Paula Bennett walks out of Parliament over National's treatment by Mallard

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Forums › Politics › Paula Bennett walks out of Parliament over National's treatment by Mallard

frednz

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#236208 23-May-2018 16:39

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12057092

Extract from above article:

National's deputy leader Paula Bennett has revolted against Speaker Trevor Mallard's new system of discipline, walking out of Parliament and saying Mallard's system of docking questions to punish MPs was "unpredictable and dangerous."

Bennett said afterward that her walk-out was not a vote of no-confidence in the Speaker but she was "sick of being treated like a child" and his new penalties system was bad for democracy.

Bennett walked out of the debating chamber during Question Time after Mallard docked five questions from National over something Gerry Brownlee said while she was questioning the Prime Minister. It is unclear what Brownlee said.

Mallard docks questions from parties if they interject while a question is being asked or during a point of order. When he first took over as Speaker, Mallard had deducted one at a time but had since moved to docking up to five in one go.

I don't think any other Speaker has threatened the democratic process in this manner. Look, if a member is really unruly, why not just go back to the previous practice of ejecting that member from Parliament?

Mallard's system of deducting supplementary questions is very childish and I agree with Paula's view that she was being treated like a child!

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#2021259 23-May-2018 17:20

I watched it and was also disgusted at the Speaker for clearly showing that he wasn't neutral. He also made a flippant remark as Bennett walked out...

He was dishonest in Clarks government and was thrown out of the house many many times. He also attacked a MP. My guess is that Nats could probably roll him with a bit of effort..but who would replace him?

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MikeB4

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#2021261 23-May-2018 17:22

Pumpedd:

I watched it and was also disgusted at the Speaker for clearly showing that he wasn't neutral. He also made a flippant remark as Bennett walked out...

He was dishonest in Clarks government and was thrown out of the house many many times. He also attacked a MP. My guess is that Nats could probably roll him with a bit of effort..but who would replace him?

Has he made reductions from members from other parties?

Pumpedd

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#2021262 23-May-2018 17:26

MikeB4:

Pumpedd:

I watched it and was also disgusted at the Speaker for clearly showing that he wasn't neutral. He also made a flippant remark as Bennett walked out...

He was dishonest in Clarks government and was thrown out of the house many many times. He also attacked a MP. My guess is that Nats could probably roll him with a bit of effort..but who would replace him?

Has he made reductions from members from other parties?

You know he has and in fact National are 20 questions ahead. It all seems rather punitive. The main issue is the "little girl" comment supposedly made that Mallard has leaked to the media when in fact there is no record of it being said. Mallard has also commented that he is partially deaf.

Dingbatt

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#2021263 23-May-2018 17:31

Pumpedd:
MikeB4:

Pumpedd:

I watched it and was also disgusted at the Speaker for clearly showing that he wasn't neutral. He also made a flippant remark as Bennett walked out...

He was dishonest in Clarks government and was thrown out of the house many many times. He also attacked a MP. My guess is that Nats could probably roll him with a bit of effort..but who would replace him?

Has he made reductions from members from other parties?

You know he has and in fact National are 20 questions ahead. It all seems rather punitive. The main issue is the "little girl" comment supposedly made that Mallard has leaked to the media when in fact there is no record of it being said. Mallard has also commented that he is partially deaf.

Let me guess. He is deaf in his right ear.......

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MikeB4

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#2021264 23-May-2018 17:31

This issue is regarding the adding or removal of supplementary questions at the Speaker discretion. If he has added and subtracted these from both sides of the house he is being neutral. The alleged "little girl" comment saga is another issue.

amiga500

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#2021276 23-May-2018 17:52

Mr Speaker is the 'classic poacher turned gamekeeper' however the little bits of parliament that I've seen tend to show that he is pretty measured & prepared to justify his rulings. Maybe I saw him on the good days.

gzt

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#2021292 23-May-2018 18:29

MikeB4: This issue is regarding the adding or removal of supplementary questions at the Speaker discretion. If he has added and subtracted these from both sides of the house he is being neutral.

This doesn't strike me as a good thing. People vote for members to represent them in parliament. If a question is essentialy taken away from one mp because another mp did something dumb there is no equality in that at all.

MikeB4

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#2021303 23-May-2018 18:59

gzt:
MikeB4: This issue is regarding the adding or removal of supplementary questions at the Speaker discretion. If he has added and subtracted these from both sides of the house he is being neutral.

This doesn't strike me as a good thing. People vote for members to represent them in parliament. If a question is essentialy taken away from one mp because another mp did something dumb there is no equality in that at all.

I agree it's not good but if the Speaker is doing it to raise the behavior of both sides of the house then ok. The standard of behavior by members from all parties can be childish. Watching the debating chamber can be depressing.

JimmyH

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#2021307 23-May-2018 19:06

The Speaker should take pains to be as non-partisan as possible. It goes with the job.

Jonathan Hunt and Lockwood Smith were excellent speakers, they knew the rules are broadly tried to be unbiased and make Parliament function consistently ad coherently. Margaret Wilson and David Carter were pretty dreadful in terms of overt bias. From the coverage I have seen, it looks like Trevor Mallard is swiftly heading towards dreadful as well.

frednz

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#2021350 23-May-2018 20:21

JimmyH:

The Speaker should take pains to be as non-partisan as possible. It goes with the job.

Jonathan Hunt and Lockwood Smith were excellent speakers, they knew the rules are broadly tried to be unbiased and make Parliament function consistently ad coherently. Margaret Wilson and David Carter were pretty dreadful in terms of overt bias. From the coverage I have seen, it looks like Trevor Mallard is swiftly heading towards dreadful as well.

I guess Trevor Mallard has in mind the many times that he was ejected from the House for disagreeing with the Speaker etc. He obviously thinks that it's better for errant members to stay in the House and to penalise the offending Party with a reduction of questions that can be used at Question Time.

But I think this practice brings Parliament into disrepute because it's fundamentally childish and can disrupt the serious democratic business of the opposition parties holding the Government to account.

Otherwise, I think Trevor has tried hard to do a good unbiased job, but if he wants to keep the respect of everyone, he needs to drop his practice of penalising errant parties with a reduction of questions they can use at Question Time.

But National (Gerry Brownlee) has now even written a letter to Mallard expressing their concerns about his chairing of the House.

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#2021496 23-May-2018 22:51

frednz:

But I think this practice brings Parliament into disrepute because it's fundamentally childish and can disrupt the serious democratic business of the opposition parties holding the Government to account.

Parliament _is_ fundamentally childish :-P

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tdgeek

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#2021516 23-May-2018 23:37

I cant see the issue. Comments are first that he has bias. I guess thats the inherent bias that each poster has, as Mallard has punished Labour MP's more than National, so there is no bias. So the issue is, is he too tough? We all know that question time is a playground. If he chooses to take a tougher line, then he is raising the bar on behaviour. Question Time is the time for the Opposition to hold the Governing party to account. More time needs to be spent on that, than dealing with poor behaviour.

Hard one to solve. Maybe the MP's can behave better, then avoid being penalised. Maybe Paula needs to play nice and then she and her peers can ask more questions. Maybe Labour needs to improve more as they are the worse offender. That both parties are being taken to task, clearly this poor behaviour we all have seen is "normal" . Maybe they should act more like adults.

tdgeek

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#2021518 23-May-2018 23:40

frednz:

But I think this practice brings Parliament into disrepute because it's fundamentally childish and can disrupt the serious democratic business of the opposition parties holding the Government to account.

Yes, Parliament in Question Time is fundamentally childish, that needs to stop. The serious democratic process is being interrupted by childish behaviour.

You are referring to Mallard, I am referring to how the MP's behave. If they upped there game they wont lose questions. Easy and more democratic

dwilson

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#2021533 24-May-2018 05:55

More and more I am seeing the following:

A acts badly.
B punishes A
X, Y and Z complain about the behaviour of B
B stops.
A acts badly.

I see this is schools, work places, government (local especially) and on social media. Presented in a wide range of circumstances.

This situation appears to be no different.

Acting like a child earns a child's punishment. I just wish Corporal Punishment was still a thing, I'd love to see Trevor out with a cane, beating Paula's bum.

GV27

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#2021542 24-May-2018 07:23

Taking questions away from Labour costs them nothing but additional patsy questions. Giving extra supplementary questions to the Nats is pointless because they can't prepare for them or formulate a line of questioning to make use of them. But taking supplementaries away from the Nats completely stops their ability to raise additional questions in a planned line of questioning.

In short, it costs Labour nothing and gives zero advantage to the Nats, but the cost for the Nats has a direct impact on their ability to function as an opposition.

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