Slam and Dunk

Two hilarious moments in Parliament. First we had Anderton wasting his one question a month, trying to be pious as usual:

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) to the Prime Minister: How many jobs will be created for unemployed New Zealanders as a result of the reinstatement of the titles of Knight and Dame Grand Companion in the New Zealand honours system?

Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) : None will be created and none will be lost. The member misunderstands the purpose of reinstating the titles.

A nice swat away. But Anderton persists and persist and finally we get:

Hon Jim Anderton: What items on the list of things the Government has made its higher priorities in Government will do the most to reduce the impact of global recession: bringing back knighthoods, a national cycleway, or privatising prisons?

Hon JOHN KEY: All three can play a part in helping our economy to grow. I am surprised, I have to say, that Mr Anderton has come down to the House today with this primary question. Funnily enough, I took a moment out of my busy schedule to have a look through the archives, and I noticed that in 1997 the Hon Jim Anderton introduced the Exceptional Service Honour (Posthumous Recognition) Bill. He sought to have that bill passed, and, lo and behold, the bill—which he waxed lyrical about, but I will not bore members with it—would have conferred an honour with the status of a knighthood. That was what the bill was trying to do. Jim Anderton not only tried to create his own new honour, with the status of a knighthood, in 1997; he actually had tried it once before, in 1991.

Hilarious. Anderton twice introduced a bill to give the equivalent of a knighthood to someone who died in WWI 90 years ago, and he is stupid enough to them try and ask a question complaining about the Government “wasting” time on knighthoods. To say people were laughing is putting it mildly.

Whichever staffer dug that piece of info up, deserves a jellybean.

Then we had Sue Moroney going on about pay equity to Pansy Wong. And I loved this exchange:

Sue Moroney: Why did the Minister ignore a protest on this issue by school support workers in Hamilton on Friday, and then, just minutes later, tell the Hamilton International Women’s Day Symposium that the gender pay gap was too large in New Zealand and she wanted to do more, when her Government is actually guilty of doing less?

Hon PANSY WONG: I hardly ignored the handful of protesters in Hamilton. I actually told them to please take care and not get too wet.

Wonderful answer. She told them not to get too wet.