Government loses control of House

Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, March 23rd, 2010 - 51 comments
Categories: Parliament, Politics - Tags: ,

Oh dear, what a complete stuff up by Gerry Brownlee in the House just now.

In Question Time, Steven Joyce’s academic record was raised in relation to the restrictions he know wants to put on students who fail papers at Minister of Tertairy Education.

At the end of question time, Mallard asked for leave to have a debate without notice congratulating Joyce on getting his degree conferred 21 years after leaving uni. To everyone’s surprise, Brownlee failed to object.

Mallard could hardly believe his luck. He’s just spent ten minutes eating up the government’s legislative time, making up a speech as he goes along. He went through Joyce’s ‘did not completes’ one by one , very funny.

Brownlee’s so mad, but he only has himself to blame.

Now, Darren Hughes is having his turn.

Update: The debate has been called to a close now. How embarrassing that was for Brownlee, especially as John Carter was the one trying to save the day. Brownlee must be feeling the pressure from the mining plan. What a bad look for National’s parliamentary management.

Update 2: Video of part one below. Other parts here.

51 comments on “Government loses control of House ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    23 March 2010 at 3:33 pm

    It is very funny. The tories by the looks on their faces are ropeable.

  2. marty mars 2
    23 March 2010 at 3:36 pm

    go you good things!!!

    brownlee will crack – just keep increasing the pressure

  3. Gweg Presland 3
    23 March 2010 at 3:38 pm

    Haw haw this must be why the public love politicians so much… erk

    [this handle and other one you’ve used are uncomfortably close to a real person’s name. It looks like you’re trying to pass for them or mock them. Please choose a different name. And also please settle one a single one, not seven. I like madnessinc myself 🙂 . Marty]

  4. BLiP 4
    23 March 2010 at 3:41 pm

    What a glorious way to show the utter hypocrisy of yet another National Ltdâ„¢ minister. Stephen Leonard Joyce, Minister of Everything Including Tertiary Education is proposed legislation to limit education in universities for students who bounce between courses and/or take longer than some arbitrarily prescribe time frame to complete their studies yet, himself, took 21 years to get his degree out of Massey!!

    Bit like Basher Bennett who scratched and clawed her way up from the DPB via the Training Incentive Allowance and then, within months of entering parliament, removes the very same entitlement!!

    Such are the hollow natures of those that squat upon our treasury benches.

  5. mcflock 5
    23 March 2010 at 3:48 pm

    “Such are the hollow natures of those that squat upon our treasury benches.”

    … in which there are holes for government policy to fall gently upon the populace.

  6. crib 6
    23 March 2010 at 4:03 pm

    brilliant, for anyone who didnt see, the videos up on inthehouse.co.nz

    http://inthehouse.co.nz/node/1706

  7. Olwyn 7
    23 March 2010 at 4:40 pm

    Brilliant! Thanks for the links crib.

  8. tc 8
    23 March 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Hope it makes the TV news where the swinging voters get their direction from and not just as a puff piece but focusing on the tertiary education minister taking 21yrs to complete a degree…..BTW what education level did Tolley get to ?

    • Bright Red 8.1
      23 March 2010 at 5:08 pm

      I believe she said she went to the university of life.

    • BLiP 8.2
      23 March 2010 at 10:48 pm

      Basher has apparently got some sort of “degree in social policy” (she doesn’t specify on her site) from Massey. She promptly corrupted her Training Incentive Allowance education by joining the ranks of that most insidious of all branches of management – Human Resources – which operates from the premise that, in fact, humans beings are resources just like piles of sand in a cement factory, and should be treated as such.

  9. Tim Spense 9
    23 March 2010 at 4:47 pm

    I wonder when labour are going to come up with policy on anything so that can be debated but I suspect they are very hollow at present

  10. Brett Dale 10
    23 March 2010 at 4:54 pm

    If a National MP did this to a Labour MP, everybody would be screaming thw word, “BULLIES”
    Heck if a white National MP did this to a Maori MP, there would be heck to pay.

    But I guess you guys are okay with it, the other way around.

    • Bright Red 10.1
      23 March 2010 at 5:10 pm

      calm down Brett. It’s not about the content of the debate. It’s about the Government – Brownlee in this case – being so useless as to let so much time of their legislative time be wasted.

    • BLiP 10.2
      23 March 2010 at 5:13 pm

      What’s race got to do with this issue, Brett?

    • felix 10.3
      23 March 2010 at 5:43 pm

      Brett doesn’t see race. But he’s absolutely sure that everyone else is obsessed with it.

      • Lew 10.3.1
        23 March 2010 at 10:55 pm

        It’s like dark matter.

        He can’t see it, but he knows it’s there, and so he has to guess where it is. And so he guesses … everywhere!

        Sure hasn’t got a Large Hadron Collider on his shoulders, that’s the problem.

        L

    • Rob 10.4
      24 March 2010 at 7:53 am

      @Brett

      You seem to be implying people have double standards.

      This shows a debate of wit which had long since left the house. And if National did it, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as clever or amusing unless Melissa Lee lead the charge.

  11. Joshua 11
    23 March 2010 at 4:58 pm

    Nothing to see here, the vast majority of this country doesn’t give a c@@p what the politicians get up to in the house – and as for academic qualifications – we care even less for those!!! A degree means bugger all out in the provinces or the suburbs where respect is earned by the amount of bales you can pack away in an afternoon or your ability to bring home enough money to pay for the bills.

    What people will see is Government Ministers being ridiculed for not having university degrees, or taking a long time to get them – how do you think that is going to make the average person feel?

    • Bright Red 11.1
      23 March 2010 at 5:13 pm

      They’ll see a government so useless that it can’t even use its limited time in the house correctly but then uses expensive Urgency to catch up.

    • Rich 11.2
      23 March 2010 at 5:31 pm

      A degree means bugger all out in the provinces or the suburbs where we’re proud to be stupid. Thick is good. We’re so thick we voted National. We need to change the education system so that we get more dumb people out who can lift heavy things. Look at Paula Bennett – thick as shit on a frosty day in Hamilton – we love her!

      • Joshua 11.2.1
        23 March 2010 at 5:47 pm

        No degree does not equal stupidity – instead a different type of intelligence is respected. I have two degrees, both of which mean absolutely nothing when I go home to the provinces. You do not need a university degree to be intelligent – i daresay there are a lot of dumb, but rich, people who have university degrees.

      • lprent 11.2.2
        23 March 2010 at 6:00 pm

        My enduring memory of Hamilton was the thick all day fogs in winter…. Can’t remember the frosts..

    • Jum 11.3
      23 March 2010 at 6:43 pm

      I guess I’m average. I thought it was priceless.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 11.4
      23 March 2010 at 6:49 pm

      Its not ‘a’ Minister.
      Hes the Minister for Tertiary Education .
      And just last week he saying policy will be changed to give tardy students the boot !!

    • Lew 11.5
      23 March 2010 at 10:58 pm

      You don’t think the Minister of Tertiary Education might be the one bloke you’d want to have a good academic record?

      L

      • Joshua 11.5.1
        24 March 2010 at 9:09 am

        Maybe, but then I guess you would want the Minister of Finance to have a finance background and not be a former history professor …

        Just saying, that it is not the qualifications or background that makes a good Minister – Cullen proved that to be a successful finance Minister you do not need to be from the finance industry.

        Go a bit wider and you see that some of the most successful people do not have great academic records – it means little to be a straight A student.

  12. tc 12
    23 March 2010 at 4:59 pm

    No need tim, plenty to debate as an opposition which’s what we pay them to do.

  13. JD 13
    23 March 2010 at 5:30 pm

    There is a difference between taking 21 years to get a degree in between building a media empire and becoming a govnt minister and someone who takes 5 years to complete a BA intermittently between blazing up and burning couches. If posters here are unable to distinguish the difference then their 5 year BA’s were for nothing.

    And so what if someone doesn’t have a degree. I have two but it would be churlish to think people who didn’t go to university are naturally stupid as some here would suggest.

    • Bright Red 13.1
      23 March 2010 at 5:33 pm

      stop crying, jd. no-one is making fun of people who don’t have degrees. The funny thing is Brownlee’s failure to carry out simple tasks to organise the running of the House.

      of course Mallard had some fun at Joyce’s expense but it was just personal ribbing to use up the time that Brownlee had gifted them.

      • felix 13.1.1
        23 March 2010 at 5:47 pm

        Joyce seemed to have a pretty good sense of humour about it all, unlike JD.

        Then again, Joyce is a smart guy. Imagine having two degrees and still not be able to work out what this blog post was about.

  14. Brett Dale 14
    23 March 2010 at 5:43 pm

    Blip:

    It would of been made into one, if it had of been a national MP doing it to a Maori MP.

    • felix 14.1
      23 March 2010 at 5:48 pm

      You do realise this is all happening in your head, don’t you Brett?

    • The Voice of Reason 14.2
      23 March 2010 at 6:38 pm

      National are doing it to Maori Party MP’s day in and day out, Brett. They’ve been rogered that regularly, Sharples thinks a kick in the arse is foreplay.

      And as this a post devoted to education, it’s ‘had been’, not ‘had of been’.

    • BLiP 14.3
      23 March 2010 at 7:00 pm

      So, your contribution to the discussion is to ignore the issue, create an imaginary race-bashing scenario and then discuss that! Brilliant. Watch Fox News much?

  15. Steve 15
    23 March 2010 at 5:48 pm

    What a foamer

  16. JD 16
    23 March 2010 at 5:53 pm

    No sense of humour and over-educated. Maybe the Labour party really is my true spiritual home?

  17. Anne 17
    23 March 2010 at 6:18 pm

    That is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. No sense of humour those Nats. Sullen and pouting like a bunch of spoiled brats used to getting their own way. At least Joyce himself recognised it as a non-malicious send up and showed some animation.

  18. Kiwiteen123 18
    23 March 2010 at 6:33 pm

    I’m under the impression that Brownlee was willing to debate the motion not just whatever Mallard wanted.

    [just thought I would let this one through because it’s so funny. Yeah, KT, Brownlee really wanted to spend legislative time talking about Joyce’s degree. That’s why none of the Nats contributed to the debate and tried to end it as soon as possible. Marty]

  19. I dreamed a dream 19
    23 March 2010 at 6:38 pm

    This is SO FUNNY! Even Joyce himself seems to have a sense of humour. It wouldn’t surprise me if Joyce and Mallard were to catch up over a beer and have a good laugh over it!

    But that Brownlee chap, he needs to loosen up a bit. Too serious — maybe too stressed from mining.

  20. Jum 20
    23 March 2010 at 6:49 pm

    I sense you didn’t notice Joyce in an off moment. He had the same little round black eyes that Key has when he’s been caught out.

    I guess this is one up on the skit in parliament at end of year when Brownlee was offered a tramping position – all he needed was his boots. Great fun.

    Labour were great about it. At back benchers they were very laid back.

    Nothing laid back about Brownlee and Carter and Joyce however – just your average sharks in the water.

  21. Brett Dale 21
    23 March 2010 at 7:18 pm

    BLIP:

    No, I dont watch Faux.

    • BLiP 21.1
      23 March 2010 at 10:21 pm

      In that case, how on Earth did the irrelevant and imaginary situation of racism pop into your tiny, pointy, big-eared head? You might as well have said: there would’ve been an uproar if ACT started throwing dwarves around the House.

  22. freedom 22
    23 March 2010 at 7:28 pm

    i thought they would have brought up the liitle detail that it took the Speaker twelve years to get his PHD in Animal Husbandary
    but i guess that would have been counter productive in the long haul to come

    • Marty G 22.1
      23 March 2010 at 7:37 pm

      mallard made a reference didn’t he? Something about learning about the inside of cow’s stomachs?

      • BLiP 22.1.1
        23 March 2010 at 7:49 pm

        heh! that was the best bit of his speech – Mallard, of course, was actually referring to the end product of bovine digestion and the how the understanding of such brings a certain cognitive realisation when dealing with National Ltdâ„¢.

      • freedom 22.1.2
        23 March 2010 at 11:14 pm

        something along the lines of ‘ you didn’t get your Doctorate at Massey did you Mr Speaker’
        and i was sure he was going to throw it in there but he thought better of it i reckon

  23. Dan 23
    23 March 2010 at 8:15 pm

    Isn’t humour so uplifting! Hughes has elements of Lange today. Joyce, give him his due, rolled with the punches, whereas Brownlee did a runner.
    I would leave Lockwood alone for the immediate future. He is doing a conscientious job as speaker.
    His nine year study of the functions of the four stomachs of a cow is irrelevant.
    Keep it up Trevor. I might forgive you for your stuff ups as Minister.

  24. Mac1 24
    23 March 2010 at 10:24 pm

    Dan, I thought Lockwood’s double take as he realised that Mallard’s motion would succeed was priceless. Hughes was magnificently ebullient, as you say elements of Lange, with his Janus-like good humour and protestations of honouring and celebrating Joyce.

    And Trevor, seeing his evident delight as he realised that he had ten minutes ahead of ribbing and roasting of Joyce and Brownlee, shared by the faces of the Whips and others in the background.

    And watching Carter in a point of order saying that congratulating Joyce was a narrow debate….. I can hear Lange’s appreciation of the irony of that.

    You couldn’t write the script.

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