Liam Hehir: Political Commentator on Gerry Brownlee's plan to crack down on Parliamentary standards

Support for a crackdown on dress codes and behaviour in Parliament.  

Speaker Gerry Brownlee's cracking down on rules in the House following what he sees as multiple disruptive incidents.  

The latest saw Te Pati Māori MP Oriini Kaipara's maiden speech go well over time.  

He will look at attendance records, dress standards, and leave provisions.  

Political commentator Liam Hehir told Ryan Bridge dressing for particular environments reminds you you're there for an occasion. 

He asks what occasion is more important than doing the people's business, and says it's not wrong for the Speaker to insist on standards. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Harby Hytsi's air Jordan's shoes could be banned from Parliament.
Speakers setting out plans to crack down on standards this
after ordinary competters made in speech, dress code and leave
request systems are on Jerry's menu for action. Liam here,
political commentator with me this morning, Liam, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning to you.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Right copa king's spending? How do you spend more than
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars over budget and not
get in trouble?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, the trouble she got in was was being demoted,
but without that, you know, sort of being disclosed by
the party at the time, and you know as to
how you overspend the money, a poor budget control, you know,
I mean, you know, spending more than you have coming in.
It's as simple as that. It's what's quite remarkable is

(00:48):
that all this has come out only as a result
of the party turmoil and wasn't disclosed at the time.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Exactly if they weren't scrapping with one another, we'd be
none the wiser, which is Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's pretty serious, isn't it. I Mean, like even now
we don't know the full details, we don't know how
it was resolved. All we know is that that's been
deployed as part of a civil war within the party.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
What about this crackdown on leave and dress code in Parliament?
Will it Is it going to achieve anything? Is that
really the root of the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, it's not really the root of the problem. But
what Brownley sort of seed yesterday was that, you know,
he doesn't have a whole lot of tools as speaker
to be able to directly crack down on things like
the second harker in the speech that we're over time
in the absence of other members taking the initiative and
making a complaint to him. What he does have some

(01:41):
control over is enforcing the rules that already exist, you know,
more strictly, and he intends to do that, and I
think they're the case. There's a case to say that
you do anything everything. And you know, what's contributed to
the chaos has been not so much incidents themselves, or
the lack drop any particular drop standards, any particular incident,

(02:05):
or wearing air Jordan's in the chamber, but the accumulation
of small breaches has sort of led to this atmosphere
and missiveness and that's just sort of breakdown of water
and the rules.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
So when you're at school and you have musty day,
you know, and everyone is sort of a bit looney
on mufty day, you feel a bit freer, a bit looser,
and a bit more mischievous.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah. Well, look there's a reason why we you know,
we dress nicely if we have to come and meet
the bank manager, you know, when we go to church,
if we have to go to a funeral or a wedding,
how we dress as part of how we behave and
it puts you in the right mindset. It reminds you
that you're there for an occasion and what occasion is
more important than doing the people's business. And it can't
be positive dressing properly to you know, to go and

(02:48):
do your job as a liquid MP. Well, it's kind
of contempt for the whole of the country really, and
it's not wrong for the for the Parliament and for
the speaker ter assist on standards on the on the
basis that you know, hopefully we'll flow through it. A
bit of behaviors.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
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