Mike's Minute: My thoughts on the chaos in the House

If you watched Parliament, as I did yesterday afternoon, you could feel it building. 

Question Time focused largely on the Treaty Principles Bill. There was a growing angst, Gerry Brownlee the Speaker spent far too much time calling for order, it was low rent, which isn't unheard of, but full of needless aggro. 

Then came the so-called debate. 

There were 11 speeches, lead off by architect of the bill David Seymour who spoke, as he has through this whole shambolic process, very eloquently. 

He was followed by Willie Jackson, who also spoke very passionately, until he called Seymour a liar and got booted out of the House. 

Most of the rest of the speeches were boring and said what you thought they might say, depending on what side of the House the speaker came from. 

National were in the invidious position of defending their position while not defending the bill. They can blame Christopher Luxon for this because how he let it find its way to the place it has is beyond me. 

As a coalition deal you either let it ride or kill it before you sign a deal in the first place. But this half-way House is the worst of all possible worlds, and it looked like it, as he was on a plane to South America and the poor sods, he left behind had to do their best. 

The whole affair, sadly, was not what you might want, or expect, from our House of Representatives. 

Beyond anything else, we appear to have lost the ability to debate cordially, to agree to disagree, to listen to other views, to be mature, to be adult and to accept that we don’t all have to be on the same page. 

By the time the Māori Party burst into a haka and wrecked it all, Gerry rolled his eyes and suspended proceedings for the day. 

I caught up with the fall out on Sky TV. God knows what the Australians make of it. This sort of stuff also goes global, so more embarrassment there as well. 

We look ridiculous. We look like amateurs, we look like petty, little children b*tching at each other. 

We look like Kamala Harris supporters on TikTok. 

I think, and hope, we are better than this. That lot yesterday in the House of Representatives is not us. It's not representative. 

Because if they are, we are buggered. 

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