Christopher Luxon delivers the 2026 Prime Minister's Statement. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Question Time is often frustrating, but those frustrations only increase in an election year, when the questions and answers tend to become even more pointedly political.
Opposition questions get increasingly political. Sometimes it would be a surprise if the asker expected any response, let alone a serious one.
On Tuesday, in a to-and-fro on unemployment, Barbara Edmonds asked Nicola Willis: "Does she take responsibility for the loss of 10,000 jobs in Wellington alone, and is that the real reason why she won't stand in a Wellington seat?"
Even when questions are genuine, genuine answers are rare; except to patsy questions, and as you might expect, those tend to accentuate the positive until it gleams shinier than a surprise election tax-break promise in September.
Serious questions vanish as serious answers dry up. Which is cause and which is effect would only be a further point of contention.
In theory, Question Time is a pinnacle of government accountability. When Parliament, wielding the authority of its leader - the Speaker - exerts its constitutional supremacy over the government. When MPs ask tough and sensible questions of ministers and receive thoughtful, reasoned replies with specific information about details of the government's plans.
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not." It's a truism surely coined after watching Question Time and often misattributed to various people including Yogi Berra, Albert Einstein, and Richard Feynman.
Amid all the attacks and insults Tuesday's Question Time was mostly about only two topics. The first of these was unemployment, which has reached a 10-year high. The economy is likely to be a key issue this election, so expect more and similar over the coming months.
The second topic was the government's plan to ship in liquefied natural gas (LNG) to address dry year power issues, and for the cost of the Taranaki infrastructure to flow down to consumers at between $2-4 per mega watt hour.
That would likely total only a few dollars per month but opens the government to attacks over the introduction of a new tax.
Megan Woods enquired as to when the tax/levy/fee/charge (the government wasn't keen on any descriptor) would first be added to people's power bills, but no indication was forthcoming.
Arguably, no new information or insight was offered on either topic, but plenty of heat was generated.
Clearly MPs have returned from their damp beach holidays raring to go this election year. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."
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