Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB political editor on Deborah Russell's 'unparliamentary' comment

Minister Deborah Russell raised a few eyebrows after dropping the f-bomb in the House.

ACT's David Seymour has been quick to criticise this - and it's sparked further discussion.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls wonders if this is an attempt to grab attention - in line with similar scandals.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
With us. Now we have Jason Wall's News Talk z
be's Politically as Hi, Jason, Good afternoon, Heather. Who cares
about the swearing?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
It wasn't even bad well in the scheme of things, No,
And I was just actually having quite an interesting chat
with your producer there just about the consistencies here. I mean,
David Seymour obviously talking about how bad he thinks the
swearing is and the standards of this place. But it
was one. It was his deputy leader that dropped the
sea bomb in the House a couple of weeks ago.
Now admittedly completely different circumstances. I would say that arguably

(00:28):
Brook van Velden was using it sort of more to
defend herself and what had been thrown at her and
her fellow ministerial colleagues. But today in the House, I mean,
you know, listen, listen, listen. If you haven't heard it,
here is how it went down with Debora Russell and
David Seymour this morning.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm sorry, what was the unparliamentary artist.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
One thing I should have kept under my breath.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
We'll just tell people like to.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Parliamentary and I shouldn't have seen it. So she was
she she was quote herself. And she didn't have to
say it like that. She could have said for f's sake,
but she did it because you know, there was a
little bit of sort of it kind of gets all
attention on it. I mean, listen, we're talking about it
right now. And a few minutes later, Duncan Webb Duncan Webb,
who's also labor MP, said something similar. Do you want
to correct that or are you going to keep saying

(01:19):
something which is not accurate?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, I think you could argue with something that's not
the precise. However, well I would call it making sit up.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Okay, hang out. The interesting thing about the Duncan web
one is that I was on Instagram just before and
he had clipped that up himself and put it on
his own Instagram. So it's clearly a device that they're
using to kind of grab headlines here and being a
little bit sweary berry to get people interested in it. And
I'll tell you what. The thing that they were talking
about before he said that he was making quote shit

(01:50):
up was regulations around the how many parts per thousand
milligrams are in flour. And it's not exactly headline grabbing stuff.
So it's all a stun or And we talked about
this before Heather sometimes the labor MPs, and of course
David Seymour does it as well. They're go in wearing
little lapel makes to get it clipped up for their
social media. So it's all a bit of a game, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And the thing about it is these guys. So first
of all, it Duncan Web is a nerd, so this
makes them a lot more accessible to the average person.
And is it not also so you can see why
it works for him to do this, but also is
it not rich from David Seymour who fameless famously went
out and said the French love the cock and the
whole thing was contrived. So he himself knows how to
how to kind of, you know, get the get attention

(02:34):
for saying naughty things, doesn't he Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Absolutely, And he did it before the twenty seventeen election
as well with the New Zealanders.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I feel like I just need to quickly clarify he
was talking about the bird.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
The bird, Yeah, yeah, you know, he was talking about
the French and the rope team. But David Seymour has
I mean to what you were saying, he has done
this before. Was Richard Prosser, who was a New Zealand
first MP, was talking about nationalizing the energy companies to
a conference and David Seymour stood up and said, what
an effing idiot in front of everybody, and we all
got on our lap and we started writing stories up
about how David seymol said it. So politicians, and I've

(03:04):
always said this, they all have one f bomb in
them that they can use to grab attention without getting
in trouble. You just need to know when to use it.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, totally. Now, what is this line in the sand
that Paul Goldsmith has drawn?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Treaty Minister Paul Goldsmith said during a Select committee this
morning that the government will not agree to a treaty
settlement that disputes whether the Crown is now sovereign, and
that includes any EWE which may have an agree to
disagree clause around whether or not Marty did seed sovereignty,
such as Stefan now Apanui, which has had such a
clause within its settlement negotiations. So in their deed notes,

(03:38):
the twelve HAPO that make up the EWI consider that
they are a sovereign nation that never ceded sovereignty to
the Crown and retain that sovereignty today now, Goldsmith said
the government is uncomfortable with this agree to disagree clause
and it is not prepared to progress the settlement without
that being removed. So that was in the Select Committee

(03:58):
today and he said that it made it difficult in
the sense that you're signing up to a full and
final settlement, but the entity fundamentally doesn't acknowledge the authority
of the Crown to do it in that respect, and
we were and he says that the government wasn't comfortable
with that, and he went on to say the Crown's
position is clear. The Crown is sovereign and the Crown
is simply the representation of the democratic will of the

(04:22):
people of New Zealand. So there's a bit of a
a stalish brewing there, so we'll watch to see how
this one plays out. Very interesting.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Hey, thanks very much, Jason, appreciate it. That's Jason Wall's
News Talk ZIB's political editap. For more from Hither Duplassy
Alan Drive, listen live to news Talk z it'd be
from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.