This is a brief summary of the week so it leaves out some things but covers most of the highlights and lowlights.
A week ago the NZ Herald editorial were glowing in admiration how that was such clever management by Christopher Luxon to sack those two ministers and to limit the oncoming fallout and get ahead of the game.
Claire Trevett was pumping up Chris Bishop for publishing a letter that she had stage managed over focusing the fast track on anything but mining and Shane Jones - while Bryce Edwards showered Chris Bishop with praise for being a genius and following Claire's lead.
Here at G News were were talking about how there was no Talbot poll in April 2024 and had the NZ Herald deliberately chosen to conceal it?
Rob Campbell spoke out how this was "the wrong way to be running things" concerning a "savings directive" at Health NZ and he called the last minute "oh we are a bit short" poor management and in a health setting - he said it was frankly irresponsible.
Transparency International expressed grave concerns about the three Beagle Boys - Brown, Bishop and Shane Jones setting themselves up as gatekeepers for fast track consenting AND - also giving the final green light to projects. No way is that okay - and this threatened to damage New Zealands' international reputation.
The nation gasped in horror as Pullya Benefit was appointed to Chair of Pharmac in a horrible crony job for mates move that looked like payoff for raising so many donations for National for the 2023 election.
James Shaw was interviewed on Q&A and gave a smooth interview to Jack Tame about how emissions were down and we were pointing in the right direction but this government has made it harder on themselves to reach emissions targets. There was a tiny bit in there about him nearly resigning at one point and media ran away with that headline like a dog with a bone and most missed the more important points James made.
KiwiRail lost it's world first green loan certification after Nicola Willis dumped the Ferry Project with no plan B and just a load of crony contracts to show for it. Shocking lack of planning and forward thinking by Wilis the economic vandal.
There was some waffle about cells in schools and 6 new nothings from Erica that made no sense in education.
Seymour, Luxon and Willis all started trying to fool and manipulate the public about fiscal cliffs and how they were victims who inherited a mess and they tried to portray themselves as saviours over 1.7Billion in four years of Pharmac Funding. However Luxon shot his mouth off and got himself boxed into a corner by media in the Post cabinet press conference vowing and swearing that every single Government program would be baselined and the full four years.
It would only take 13 hours before Luxon would walk that back admitting some of his programs would also be time limited funding - after Chippy exposed him for already doing that over a child immunisation program. Audrey was not amused.
Maiki Sherman began advertising a 1 News Verian poll saying it was going to get everyone talking and sure enough it did. Maiki also said brace yourselves for turbulence again and she was right about that too. The Government toppled as one of its three heads fell off and bounced into a ditch. DumbTown went into a blind rage sending complaints to TVNZ and throwing their toys out of the cot.
Christopher Luxon shrugged and said something about frothy sensationalism while Willis said it was silly and stomped off ranting bout fruitcakes. But the facts were facts and as Hosking says - the numbers do not lie - as the right crashed and the left were back.
More and more jobs were cut in the public service and Luxon had another set of shocking media interviews using the BS about "tough decisions and it's hard to sack people, poor me" when we all knew it was simply choices he had made to add $14.9 Billion in tax cuts on top of the down in the economic cycle.
Luxon was caught like an egg in a slicer without a shell - when asked what impact cutting half priced public Transport for people with kids might have - if they take the bus a couple of stages?
Later in parliament Luxon still had not bothered to school up about these numbers - a pattern now - that he does not care about the impacts on the bottom feeders nor the squeezed middle - not enough to recall the facts.
Claire Trevett said Luxon should be baffled at the poll results cos of his cracking pace and delivery of the deliverables.
Sir John suddenly appeared in parliament like a Goblin on a toadstool and made the excuse he was only there to have dinner with some staffers - but we all know Sir John was there to slap some sense into Luxon - and later that night they appeared like Thing1 and Thing 2 in some shocking social media package displays that made many feel quite unwell. Nothing like a bad poll to bring forth the Sir John goblin who blamed the economy and hot the shocking damage National were doing to people.
Craig Renney told BHN we had 20,000 living people to show for the net debt as well as thousands of small businesses and tens of thousands of jobs that made it through Covid. It's what you have to show for debt that makes it worth it or not and of course if you add in super so NZ's net debt is comparable to other nations - our net core crown debt is lower than most we compare ourselves to.
The EU FTA kicked in and exporters were pleased as this opened up massive opportunities.
MayDay protest hit the streets as workers united against this anti-worker government.
MPs had a 10.5% pay rise which bothered many people when the Government was slashing jobs with one hand and grabbing the cash wth the other. Luxon was advised to give his extra $50k to charity cos it was politically obscene - despite our MPs still being paid about 30% less than some other nation's MPs.
National were evasive in parliament but Chippy nailed them and slapped Gerry about the head with points of order forcing Luxon and Willis to answer questions. Luxon was avoiding fast track questions using "there are no signed off projects" and "we are committed to.." in order to address but not answer questions. Ayesha nailed Willis forcing her to admit she was using fiscal cliffs herself.
The Court of Appeal heard appeals about 7aa and the high court decision concerning Karen appearing before the Waitangi Tribunal.
Unemployment rose from 4% to 4.3% in the March Quarter.
James Shaw gave an inspiring valedictory speech in parliament naming Todd Muller, Grant Robertson and Dame Jacinda as his friends and how we've got to get past being partisan about the big issues.
Audrey Young lashed out at Labour for having a good poll and said they need to address leadership, tax and Te Tiriti. However none of what she said added up and it was all a National party perspective - as if Audrey was wearing Blue Lens glasses.
Todd Stevenson from Act gave a shocker of an interview about his utter vacuum experience of Art. Rachel Boyack called for him to be removed as Arts spokesman after such a bizarre interview.
The msising Tablot Poll surfaced over at NewsHub and had National only 1 point ahead of Labour - no wonder the Herald did not publish it until the cat was out of the bag.
That's two polls that say Labour are back. A trend.
A growing spat carried on from last week about Aukus 2 as there was much anticipation Winston would make it clear what our position was - but this was a flop and a protestor was carried out by security as Winston reverted back to the same old position of let's explore the thing.
Helen Clark warned it could be blimmen expensive to be part of as expectations would be set on us.
Winston shot his trap off at Bob Carr former Foreign Affairs Minister in Aussie and next minute Bob's lawyers fired off a defamation letter to Winston.
Luxon avoided leading, ducking, diving and weaving saying Winston was on his own ( not what I would have said ) and how he was doing an exceptional job.
Winston doubled down and here we are today after Chippy called for Luxon to act and of course Luxon failed to do so. Winston poured fuel on the fire and boasted he was the big court sue me guy.
Craig Renney said Winston needs conflict and there it was.
Meanwhile media made a much bigger lead story about of bashing Julie Anne Genter for losing her rag over interjections made by Matt Doocey and his determination to ignore the facts so everyone piled on like it was a war crime by JAG. A florist pitched in - BUT there's a catch - she hates the cycle way thing and unfortunately Julie filmed her - blah blah she said and she said.
Storm in a tea cup but the usual sort of thing we fuss about.
The Greens handled the matter very professionally while the Nats were all lost sea over Winston and it's just more bad government in this one term government.
Seymour got into trouble with Guyon trying to refram questions put to him with better questions and avoided admitting that we are choosing to pour tax cuts on top of cost of Government right now.
Thanks to recent polls - Bishop has started making noises about backing down from the three ministers making all the decisions around fast track consenting after his initial arrogance and tin ear led to a fall in support for his party.
Kieran smashed Bishop on TVNZ Breakfast cos National had bypassed community voice and tried to dodge proper process.
There was a slight walk back from Seymour over free school lunches.
Audrey gave Julie Anne a brickbat but not Luxon nor Winston as things got so predictable again.
The auditor General John Ryan found Waikato University were dodgy as over contracting mr $4000 per Day Steven Joyce - and all their excuses were horse shite. Dodgy. One million crony bucks to Joyce and still Audrey did not mention it.
TVNZ midday news stopped - cos we cannot afford news.
Indian jewellery store owners are gutted Mr Plod has done nothing to stop retail crime and it just goes to show - Mr Plod is not the answer.
National raised 10.4 Million in donations in the 23 election. More than twice what Labour did at 4.8 Million. Act 4.4 million, Greens 3.3 million, NZ First 1.8 Million and I don't know about TPM.
Tova debated when this Coalition will implode cos it's unstable and making very bad decisions and letting crap behaviour run amok.
Willis destroyed the Pay Equity taskforce set up and resourced to ensure women get paid equally to men for the same work. There's still 22 claims outstanding and it was meant to carry on as a resource but Willis and her tax cuts did another Ferry with no plan B.
There was plenty more but that's a lot of one week.
A brief review of the week
G
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