judith Collins.
The likely challenger, former leader Simon Bridges did nothing to quell speculation, twice refusing to confirm whether he believed Collins would make it to January as leader.
"I support Judith Collins as the leader," Bridges said, when asked the first time.
"Judith Collins is the leader of the National Party and I support her as leader," Bridges said, when asked the second time, using a fairly standard formulation for someone who is planning a possible coup.
Perhaps the most significant development in the slow rumbling coup to displace Collins was the fact Simeon Brown, once assumed to be a close Collins ally, appears to have been approached by coup organisers.
Asked whether he had been approached by other MPs to swing his support behind another leader, Brown said, "look, what we're focused on is holding the Government to account for the decisions they've made in Auckland in the last 12 weeks".
Brown did however say Collins still enjoyed his full confidence.
Fellow MP Mark Mitchell also failed to give a full-throated endorsement of Collins when he arrived at Parliament, saying he wouldn't be drawn on who out of Bridges and Collins made a better leader.
"I'm not going to get drawn on that conversation," Mitchell said.
"Judith's now leader and I'm loyal to the leader," he said.
Mitchell didn't even give an answer to whether he thought Simon had "the numbers" to roll Collins, a question MPs usually answer with a simple "no".
Protest
But a coup was not to be, and Collins remained leader after Tuesday's caucus meeting.
In fact the only attempt to depose any leader made on Tuesday was a coup of a more traditional kind: It came in the form of thousands of anti-vaccination, anti-government, anti-colonisation, anti-three waters - anti-well, anything, which descended on Parliament just before lunch time.
The protesters held aloft signs calling for just about everything, and had held what one could euphemistically describe as a range of views about everything from the extent to which Jacinda Ardern's government is essentially a foreign-controlled puppet administration to more conventional conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccine.
Protesters yelled obscenities at Parliament, but the half-dozen spoken to by this journalist were kind kanohi ki te kanohi, asking this journalist if he was hot in the unseasonably warm Wellington weather (the city is usually besieged with wind and rain this time of year).
One compared the protest favourably with movements to halt the Rogernomics reforms of the 1980s. He'd worked in the railway then, and the reforms upended his life.
National Party MP Simon Bridges has been busy in his time out of the leadership. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
He said that the protests eventually put a stop to the reforms, and he hoped that the strength of feeling expressed on Parliament's forecourt would lead to a similar outcome.
Another protester came wearing a rare article of clothing: a T-shirt worn by Parliament's infamous cricket team. She said a friend, a former MP, had given it to her.
"I have friends in high places," she joked, adding she was about to lose her job because of her vaccination status
Back to business
Parliament came back to life with a whimper not a bang on Tuesday.
There are still limits on the number of MPs in Parliament. This means while you still get the dull and tumescent oratory, its no longer punctuated by the witty interjections that make Parliament so much fun.
Question Time kicked off with a favourite Government patsy question, with Barbara Edmonds asking what "recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?".
And while most New Zealanders are rightly concerned with getting the pandemic under control in time to salvage a summer holiday, MPs debated the finer points of Todd McClay's grammar.
McClay was asking whether Grant Robertson believed "less than a handful of cases were transmitted in retail settings".
Speaker Trevor Mallard interjected to say that McClay meant to say "Fewer - fewer than a handful".
National MP Simeon Brown is often assumed to be a Collins ally, but has apparently been approached by coup organisers. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
"Pardon Me," McClay replied.
"Fewer than a handful," Mallard repeated.
McClay petitioned to be able to say the question again, which he promptly botched, "Does he still believe that less than a handful of cases were -"
Mallard gave up at this point, urging McClay to "just keep going".
Some minutes later McClay returned to the flub to correct the record saying that "less than" was a direct quote, and therefore Robertson's fault, and therefore not his.
Though this journalist sides with Mallard on the point of grammar, a cursory Google suggests there is no clear consensus.
Bridges appeared happier than Collins to have his Auckland colleagues back in the House, tweeting a photo of friend Paul Goldsmith, along with Mitchell and Brown with the caption "It's good to have these roosters back".
One wonders, if Collins, upon seeing the picture agreed with the sentiment. Though it's not clear she too would describe the cohort as "roosters", one can't rule out a near synonym crossing her mind.
