24 Oct 2019

The week in questions: heavy on light rail

From The House , 6:55 pm on 24 October 2019

Newsrooms have an almost metaphysical thing they term news value - which drives the news agenda. It’s an alchemical mix including prominence, proximity, impact and interest with which journalists decide which stories deserve attention and how much. 

Parliament has something similar - although the various political parties have very different ideas about what is the key story on any given day or week.

One way of telling what is leading - at least from the opposition’s point of view - is how much focus a topic is given in Question Time. This week, apparently that story was light rail in Auckland.

Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges (left) and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (right) during question time.

Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges (left) and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (right) during question time. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox

On Tuesday Simon Bridges focused on it in an extended run of questions. His focus was to point out as often as possible that the planned start date for the project had been pushed back by the addition of a joint PPP deal between the New Zealand super fund and a Canadian infrastructure group.

A few minutes later on in Question Time National's transport spokesperson rose with another take on the same topic, with a focus initially on costs.

Wednesday was an matching set, except Winston Peters was in the role of Prime Minister. The focus again began with delivery times, but the light rail exchange was lightened with jibes. 

Hon Simon Bridges: "Will there be spades in the ground on light rail during this term of Parliament?"

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: "On behalf of the Prime Minister, we don't build railways with spades on the ground any more."

National MP Chris Bishop in the House

National MP Chris Bishop in the House Photo: © VNP / Phil Smith

On Thursday, with the Leader of the Opposition away the encore was a duet between just National's Chris Bishop and Minister of Transport Phil Twyford. They covered fairness, integrity, cost effectiveness and efficiency before it dissembled into a disagreement with the Speaker over just how many sub-queries can be squeezed into one supplementary question. It turns out that four legs is two too many on a question, even if they are small ones. 

That was a pretty solid focus in a week. Five of National’s 21 primary questions for the week, and a large percentage of their supplementary questions were heavy on the light rail. Call it a news agenda.