Labour MPs apologise for swearing at acting PM David Seymour

Labour MP Deborah Russell has apologised for swearing at acting Prime Minister David Seymour to kick off a tetchy select committee hearing.

Seymour, who is acting PM while Christopher Luxon is travelling to China, today fronted the finance and expenditure select committee so members could scrutinise the budget for his new Ministry of Regulation as part of Parliament’s scrutiny week.

During Seymour’s brief initial remarks to committee members, Russell and fellow Labour MP Megan Woods could be heard conversing.

After Seymour had concluded, National MP Ryan Hamilton alerted committee chairman and National MP Cameron Brewer to a “rather unparliamentary outburst” from Russell during the minister’s comments and claimed he wanted to check whether that indicated the standard of committee behaviour.

Brewer seemed happy to move on after noting any such behaviour would warrant the application of Parliament’s rules called Standing Orders.

However, Seymour quickly piped up, asking Russell what she had said.

“It’s something I should have kept under my breath,” Russell responded.

“Well, just tell, people would like to know,” Seymour replied.

“I believe I said, ‘For f**** sake’ in response to something you said,” Russell said bluntly, to which Seymour chuckled.

“That’s the standard of the Labour Party, they’re swearing already,” he proclaimed with a grin.

Acting PM David Seymour was in select committee this morning. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Russell confirmed to Brewer she had withdrawn the comment and apologised.

Labour MP Duncan Webb appeared to follow Russell’s example, claiming later in the committee meeting Seymour was “making s*** up”.

Webb questioned Seymour about his comments around the Ministry of Regulation’s work around flour dust standards.

Webb wasn’t happy with Seymour’s comments, accusing him of conflating Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment advice with a change in regulations.

“Time and again, you [Seymour] have suggested that you have changed the rules ... do you want to correct that, or are you going to keep saying things which are not accurate?”

As Seymour was answering, he was cut off by Webb who told him he was, “making s*** up”.

When challenged, Webb said he was “not here to answer your [Seymour’s] questions”, before apologising for swearing.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Seymour said Labour’s MPs were “clearly very angry about something”.

“I haven’t seen MPs casually and angrily swearing in a select committee like that, not once but twice.

“I don’t know what is angering them, but it would seem to me that they need to get their heads back in the game.”

It wasn’t the only political tension from the morning’s select committee.

Green MP Francisco Hernandez arrived at Parliament’s Bowen House wheeling a trolley of boxes containing “25,000 pages of Yellow Tape” - a nod to Seymour’s repeated claim his ministry was designed to reduce ineffective and restrictive regulation.

Unfortunately for Hernandez, the trolley didn’t make it into the select committee room. He instead carried one box in with him that he kept at his feet.

Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.