A photo of government ministers grovelling to the Opposition, begging not to be shanked
Labour reckons they weren’t hoodwinked by National…
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is describing confusion over [Tuesday’s] election of a new speaker “a minor irritation”.
The 52nd Parliament got off to a rocky start, with the National Party appearing to have hoodwinked Labour on the coalition’s first day.
After MPs were sworn in, a hasty deal was struck between National and Labour on the floor of the House when Labour did not appear to muster a majority to have its MP Trevor Mallard elected as Speaker.
National had questioned whether Labour had the numbers in the house to get Mr Mallard elected.
After a quick consultation between party whips and senior MPs, Labour agreed to increase the number of select committee positions from 96 to 108.
In fact Labour did have the majority it needed, but fell for National’s bluff.
Five government MPs and one National MP were absent from Parliament as MPs were sworn in this morning. This means 55 National MPs and David Seymour for ACT were present; versus 58 for the coalition.
Two of the absent MPs, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Trade Minister David Parker, are out of the country attending the APEC meeting.
Ms Ardern insisted Labour knew it had the numbers, but did not want to force a vote.
“It tends to be a tradition that you’d prefer to have all parties supporting the speaker and we didn’t want to have to ask the speaker to have to vote for himself.
“Look, that issue could have been issued in [the] Business Committee, it was resolved there [it was] a minor irritation, it’s not going to stop the business of this government.”
Ms Ardern rejected the notion that the government had fallen for National’s bluff.
Oh, so you weren’t hoodwinked? Good to know.
That just means that Labour are stupid and can’t count. Thanks Jacinda for confirming that.
One more question…why did the cat have to die then?