Question 11 in parliament, yesterday, was described by one MP as a circus. And it was.
Lockwood Smith became a reasonably good Speaker. David Carter is new to the job and it shows. He has made a bizarre ruling where a question is put to a Minister three times and if no satisfactory answer is obtained, parliament moves on. He said so here:
Mr SPEAKER:... I have established a regime by which if a question is not answered to satisfaction, then we have the question three times. Beyond that we have got to move on, otherwise we could sit in the House on the same supplementary question for a long time. Now we are moving on
Strike me down - that's out and out ridiculous. If a Minister won't answer a reasonable question there are two outcomes. First, the Speaker makes them answer it. Or second, they either resign or are dismissed. National have set increasingly lower standards and continue to amaze, and not in a good way.
Kelly Price - Mirror Mirror, 2000
Carter comes across as a clot.
ReplyDeleteSuits the Nats perfectly.
I'm ashamed to say I think Tau Henare would probably have been a better Speaker than David Carter. Tau might be a complete idiot, but he has a modicum of charm - it's a circus already, we may as well have a ringmaster who is fun.
Delete