They say a week is a long time in politics. It is, and sometimes it feels that way as well. It’s so long there is a flow and flux to the weekdays at parliament, almost like the shift of seasons.
Parliament sits in the debating chamber from Tuesday to Thursday. These days are the three main seasons. They all begin the same with oral questions to Ministers, but they have different characters from each other. But before that week begins there is the long winter of discount tents.
Parliament House and the Beehive wreathed in heavy mist during winter 2019 Photo: © VNP / Phil Smith
Monday and Friday: The winter bookends
Parliament is a graveyard on the bookends. It’s the winter of Parliament when only cabinet ministers are present in numbers (they are always there). Mondays are the lull when Cabinet meetings and the weekly post cabinet press conference occur.
These winter days are when Parliament’s staff do all the things they can’t get done when MPs are getting in the way. The committee secretariat try to get ahead on compiling Select Committee reports, the House clerks discuss the tricky procedural issues for the coming week and get all the gazillion pieces of paper in order, and the facilities bees make all the necessary noise and mess that is verboten during sittings.
It’s all the lull before the storm that arrives Tuesday.
Tuesday - Spring
Most backbench MPs arrive at Parliament on Tuesday morning, fresh from a long taxi drive over the short distance from the airport and with carry-on luggage in tow.
The MPs’ morning focus is on Caucus meetings, when the various political parties meet in the various corners (literally) of Parliament to get themselves organised and pumped-up for the week. No-one ever gets to watch caucus but I like to think of them as part house-keeping, part discipline, part decision-making, part strategy, and a bit of pre-match haka. Certainly MPs seems to come out of them energised and ready to rumble.
Tuesdays is the first day in the debating chamber, and with Spring in the air it’s on Tuesdays that new bills tend to be introduced (after approval by Cabinet on Monday), for MPs to peruse before they are available to be debated from Thursday.
Spring at Parliament, where the oak trees feel a fresh flush of growth Photo: © VNP / Phil Smith
After caucus, MPs arrive in the chamber with the pressure cooker full of steam. The day begins with Oral Questions and the big match-ups usually come first.
Questions from the Leader of the Opposition to the Prime Minister traditionally lead the opposition’s card, sometimes two long sets of questions back to back. And then, possibly after a less aggressive government question, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition steps up for another crack.
That first section can be long. The very first question from Simon Bridges this week had a full 15 supplementary questions flow from it. That’s nearly a third of the follow-ups for the whole day spent on the first question.
The best ammunition seems to be fired on Tuesdays, the political stakes are high and MPs on both sides tend to cheer on their champions, so it gets rowdy. Deafening in the chamber, loud on the broadcasts.
MPs also push the rules more at the week’s beginning, and so the Speaker features more often, trying to keep the House in order and abiding to the rules it sets itself. There are also likely to be more complaints to the Chair (points of order) when MPs complain that the other side are infringing.
National MPs who interjected during a ruling are asked to stand, withdraw, and apologise as a group for shouting out in the House. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
After questions Tuesday are a long slog of Government business till bedtime. This may be one reason that by Wednesday MPs are slightly less pumped.
Wednesdays - Summer Days
Wednesdays are Tuesday but with a more relaxed air. This might be because MPs spend Wednesday mornings working more cooperatively in Select Committees.
In Question Time the chase continues, but sometimes it’s with slightly smaller calibre ammo. The leadership questions are likely follow-ons from Tuesday.
The leadership are often a little quieter leaving more room for other MPs and a wider-range of topics. Outside the leadership every opposition MP asks questions related to their own spokesperson areas.
There is still rark though, this is a Parliament after-all - the House of debate.
On Summer Wednesday though it can feel like the heat is saved up for the General Debate which happens immediately after Question Time.
Unlike other debates the General Debate topic is wide open and there is more leniency around what can be said. So this is where MPs can let fly, and it is the main chance weekly for a government to counter-attack the opposition.
After the General Debate Wednesday are either another long evening of government legislation or the panoply of Members Bills (every other week). Member’s bills tend to be where moral debates lurk - which can cause another kind of heat.
Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Thursday - Autumn
On Thursdays you see backbench MPs arrive at Parliament pulling their luggage, already prepped for the flight home when the House rises and they are released from the precinct. Taxi’s tend to line up at the backdoor waiting for the surge of departures the moment the bell rings at 6pm (yes, again, Parliament is a lot like school).
Thursday mornings are again focused on Select Committees. Different ones from Wednesday. MPs are often on two (especially governing party MPs), so committees tend to sit on either Wednesday or Thursday to allow this.
Chamber business begins with a look forward to the next sitting week by the Leader of the House, which is tantamount to declaring the current week done. There's an opportunity for the opposition to respond to the plan but when they do it's with the fading energy of a season spent. No-one sings Auld Lang Syne though.
Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are traditionally absent (to allow them to travel around the rohe), and as a result of that (and the end of term feel) the tone is still lighter. On Thursdays lower profile opposition MPs often get to take shots at asking questions as well. And so sometimes careers are born, but often the Speaker has to intervene a fair bit to get the questions inside the rules.
The legislation on Thursdays is always government business, but of three different kinds. Sometimes it’s a clean-up of the week’s unfinished business (which is well trod already), sometimes it’s a first crack at a new bill introduced on Tuesday.
But very often it’s something that already has universal consent in the House (which fits the mood and energy levels). The main version of this is an Iwi Settlement Bill. These are scheduled in advance to allow iwi to plan to travel to attend. The First and third readings of these bills tend to be well-attended and noisily celebrated (with waiata and haka) from the Speaker’s Gallery.
And then, come six o’clock the season lurches back into Winter, the back-bench MPs vanish like godwits (except for the cabinet who over-winter in their Beehive offices), and the precinct breathes and gets back down to work in preparation for the next onslaught.
