Clifton on Parliament

Jane Clifton writes:

It's probably to say that yesterday was the first time in – possibly anywhere in the world – that a male of Parliament has found it necessary to defend his masculinity before the House.

Speaker Lockwood Smith's unexpected intervention came after Minister Gerry Brownlee, unconsciously reverting to a habit formed when was speaker of the last Parliament, referred to him as “Madam Speaker”. Dr Smith boggled somewhat, but politely waited until Mr Brownlee had finished his answer – which Mr Brownlee clearly considered to be a particularly witty riposte to pesky questions from the – before asserting his manhood.

Unfortunately, hardly anyone except Dr Smith had noticed the garbled “Madam”, so the air of shock can be imagined when he suddenly announced to Mr Brownlee: “I need to assure him that I have never had a sex change.”

MPs turned agape to Dr Smith, while a staggered Mr Brownlee struggled with his composure, clearly trying to think how his clever answer about could have been interpreted as a slur on the Speaker's gender.

“I expect not!” he said, floundering. “Or there would have been a statement to Parliament.”

“It's just that I'm not Madam Speaker,” Dr Smith explained, to everyone's relief.

Heh classic.

You can see it below on the video from In the House. I have to say I think In the House is a world class service. Being able to find and embed videos from the House within a few hours of proceedings in Parliament is excellent.

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