Mike's Minute: The vote today is for standards and rules

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

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1d ago 2:06

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The debate around the Privileges Committee and their decision for the Māori Party MPs starts today.

It's set to be a long-winded and largely pointless exercise.

If you can be bothered, get a read on where each of the parties stand.

Why?

Because you will find that some parties don’t agree with the committee and think the so-called punishment is a bit hard.

The Prime Minister was asked about this yesterday at his post-Cabinet press conference. In fact, they were the first questions asked, which was sad and yet again a reminder of how the Press Gallery is not really interested in the news of the day, and perhaps even the good news of the day.

The good news of the day came from the Finance Minister, who was standing next to the Prime Minister at said conference and had been busy up to the question bit outlining some new tax treatment for investment and payments for start-ups and businesses looking for a bit of relief around rules and paperwork.

That got scant coverage, despite the fact these are the very sort of issues, ideas, and polices that will drag this beleaguered economy out of the quagmire it is currently stuck in.

As regards to the Privileges Committee, for the record, the Prime Minister stood firm on the ensuing debate, and whether or not by bargaining away the decision it could expedite what could be days of time wasting.

Why this matters is because standards matter, and standards in this country have become embarrassing. What the Māori Party did was farcical, as well as embarrassing.

Their punishment was not because they were Māori, or because what they did was Māori, it was because they broke the rules, and rules count or should count.

Because when they don’t, people like the Māori Party and to a lesser degree the Labour Party and the Greens, bring us all into disrepute.

Believe it or not, there are large swathes of this country that find what has been happening at our highest level of leadership to be completely and utterly shocking, as well as embarrassing and needless, and we are more than over it.

By asking whether Government can plea bargain it away so we can skip a lengthy, boring debate is systematic of the problem itself.

"Why deal to it, when we can ignore it or water it down?"

If those who think this is all okay want to debate it and remind us what mediocre looks like, that's on them.

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