New Government meltdown on first day

1. O.M.F’ing.G
   Who in Labour is to blame, and when will Jacinda sack him/her.
   As you say, unbelievable !!!!!!

   • At this rate they won’t get to see the first term out – they don’t deserve to see the first term out if they are so unprepared for the feral lot on the opposition benches who have promised to make their lives a misery. They are just pussy cats in a pool of crocodiles. God help us – Labour will need to police their lot constantly – Annette King needs to be brought in the nanny them as it seems they are plain too stupid to be able to look after themselves independently. Cringe making.

     • I was extremely worried when Jacinda announced early in the election campaign, that she wanted to be absolutely ‘positive’.

       If you go into an election campaign with that approach, and when you go into government like that, you have already half way lost your game, as treating the nasty Nats and that ACT moron with silk gloves and cotton wool will result in the wolf in sheep’s clothing to come and tear you apart sooner or later.

       Relentless attack, assault and forceful government, to reverse all the horrible ‘reforms’ the Nats brought in, for instance in welfare, and to bring in true reforms for the people who need them, that is what needs to happen.

       And that requires UNITY, all bums on seats, and all voting accordingly.

   • Isn’t Dyson the chief whip, can she count!

2. Jesus fucking wept!

3. I think you’re being a bit generous about National being the greatest opposition ever. They’re clearly looking to the US Republican Party for inspiration and trying to use every loophole in parliament rules to get their way while they throw their toys, including all this talk of filibusters (which don’t exist in NZ).

   Sure, they got to have their fun and if you read NZ Herald the verdict will be Labour incompetence (quelle surprise). But if anything I think they’ve played their ‘being Dicks with a capital D’ card too soon. One: it makes them look like scoundrels- using the fact that Labour MPs are out of town on Government business to try and stymie election of a Speaker is a new low. Sure, Labour probably should have just gone ahead with the vote, and even if Tolley were elected just held a vote of no confidence later.

   But this leads to Two: National have shown everyone, the new government included, that they intend to take the Republican route and everyone should expect them to try every trick at all times. Now the government can be prepared for similar shenanigans on votes that matter.

   Select committees aren’t that important- all they can do is make recommendations, and National have spent the last 9 years ignoring select committee recommendations.

4. Ir gets worse. Apparently the government had enough MPs in the house but National ‘hoodwinked’ them into believing they didn’t!

   I’m going to be generous and assume no one in the government thought National would be such unbelievable dicks – but really they should have.

   http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/343269/house-trading-nats-bluff-labour-on-day-one

5. “Where’s Winston when you need him?” Bridges taunted the Labour benches.

   “Get used to it,” another National MP commented.

   After hurried discussions between Bridges and Labour’s leader of the House Chris Hipkins, Mallard was finally confirmed as the new Speaker. It later transpired that National was one down as well with David Carter away and Labour could have won the vote – it had 58 to the Opposition’s 56.

   Not a great start. Poor counting and more lies from National.

   Regardless, Bridges though, is a vile piece of shit, was nasty in Government and nasty in opposition, Interestingly, always the one claiming that Labour should “get on board” and support National whilst they were in government. Now the opposite. Most would call that undemorcratic.

6. Well here’s hoping that Winston Peter’s legal action against them for his WINZ super stuff-up will distract English from behaving like a spoiled brat and Bennett from being the horrible human being that she appears to be.

   • This episode should update instruct Trever Malard open, fair, and balanced stewardship as Speaker of the house. It was a significant price to pay allowing National to gain even more foot hold in select committees. That must be repayed in kind.

7. The warning is there. There are no things as “gentlemen’s or gentlewomen’s agreements.”

   This is going to be a take-no-prisoners environment. The Government should be quite prepared to put the boot in as and when needed.

   The old Hill Street Blues saying comes to mind, “Let’s be careful out there and let’s do it to them, before they do it to us.”

   Bridges, Bennett, Joyce and others are just dogs. They showed it in Government and during the election campaign and they’ll be into it even more now they have time on their hands.

8. A massive cock up of epic proportions.

   Complete fucking lunacy that the numbers were not checked in advance.

   If this is the management style going ahead it will be a unmitigated disaster.

   National have just taken advantage of the bride on her wedding day and now will move on to the guests and their partners.

9. Why didn’t Labour use a strategist here?

   This is horrible as the select committees decide all of the important stuff that transport, environment deal through, so they had better safeguard all planned chages needed and not use “select Committees if they have lost control there.

   Who were the five ‘coalition’ MP’s that were absent and left the labour Coalition left with a ‘minority vote then??

10. It’s exactly what National promised. They have cemented themselves as the NZ equivalent of the Republican Party in the US during the Obama’s second term by taking the piss out of every rule they can to sabotage anything that the Government attempts. The correct question for journalists to ask English would have been “are you going to be an immoral evil arsehole in every way shape and form for the next three years?”.
    To my surprise, Bomber seems to be taking National’s side on this, by highlighting that Labour shouldn’t have fallen into their trap. I disagree. The onus is on National that they have decided to take the low-ground in the first place over something this trivial for personal political gain as opposed to standing for the country’s best interests.

11. I hope Jacinda learns fast and uses this to get some kick arse discipline going. There needs to be a body hanging in the gibbet outside her office just to encourage people to pay attention.

    • Yes John,

      This is what jacinda needs to do now.

      Labour coalition needs to now investigate the whole last nine years of financial documentation to see what seedy corrupt practices went on under natioonal as we can see clearly now they rely on deluding and bluffing the public as they hoodwinked the labour today with the threat of saying they had ‘the majority’ when they did not clearly have so labour need to re-double their efforts to find undesirable financial dealings in all those last nine years of dealings they made as there may well be some evidence of using public funding to carry out their past dealings with other parties illegally.

      National are dishonest, and Labour will find some evidence in those Government financial records over the last nine years for sure.

      Jacinda please ‘lets do this’.

      • Yeah yeah yeah. They don’t have the expertise. Grant Robertson is a buffoon and they sacked Cunliffe remember? Labour are a bunch of numpties with the exception of Parker. They aren’t very fucking bright! So get used to it.

12. To be fair, they thought they already had an understanding with National that the vote would be unanimous. National reneged on that deal – dirty politics, trying to make Labour appear incompetent. Labour can also renege on this deal and would be well within it’s rights to do so.

    • sounds like a go to position to me. Stick it to the mongrel scumbags.

13. Transnational Capital, Wage Slave Labour; both in thrall and controlled by the largest dictatorship on the planet since the dinosaurs. They all gotta hang

14. Nope, it’s fucking game on. Forget the courtesy of select committees, smash the laws under urgency. Nat has said they’ll play nasty, just leave them out of it.

    • Hear hear!
      Deprive these lowlifes of any oxygen where possible.

      Jacinda – clearly relentless positivity won’t get you far in this Parliamentary term with these psychopaths infesting the opposition benches.

      Given their behaviour in govt., it should come as no surprise whatsoever.

    • 100% Roy,

      Jacinda and co need to leave national out of the important ‘policy’ issues all coalition parties agreed to under the coalition agreeement.

      That is Labour’s job to enact those policies!!!!!

      All three parties must now carry out saving our Gisborne/Napier rail services that all three parties Labour/NZF/Greens have included in their policies.

      Mostly important also they all pledged to restore the Gisborne/Napier rail services; for those communities QUOTE; ‘when in government’ in the HB Today, Wairoa Star, & Gisborne Herald and the communities are all sitting waiting now for promises to be kept.

      ‘Let’s do this’ please jacinda.

      The advise to the new govermnment is adviod relying on National and use your own majority to pass all changes please without them as they klied and undermined our communities as they have done to the new government yesterday.

      National opposition are not to be relied on as they are dishonest at their word.
      .

      • My goodness, Cleangreen….no matter the subject matter you always have to get your pet project of hawkes bay rail line into a reply. And if its deemed not important this term and forgotten about by this Govt will you just shrug your shoulders and agree that perhaps, maybe, possibly next term and cross your fingers? (There is no chance of you having any bad thing to say, ever, about Jacinta it seems by your adoration of her)

15. This was rather embarrassing, was it not?!

    It does not make for a good start to the parliamentary term.

    With a 3 party arrangement, two of which are bound by a kind of coalition deal, and the third party attached in a somewhat looser way, it is absolutely important to have discussed and prepared every detail of how to proceed with such a vote.

    What were the whips thinking, do they need to be told, hey, stick your heads together, before you go into the House, coordinate what you three parties are going to do, and how to do it, thanks.

    Hopefully they learned their lesson, if not, the worst will come to happen, as I feared.

    I wonder whether this would have happened if Winston had been in the Parliament today. I would not have thought so, he would have made sure that some fine tuning would have been done prior to this.

    So watch that space, the Nats will do all to upset and disturb, they will try every trick out of the book.

16. Having watched Parliament TV tonight, there were no indications that this had been pre planned and coordinated by the wider National Party members. It was Bridges and a few of the front bench (Joyce, English and Brownlee), who saw an opportunity to disturb proceedings.

    It had already been agreed that Mallard would be Speaker.

    Perhaps the legal steps Winston Peters has taken, that were going public today, got them motivated to throw a spanner into the works of Parliament.

    The faces of English, Joyce and so, they looked rather grim for most of the opening and swearing in session today.

    It was sheer stupidity to make such a rushed ‘deal’ over the Select Committees, absolutely incredibly DUMB!

17. Just some arm flexing on a day that gets profile. Once things settle down it’ll be a lot harder for them.

    A wake-up call nevertheless for the government whips.

    Reduced to stunts now that there policies have been rejected. May go down well with their choir but will confirm to LNG voters why they voted as they did.

18. Very very poor.

    1, They believed a Nat MP, and after years off their dishonesty it makes senior Labour MP’s look truly naive.

    2. Chris Hipkins came across as incompetent and has lost an awful lot of mana as a result .

    3. The media will be like vultures waiting for any flinch from this wounded animal.

    4. Jacinda, by association is now looking to be similarly struggling in her role. And that follows on from the hot air in opposition about Manus Island refugees then going to Australia and getting brushed off and making out that was part of the plan. And even more worryingly, appearing to embrace the awful TPP.

    5. And now her first day as PM in parliament was ruined, what does the future hold? Faking it till you make it seems the go to plan at the moment!

    I put this down to Jacinda having NO time to prep for government and I hope and pray she is a fast learner.

19. The good part of this mess is that it happened on Day One of the new Coalition.

    They have three years ahead of them and Labour-Green-NZF MPs have been warned that the Nats intend to be feral in their opposition.

    The Coalition cannot trust the Nats and the role of the whips will be more crucial than ever.

    As for Select Committees, the Coalition may have to side-line them and use National’s “Urgency” tactics.

    Someone in the PM’s Department needs to do a count of how many times the Nats used Urgency in their nine years.

    Buckle up people, it’s going to be a rough ride. The death-throes of neo-liberalism will be violent.

    • While Bill English is satirised with and his teams work yesterday it just shows how bullshit they are. Big mistake from Hipkins. Now Jacinda has to go back and form a huddle to make adjustments to the way they treat National from now on.

    • It’s all about power, and they won’t cede it lightly (the people they represent won’t let them).

    • Hi Frank, National used urgency 17 times in the first 2 years of coming to power in 2008. (From Twitter)

      • http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10719268

        • Now isn’t this odd, the NZ Herald has removed its stories on National’s use of urgency to pass bills.

          National’s list of bills passed under urgency

          Editorial: Addiction to urgency sign of weakness
          In its first two years in power, it used urgency for 331.5 hours, nearly double the time the former Labour Government sat under urgency in its full first term…

          Brownlee unrepentant about government’s use of urgency
          Office of the Clerk figures show that in the two years since National came into Government in December 2008, Parliament has sat under urgency for 331 …

          Are now no longer available, why does the NZ Herald not want the former National government’s use of urgency known? Why hide it?

          • Now the link is working….

20. National get one go at reneging on an agreement.

    They won’t get a second.

21. […] This was such an appalling way to start the new Government… […]

    • Hi Frank,

      Labour coalition now need to spend many hours of investigation into all the last nine years of National and sure they will find some dirty double dealinng and waste of public money to buy saudi Politicians and Warner bros intellegence and lobbying tactics.

      Many more like this will come up if their “experts” go to examine the last National government financial reports thoroughly.

      Kiwirail were pressured by Steven Joyce as Mininster of Transport in 2012 to take rail maintainence funding away to Auckland commuter rail from the Gisborne/Napier rail which ncaused the sacking of 12 of the 16 track workers.

      This caused our rail to become washout out because of a lack of funding. (confirmed by Phil Twyford) in 2013 at the Transport select committee.

      Pure corrupt practice there.

      http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1302/S00183/kiwirail-admits-lack-of-maintenance-led-to-wash-out.htm

      KiwiRail admits lack of maintenance led to wash-out
      Thursday, 14 February 2013, 1:35 pm
      Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party
      Phil Twyford
      Transport Spokesperson

      14 February 2013

      KiwiRail admits lack of maintenance led to wash-out

      KiwiRail has admitted that its failure to maintain old and damaged culverts was behind the wash out that closed the Gisborne-Napier line, while cuts to its maintenance budget are putting the network at further risk, Labour’s Transport spokesperson Phil Twyford says.

      “Across the country KiwiRail missed its target of replacing 71 old culverts last year, and only replaced 49. This is cause for alarm.

      “The Gisborne-Napier wash-out shows what happens when essential maintenance work is not carried out.

      “KiwiRail cut and deferred $200 million of network maintenance last year. At the very time it needs to be upgrading its network and improving efficiency, the Government’s unrealistic ‘Turn Around Plan’ is putting enormous stress on the organisation and forcing it to cut maintenance.

      “KiwiRail has told Parliament’s transport committee it has 12,197 rail line culverts around the country and has done a risk assessment identifying 53 high priority culverts but ‘…in spite of every effort to mitigate risk, some incidents of wash out may still occur…’

      “National’s plan for rail is not workable. KiwiRail has missed its financial targets for two of the last three years. It is being forced to make cuts that are a false economy.

      “At a time when the Government is wasting billions of dollars on its ‘motorways of madness’, it makes no sense to cripple the national rail line.”

      ENDS

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