Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to Armor Tiles, New Zealand Herald's politics podcast,
Scrutiny Week special edition The Herald Gallery Officers coming to
Your Life from Parliament Delayed live with its views on
Scrutiny Week, Parliament's first of a Scrutiny Week. I'm Thomas Cotland,
the Deputy Political Editor, first up with her thoughts as
the political editor of the New Zealand Herald. Clear Tribette. Clear,
(00:27):
it feels a strange interviewing my boss. What if Scrutiny
Week has stood out for you?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well? Well, my first counter with Scrutiny Week was Speaker
Jerry Brownlee doing the Parliamentary Service Budget in which he
first of all had at Heritage New Zealand for having
designate the Beehive a Heritage listed meant that I couldn't
(00:52):
do anything with the old concrete bunker NIX which used
to house the press gallery out the back. Has asked
that they do something with Heritage New Zealand so that
old buildings don't just have to sit there until they
fall apart. You're not allowed to do anything with them.
And he then proceeded to show his generation when talking
(01:13):
about MP security by saying that in the olden day,
MPs were given their handbooks, their kind of things they
were allowed, like security allowances and stuff in hard copy form,
and that didn't happen anymore these days. And then he
continued on that theme to note he also found it
very puzzling that nobody answered their landlines on their desk anymore,
(01:35):
and every time he tried to ring someone, nobody answered.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Interesting stuff. Thank you for your contributions to Scrutiny Week. Clear,
Julia Gable is not here and our US reporter, so
she will skip this episode. Adam Piers, our second US
Adam Cura. Good a Scrutiny Week highlights for yourself, It's.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
More of a low light for me. I think I
was probably a little disappointed by all maps. I had
higher expectations of what Scrutiny Week might provide us in
a I suppose democratic sense. It was essentially an extension
of what we see normally with select committees, where opposition
members try and find out pieces of information, go along
(02:19):
lines of inquiry, but eventually they are shut down by
patsy questions from the government. However, I will say that
Scrutiny Week did provide a lot of opportunities for us
to be able to inquire about topics that we wanted
to learn more about, particularly given that a lot of
the ministers have different portfolios to appear before select committees
(02:43):
across the week on multiple occasions, so we're able to,
for example, prosecute the government's cancer drug policy and able
to see that there are quite different perspectives between certain ministers,
namely Nikola Willis, Shane Retti, David Seymour.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, that was probably the biggest story to come out
of Screwed in the week, I think, which is funny
because it wasn't really you know, we only it was
a story that was already existed and it was only
taken forward. It wasn't really a news story. I sort
of agree with that actually, Like it just feels like
an extension of all ordinary estimates weeks. There's some interesting details,
Like I felt like I found some interesting stuff out,
(03:21):
but it was interesting rather than it was it was
e femera wasn't it was interesting rather than newsbreaking. I
think one of the Labor press releases one of the
days was the fact that the examples and the tax
package were ghost families. They were real families. They were
just you know, fake, and it wasn't really that interesting
to me. I mean, obviously you just make up examples
(03:44):
to illustrate a policy. It didn't really seem that scandalous
to me. But you know, anyway, Winston Peters was good.
He seemed quite good. You were in Winston's yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yes, well, I was in Winston's earlier in the week
with his racing hat on, which is always entertaining to see.
I think I'd agree with you in the sense that
it is. It is interesting but not necessarily groundbreaking. But
when we see instances like Pawtucker, who talked about how
it was ambitious that we're going to save every species
now depend regardless of your position on that matter, it's
(04:19):
still interesting just to hear your conservation minister talking about
that we might actually not save every species and that
it's a vicious goal. You know, it's just provides an
opportunity for them to put their feet in their mouth,
as it were.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So I suppose we did get to see which ministers
were vulnerable to putting their feet in their mouths and
which ones are sort of safe. I thought. I spent
all of Tuesday and christ bishops committees and he really didn't,
you know, letting the goals and he's fine lasted under
scrutiny for hours and hours and hours even in the
(04:53):
sports portfolio, you know everything. Whereas yeah, Tama goes up here.
I had a long committee as well, but this conservation
committee just totally put his foot In't it very funny, Adam?
Thank you very much for your contributions. Sophie and the
ZIB office, Jason and Demelza away. Jason managed to make
(05:13):
it safely back from Japan and the Papua New Guinea
and Australia, but Sophie's been holding the thought. So for
your your views on screen.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
In your week, Yeah, I've been eavesdropping slightly on what
Adam said, and he did pick up two of my
favorite things, which were the cancer drug discrepancy in what
the ministers were saying, and what the Conservation minister said
about protecting endangered species. I have really enjoyed seeing some
(05:46):
important issues kind of prosecuted or canvassed over a much
longer period of time than we would normally see in
question time. For example, so yesterday in the Justice Select Committee,
there was quite a lengthy and back and forth between
Ginny Anderson and Police Minister Mark Mitchell about whether or
(06:06):
not police were stepping back from family harm and mental
health callouts, and so that was sort of a bit
of a theme throughout the whole day of the Justice
lect Committee and Police Commission. Andrew Costa was able to
sort of explain how cases were triaged, and I thought
that while it may not have been groundbreaking, it was
(06:26):
kind of interesting to see an issue that we haven't
heard much about from this government kind of sort of
being able to be interrogated in a long format like that,
do we.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Get to the bottom of that issue?
Speaker 4 (06:43):
The government has said and the Police Minister have said
that you know, where violence is occurring, where family violence
has occurred, police will always be dispatched. But Labour's Ginny
Anderson is arguing that in the Minister's letter of intent
it says they are stepping back from family harm callouts.
(07:06):
And the Commissioner did say that as well, that if
police attended every single incident where there is a risk
of something bad happening, then they just wouldn't have capacity
to discharge the rest of their responsibilities.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It's a really interesting story to coming out. You never really,
you always get to close to the bottom. You never
quite get to the bottom of that in this leakmmittee,
but that is an interesting, interesting little detail. On the titles, listeners,
we'll be able to pick up in your accent at
can Burn an Australian. Are you keeping an eye on
what's happening at home? The climate war was back on
back home in Australia, and you know, any thoughts on
(07:44):
what's happening across the ditch.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I have been focusing on scrutinizing this government this week,
so I probably wouldn't comment on that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
That's interesting, it's interesting stuff, you know. I mean, I
should read my own newspaper, read, you know, but like
I can't, can't help them keep an eye on what's
happening across the ditch. It's interesting, certainly interesting. Thank you
Sophie for joining us on the podcast. Thanks for the listening.
Sorry so a bit short this week. That is the
way the cookie crumbles, but thank you for listening. It
(08:16):
was on the tiles for another week, our producers, even Sills,
and we'll be back next week with our local edition
up on the tiles. Thanks for listening.