Sad

I know it is sad, but thanks to TVNZ.CO.NZ - I am completely up to date with NZ news, particularly, political news. I can read the transcripts of Question Time - even watch it online. Despite making me one of the more desperately sad people out there, I used to look forward to it. Now it just makes me drown in my own indifference.

The squalid nature of exchanges in our House of Representatives has hit a low that makes me physically cringe. John Armstrong in the Herald:

This week Parliament was treated to the ludicrous, yet disturbing sight of a minister pretending not to be a minister in order to duck questions about his breaching collective Cabinet responsibility - a constitutional convention which has also become a moveable feast.

The slow suffocation of question-time does not make headlines, but it is as insidious and as destructive of the institution of Parliament as personal attacks.

Granted, politicians are not Saints, nor should they be - but in recent weeks the blatant disreguard for the institution they are now debasing has been horrific. It seems that personal loathing has eclipsed their collective purpose for being. Not added by the worst Speaker I can possibly imagine. Loath him, or just dislike him, at least Jonathan Hunt had a firm grasp of the Standing Orders. And could tell Winston to sit the f....

The David Benson-Pope beat up was just that, a beat up. But he nobbled himself be lying. I felt sorry for David Parker. But it is the way these matters are raised, responded to and debated that makes me happy to be listening from afar. It's not just me, John Armstrong summarises:

It is one thing to fudge answers. It is another to effectively treat the questioner's right to ask a question with contempt.

This is a source of great frustration on the Opposition benches - and a major factor in inciting the kind of disorder which helps give Parliament such a poor reputation.

National puts the deliberate obstruction down to a mixture of ministerial arrogance and bureaucratic secretiveness.

In an unusual move, National's shadow Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, this week pleaded with the Government to address the standard of replies, both to spoken and written questions.

Labour is unlikely to oblige. It lives in morbid fear of history repeating itself and that it will suffer the same fate as the third-term National Government between 1996 and 1999.

That administration fell victim to charges of sleaze and croneyism. Labour believes the current dirt-digging is designed to have similar effect.

While there is some co-operation between party whips to try and calm things down, all bets are off when the attacks in the chamber once more get personal. Parliament's standing suffers accordingly.

Banana republic...