The days of National dick waving

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, November 7th, 2017 - 28 comments
Categories: accountability, Gerry Brownlee, national, Parliament, Politics, same old national - Tags: ,

The spin that National are running is that they are unhappy with the move to reduce the numbers and size of the select committees and that their dick size opposition party is the largest.

Unfortunately for their story it is exactly the same proposal that was recommended by the standing orders committee and that their representatives were happy about last term.

Their argument is that it never envisaged an opposition party as large as their one. WTF?

Really? Are the National caucus dominated by teenage boys doing pissing contests or are they merely trying to compare dick sizes at the pool?

Basically parliament cares about government support.

In the last parliament (the 51st) at dissolution there were 63 government supporting members and 58 in opposition for a total of 121 members. There was a single overhang caused by one of National’s client parties votes.

In this parliament (the 52nd) , there are 63 government supporting members and 57 opposition and no overhang.

Despite all of the opposition being lumped into a single party rather than 3 different parties this time around, there is no effective difference between when that recommendation was made and now. National in their usual inarticulate mumblings have merely whined that their dicks are bigger (oops) that their party is the largest in parliament and that somehow that makes a difference.

How exactly? Because I can’t see it. The same number of MPs across the house won’t be on select committees as was planned. Bearing in mind the number of new MPs coming in, including on the opposition side, there is a shit-load of learning to go on. You really don’t want too many inexperienced fools new MPs doing their learning on the active parts of parliament.

It isn’t like there isn’t work that they could doing outside. Bearing in mind some of the really stupid gaffes that new MPs are prone to – especially National ones, then I’d suggest that they’d be better off studying standing orders and even going through the new legislation.

If you want more detail on this bit of Brownlee/Bridges stupidity, then read Richard Harmon’s explanation over at Politik “Bridges planning to logjam Parliament“.

National is threatening to exploit Parliamentary rules to run a filibuster which would effectively freeze procedures as it continues to oppose a Labour move to cut back the number of MPs on Select Committees.

National’s Shadow Leader of the House, Simon Bridges,  says the party is ready to carry out its plans tomorrow when the first full sitting of the new Parliament takes place.

However, Labour’s move to cut the committee slots follows a proposal supported by National during the last Parliament to reduce the number of Select Committees from 13 to 12 and a recommendation to reduce the number of MPs on Committees.

Labour’s proposal exactly follows the proposal contained in the review of Standing Orders published last July which was produced by a Committee chaired by the-then Speaker, David Carter and on which National and its support parties had a majority.

But this isn’t the US congress. It is a parliamentary democracy honed out of many generation of dickheads like Simon Bridges waving their dicks around.

Trevor Mallard was one of them, and I seem to remember that he was instrumental in using  similar tactics in that past. Now that he is about to move to the game keeper role.. well read this..

Bridges is, therefore, thretaneing to block that programme.

But he may be misunderstanding the rules of debate on any motion to establish the Select Committees.

The Speaker-elect, Trevor Mallard, one of Parliament’s most experienced Members, told POLITIK that though the debate was unlimited, it could be subject to closure motions if a Member was not introducing any new material into the debate.

“That sort of thing is not the end of the world,” he said.

“It’s a nuisance, but it is subject to closure motions.

“You would have to have people saying new and different things, and I would have thought in that sort of debate after two or three speeches you would have trouble doing that.”

Mallard will be elected Speaker today, and it looks like he will be presiding over a much fractious and confrontational Parliament than the last one.

What this reminds me of is the daft flag debate when similar ineffective maneuvering was, in my opinion, just designed to get John Key a legacy to compensate for the lack of any real work that his government performed. This appears to be another silly political play.

 

28 comments on “The days of National dick waving ”

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  1. Psycho Milt 1
    7 November 2017 at 8:48 am

    If I recall correctly, didn’t John Key deal with Opposition attempts to slow his legislative programme by just pushing lots of it through under urgency? “Fuck the select committees and none of youse is going home until we vote on this shit.” The real John Key, as opposed to the fake one he offered radio DJs, that was. As Mallard says, there’s always ways for a government to beat the opposition.

    • lprent 1.1
      7 November 2017 at 1:19 pm

      He did and did it on several occasions using Brownlee as the tool.

      It was almost the defining parliamentary definition of Brownlee before he got distracted into screwing up the Christchurch patching.

  2. red-blooded 2
    7 November 2017 at 9:14 am

    Bill English made a fool of himself on RNZ this morning when trying to justify this about face, and Kim Hill hung him out to dry.

    As Lprent says, above, there’s bugger all difference in the size of the opposition in this term (although English was trying to exclude the Greens from the government and count them as de facto Opposition members, saying that the opposition outnumbered the government) – it’s just that the Nats never foresaw themselves being the party in opposition.

  3. Dot 3
    7 November 2017 at 9:42 am

    Select committees are where ideas and issues are debated, surely National
    the public will be more interested in the number and quality of ideas that you bring to a committee.
    The kind of negativity that Lprent has highlighted won’t cut it.

  4. Anne 4
    7 November 2017 at 10:34 am

    Ahhh, so now I know why the Nats think they’re the natural ruling party. They’ve got the biggest dicks and their women know their place – with the exception of J Collins of course.

  5. Bea Brown 5
    7 November 2017 at 1:17 pm

    It’s a shame they didn’t count and had to beseech the National ‘dicks’ to vote for Mallard as Speaker and, in return, agreed to leave the select committees as is.
    Hipkins and Robertson crossing the floor to beg Simon Bridges is a dreadful look and I hope Jacinda kicks their backsides.

  6. D'Esterre 6
    7 November 2017 at 1:33 pm

    Yeah, well, we’ve seen how the govt’s been blackmailed over Mallard and select committee numbers. What the hell were they thinking, not having a majority in Parliament today of all days? They ought to have seen that coming. Amateurs….

  7. tracey 7
    7 November 2017 at 1:40 pm

    Simon Bridges sat on the committee during the National Party govt that made this change ..

    26 July 2017 (during the term of the National Party minority govt)

    This report sets out recommended amendments to the Standing Orders on which consensus could be reached ..
    Committee members
    David Carter (Chairperson) National
    Simon Bridges National Party
    Gerry Brownlee (until 3 May 2017) National
    David Clendon
    Peter Dunne
    Marama Fox
    Chris Hipkins
    Trevor Mallard
    Denis O’Rourke
    Michael Woodhouse (from 3 May 2017)

    Subject select committees—
    The number of subject select committees is reduced from13 to 12, and subject areas are re-arranged (see page 17 and Appendix C on page 74).

    Select committee membership—Select committees are expected to reduce in average size with a guideline of 96 seats overall, allocated on a proportional basis (page 19).

    You get more dosh for being. Chair or deputy Chair so maybe the payy cuts are biting

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