While everyone’s attention this week appears to have been on MP Meka Whaitiri and whether a waka has been jumped from, other interesting things were afoot in the chamber.
One of them was a rare square-off between Opposition Leader Chris Luxon and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni in her capacity as Acting Prime Minister. The showdown stands as a testament to the sometimes repetitive nature of Question Time.
Chris Luxon on the attack Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
It’s one of those norms at Parliament that when the Prime Minister is absent from the chamber, so is the Opposition leader. There’s an understanding that it would almost lower the kudos of the leader of the opposition to be squaring off against the number 2 or lower.
So it was a little surprising when Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was absent this week, having flown to London ahead of King Charles’ Coronation this weekend, to find that his opposite, Chris Luxon, was still here at Parliament.
Luxon is due to fly out and join Hipkins at the coronation, but in the meantime he stayed behind and got the chance to square off against Sepuloni, who is relatively new to the Acting Prime Minister’s role.
During Question Time on Tuesday, Luxon asked eight questions of Sepuloni, seven of which were about tax, including several consecutive near-identical questions about whether she could rule out a capital gains tax. Sepuloni responded repeatedly that the Government would not be introducing a capital gains tax before the end of this term.
Less than two years into his role, Luxon has hardly set the world on fire at Question Time or in general as a debater. In his regular exchanges with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Jacinda Ardern before him, Luxon has landed fewer blows than he might have hoped for.
The Opposition Leader was wise this week to veer away from questions directed to Sepuloni’s portfolio stronghold of social welfare. To test Sepuloni he briefly tried a scattergun approach, flicking from one subject to another, without much traction, before returning to his old standby.
On Wednesday during Question Time, Luxon found new ways to ask the same question about a capital gains tax - five questions out of the eight he asked Sepuloni were related to tax - only to draw much the same responses from the Acting Prime Minister all over again. She concluded that the Opposition was “continuing to act like we have some kind of secret tax plan”.
There are many ways to skin a cat - Luxon's strategy was mainly to keep chipping away with slight variations of the same question in order to draw blood - however in this case the cat remains fully furred.
If one thing is clear from this week's repetitive exchanges between these two, it's that the capital gains tax issue is likely to crop up again and again in Question Time, no matter what the answer is.
Carmel Sepuloni Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
