First Rule Of Parliamentary Politics - Learn To Count! Leader of the House, Chris Hipkins (Centre) confers with Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, and Prime Minister Ardern. Hipkins' mistake - trusting the word of the National Party - is one he will be determined to avoid repeating.
IT WAS A MISTAKE: a serious mistake; a mistake born out of
Labour’s naïve readiness to trust the National Opposition. It was, after all,
the first sitting of the newly elected House of Representatives. Normally, an
occasion for a little bit of pomp and circumstance, when Members of Parliament
swear allegiance to the Sovereign, assume their seats, and elect one of their
number Speaker of the House. Historically, a day of bi-partisan goodwill; a day
for tradition; a day of calm before the House settles into its normal,
adversarial, storms.
Not this day.
Clearly, when the Leader of the Opposition, Bill English,
told a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery that “it’s not our job to make
this place run for an incoming Government”, Labour’s new Leader of the House,
Chris Hipkins, refused to take him seriously. Not even English’s parting shot:
“we have no obligation to smooth [Labour’s] path. None whatsoever”, was
explicit enough for Labour to take precautions against an Opposition ambush.
Not on the first day.
Not even when Simon Bridges, National’s “Shadow” Leader of
the House, accused Labour of attempting to perpetrate an “unprecedented”
erosion of the Opposition’s democratic rights, did Hipkins smell a rat. Why
should he, when all he was proposing to do was implement a number of
unanimously agreed changes to the rules governing the conduct and membership of
Parliament’s select committees?
After all, these same amendments to Parliament’s “Standing
Orders” – one of which limited the number of Select Committee members to 96 –
had been recommended to the previous House of Representatives by no less a
person than the man now proclaiming them to be a democratic outrage – Simon
Bridges!
Obviously, this was all about the Opposition giving voice to
their frustration. Opposition is never easy and the temptation to rhetorical
over-statement is always very strong. English was simply talking tough – that
is his job now. And Bridges? Well! Taking his cue from Bill, he was simply
pumping-up the rhetoric to bursting point. Hell! Hipkins had done it himself
often enough when seated on the Opposition Benches! All this fire and brimstone
was being laid on for the benefit of National’s aggrieved voters, still
smarting over the election outcome. There was no need for him, or anyone else
on the Government’s side of the House, to get excited.
Except, there was.
With the Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Peters, and the
Trade Minister, David Parker, both out of the country, and three more
Government members absent from the Chamber, Hipkins was three votes shy of a
majority on the Floor of the House. No matter, the only important business of
the day was the election of Trevor Mallard as Speaker of the House, with
National’s Anne Tolley as his deputy. All parties had been consulted, and all
parties were agreed. The vote was a mere formality.
Until Bridges turned it into something else.
They say that the first and most important skill a
politician is obliged to master is how to count. Bridges tallied-up the
Government numbers and realised that the National Party had command of the
Floor. Without a moment’s hesitation he pounced. If Labour wanted Mallard to be
Speaker, then they would have to yield to the Opposition on the number of
Select Committee members. Instead of 96, Bridges demanded 108. If Hipkins
refused, then National would use its temporary command of the House to deny
Mallard his heart’s desire – the Speaker’s Chair!
It was a scene of extraordinary drama. Bridges, his face
contorted in a rictus of anthropoid belligerence, confronted the beseeching
countenances of Hipkins and Finance Minister, Grant Robertson. The image will
do him no harm – not among his caucus colleagues, anyway. With a single,
ruthless stroke of parliamentary gamesmanship, Bridges has seized for himself
the priceless mantle of National’s warrior knight.
But at what cost?
Hipkins made the mistake of believing that National would
not stoop to turning the opening of Parliament into an ugly display of
aggressive partisanship. It’s a mistake he will do everything in his power to
avoid repeating.
Bridges, meanwhile, has signalled that National is ready to
employ the tactics of the US Republican Party: obstruction without reason;
obstruction without purpose; obstruction without end.
In the memorable words of Bette Davis in All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts,
it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
This essay was
originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The
Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 10 November 2017.
