Wallace's blog: MPs join us en masse (Sept 25)
A quarter of NZ Parliament at Wednesday nights show.
Aside from a few technical's, it was a pretty awesome Wednesday night at the show. One unique aspect about it is that you couldn't move for Members of Parliament in the audience. We usually have a few pop over but as David Farrar points out, a quarter of Parliament were at the show.
"If the Speaker had turned up, they could have probably convened a session and passed some laws!" - writes Farrar on a post about Back benches. It transpired that The House ended up finishing early so they all popped across for a pint and join in the malark.
Some of the 32 MP's in the audience included Aaron Gilmore, Kate Wilkinson, Chester Borrows, Shane Jones, David Cunliffe, Stuart Nash, Carmel Sepuloni, Winnie Laban, Todd McClay, Clayton Cosgrove, Louise Upston, Hone Harawira, Ian Lees-Galloway, Sir Roger Douglas, and David Garrett. And it was great to have Sam Lotu-Inga and Damien O Connor on for the first time.
Not that a pub full of MPs makes for a great evening. It doesn't - but what is intriguing was the gathering of the tribes in one place at one time sharing a pint and ribbing each other. As Will Fussey wrote on kiwiblog - "I can't imagine parliamentarians and party members from a mixture of parties intermingling in such a way in most other countries! Politicians are just people and some of them bloody fantastic people at that. Of course then there are others whose beers I'd be tempted to spit into! Very enjoyable."
It was a raucous rowdy night, but had moments of real natural humour from the MPs. Keith Locke was a star on the panel - saying that given the Governments commitment to literacy it's a given that Wanganui should be spelt with an H. And Shane Jones mentioned something to the effect that if Michael Laws continued being the mayor of Wanganui maybe we change it to 'Wankanui.' Huge uproar on that little number.
But I'll quote a chunk of David Farrar 's Kiwiblog post, because he does well in summing up the vibe of Wednesday night.
" The absolute most hilarious part of the night (in fact of the series) came from Hone Harawira (who was in the audience). Wallace had asked the four panellists about should there be an H in Wanganui. After the panellist had their say (and one funny answer was that the Government should agree to the decision to include the H as it is promoting literacy standards in schools and that includes correct spelling).
Anyway Wallace then asked some of those in the audience, and eventually Hone Harawira, who was standing next to Shane Jones. Hone's response was:
Well my mate Jonesy just told me that spelling Wanganui without an H is like spelling Cunliffe without a T.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the place went into hysterics. I'm not sure but I think the Labour MPs may have been laughing even harder than the National MPs. I'd say it took almost a minute before Wallace could carry on with the show.
The quip about poor old David Cunliffe having a silent T in his name is not a new one. It first originated around nine years ago when he became an MP, and legend credits it to one of his colleagues. But what was unique about this situation was:
1. It was the first time someone had used the quip on live
nationwide television
2. It was also the first time someone had used it in front of DC
himself. Yes he was one of the 32 or so MPs in the pub audience
Wallace of course then went into the audience to ask DC for a comment, and he did take it all in good humour. "
On another note, it comes as something of a shock to hear about Sue Bradford's resignation from Parliament. You may or may not like her politics, but Sue's principles are genuine. I think she will be really missed. More about that on another post.
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