Rare for a Government to be so arrogant and so incompetent at the same time
First the arrogance:
The new and improved way of not answering questions. This time from Rt Hon Winnie. pic.twitter.com/7Fmz0k6Mr7
— Jami-Lee Ross (@jamileeross) December 5, 2017
Yes a Government that says in its coalition document it is going to champion open government is again refusing to answer any question at all around meetings they have had. Basically they have decided to give absolute nonsense replies to every written question. This is a level of arrogance that people should be alarmed about. It is entirely reasonable to ask if a Minister has met with any Mayors.
The Government must be very short of ideas – they’re still putting backbenchers up to filibuster on innocuous bills in committee stage to waste time. It’s now week 4 of Parliament. #disorganised
— Jami-Lee Ross (@jamileeross) December 6, 2017
A Government filibustering their own bills because they are so incompetent they don’t even have speakers lined up for the next bills on the order paper. And remember they control the order on the order paper!
The sublime has now reached the ridiculous – the Government is so scared about starting new legislation that they’re now blocking closure motions on Government Bills. I have never seen this before.
— Jami-Lee Ross (@jamileeross) December 6, 2017
I can’t ever recall a situation where a Government is voting against closure motions on a Government bill. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t highlighting the levels of incompetence involved.
Gwynn Compton summarises:
Labour’s ineptitude in the House appears to have been capped off this evening as Labour first deployed its backbenchers, then had to rush eight ministers to the House, including Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson, to filibuster legislation on their own Order Paper. At the time of writing, government MPs are having to literally read subparts of the legislation they’re speaking on and make up fluff around it. We’ve even had a speech on the meaning of the word “is”.
What’s phenomenal about this is that normally the government treasures House time, there’s typically such a demand on it that it’s difficult to get new legislation introduced because there’s such a backlog to deal with. What we’re seeing instead is a government who on the one hand claiming that they’re busy, and on the other revealing that they’re not so much asleep at the wheel, but that they’re completely missing from the car of government, having fallen out of the driver’s door some four miles down the round.
It’s like a Forrest Gump Government!