More (youth) parliamentary fun

Firstly good news – The Office of the Clerk now has Hansard fully searchable.

Also National set up a blog for their Youth MPs, with 11 of them blogging there. The latest entry is a video interview with three of them, which is embedded above.

A member of the Youth Parliamentary Press Gallery has e-mailed me to report that during the debate on the climate change bill, a Green Youth MP was expelled from the House by the Acting Speaker for saying “the Government was fucking with our future”. She should know better than to emulate Steve Maharey. She was allowed back in after a short while.

Another Green Youth MP was yellow carded (a formal warning) for repetitive inappropriate behaviour.

And not only was the debate heated, but the bill failed on a tie – 53 votes in favour, 53 against and 14 abstentions. The bill provided for tax credits for households which undertake energy saving measures.

Also a Youth MP reports that Clerk of the House David McGee proposed a novel solution to the stand-off regarding satirical use of photos of MPs in Parliament. McGee recommended sending photographers in to the galleries after question time every day to see how many journalists were yawning, texting, sleeping or had simply buggered off as an alternative to the ban on satire.

This is a wonderful idea. In fact we should go a step further and have a permanent gallery cam so the public can watch the gallery at work whenever the House is sitting 🙂

Finally on a more sombre note NZPA has an interview with Zoe Donald, where she is very candid about how hard it is being in Parliament where he father once was. I actually felt very sorry for Zoe reading the article, and can empathise how challenging it must be.