Debates — Hon Chris Penk—Removal as a Minister

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

One thing became very clear to New Zealanders over the last week: while they have been concerned about the cost of living—they’ve been experiencing a rising cost of living every day—while they’ve been worried about losing their jobs, and while we’ve seen youth unemployment reached a 30-year high, the Ministers and members of the National Party in this Government have been fighting about their own jobs and not the jobs of every New Zealander. While struggling Kiwis are trying to put food on the table and as they’re getting to the supermarket checkout and having to put food back because their numbers don’t add up, the only number that Christopher Luxon was interested in was whether he could rustle up 25 of his own MPs to still support his leadership as it becomes increasingly clear that he does not even have the backing of his own MPs to lead this Government, let alone to lead this country. While New Zealanders are worried about whether they can afford to jump on the bus because of increasing bus fares under this Government, Christopher Luxon has instead repurposed the New Zealand Defence Force as his own personal taxi service.

Christopher Luxon is presiding over a Government in complete disarray, and this Government must think New Zealanders are going to swallow anything when it comes to the events of the last week, because Christopher Luxon emerged from his caucus meeting last week and said that the National Party was completely united behind his leadership and then, quite literally minutes later, sacked one of his senior Ministers for trying to get rid of him. Which is it: did they emerge completely united, or did someone need to be sacked for trying to remove the Prime Minister? If there was no challenge, if Chris Penk simply was a lone wolf acting alone, why did every one of National’s 49 MPs need to fly to Wellington to establish them? Why did they need to spend three hours debating it before they could come out and say, “Actually, nothing to see here; no leadership challenge. We’re all right behind Christopher Luxon.” If in fact they are right behind Christopher Luxon, why did so many of them find it so difficult to say that before their three-hour meeting? Why could some of Christopher Luxon’s own most senior Ministers not say that they still supported him before they went into that meeting that took three hours in which they emerged supposedly united? If you listen to Christopher Luxon and his senior Ministers now, this was Chris Penk acting all alone. It’s like a scene from the TV series Blackadder. Chris Penk suddenly decided to go over the top all by himself and found nobody else was left behind him. No one is going to believe that.

Why did it take Erica Stanford three days to front up and say that she actually had confidence in the Prime Minister? She refused to express that before the meeting, and she refused to front up immediately after the meeting and say that. It took her three days to show up and say that she had confidence in the Prime Minister? One wonders whether it was her that said that or whether she was in fact made to say that. Of course, if we believe Erica Stanford today, it was pure coincidence that her staff were gathering in the banquet hall for the post-caucus match before they knew the result of the leadership confidence vote. It’s just pure coincidence that they were gathering for what they thought was going to be a victory parade by Erica Stanford, only to find, oops, that didn’t turn out the way they thought it was going to happen.

The real question for New Zealanders is a pretty simple one: if Christopher Luxon’s own MPs don’t want him to be the leader of the National Party and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, why should New Zealanders think any differently? And why should New Zealanders expect the absolute double standards from Christopher Luxon that they have seen over the last week? Apparently, making racist attacks on Chinese New Zealanders is perfectly acceptable conduct for a Government Minister in Christopher Luxon’s Government; making racist attacks on Indian New Zealanders is perfectly OK conduct for a Minister in Christopher Luxon’s Government—no sanction for either of those things. The message Christopher Luxon sent last week is that firing Chris Penk is, in his view, a bigger crime, because he committed the sin of being disloyal to Christopher Luxon. That gets you sacked from Cabinet, but being openly racist doesn’t. It shows how this Government and this Prime Minister are only interested in themselves and not New Zealanders.

Wayne Mapp, I think, was very revealing in talking about Chris Penk’s sacking. I’ll quote from him directly: “You have to at least have someone to be the fall guy, and you can’t punish everyone who may have a different view. Chris Penk was only a second-level Cabinet Minister, doesn’t have huge name recognition, and so he was chosen”. In other words, he was expendable, because, in the world of Christopher Luxon, the entire backbench is expendable, and most Government Ministers are expendable, because Christopher Luxon is only interested in his own career, not those of his own colleagues. For those who think that he goes around country just slagging other people off, they need a little bit of a reality check, because it may come as news to the National Party backbench and the National Party Ministers and the Government that Christopher Luxon goes around the country slagging all of you guys off as well. He doesn’t have much confidence in any of you, so why should you have confidence in him?

The case against Christopher Luxon is pretty clear; Chris Penk was clearly the only one with the intestinal fortitude to try and make it. Christopher Luxon promised to fix the cost of living, and he’s made it worse; promised to grow the economy, and shrunk it; promised to create jobs, and more people lost theirs; promised to get people off benefits, and more people are on benefits; promised to back businesses, and instead we’ve seen more and more businesses going into liquidation. Christopher Luxon’s response to all of that is to attack anybody who dares to question him. Businesses that question him, he tells them they have a “parent-child relationship” with the Government. When low-income New Zealanders question him, he tells them they’re “bottom feeders”. When small businesses question him, he tells them they are “C-listers”. When Kiwis question him, they’re told that they are “wet, whiny, and inward-looking”. He told a group of business leaders in Auckland that the National Party backbench are—and this is a direct quote—“no better than a bunch of Air New Zealand middle managers”. I’m not sure who should be more offended by that: the National Party backbench or the middle managers at Air New Zealand, who, frankly, deserve a hell of a lot more respect than that. Listening to Christopher Luxon, you can’t help but think he hates this country and everybody in it.

Better is possible, and it is not going to happen while Christopher Luxon remains in this job. We’ve now discovered there’s only one National MP—if you listen to their spin—who was willing to stand up and say, “Enough’s enough, and this just isn’t good enough.” I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure there are a lot more of them. They weren’t willing to stand up and defend Christopher Luxon before the meeting, so why should New Zealanders believe that they were actually right behind him? Better is possible: practical cost-of-living support for Kiwis, free visits to the doctor and free prescriptions; public transport fare caps; help to put solar on the roofs of Kiwi houses; supporting the 97 percent of Kiwi businesses that are small businesses; tax write-offs for small-business asset purchases; increasing the GST registration threshold—the first time that’s happened since 2009; making sure businesses’ invoices are paid on time; making sure small businesses get a fair share of the Government work that gets out there. Those are things this Government could be doing if they were focused on Kiwis and focused on supporting New Zealanders, rather than focused on themselves.

But that is not where their attention is. Their attention is only on themselves—on saving their own jobs, fighting amongst themselves, and undermining the Prime Minister, who has always been undermining them. They’re not focused on fighting every day for the New Zealanders who are regularly struggling. Better is undoubtedly possible, but it is not going to happen with this Government. Any of the three parties in this Government being re-elected to Government is simply going to mean more of the same.

We can do better: a future made in New Zealand, by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders; keeping our best and brightest Kiwis here at home, not calling them “wet, whiny, and miserable”, but making a country that’s worth staying in; backing our Kiwi small businesses so they can thrive; getting Kiwis back to work. That is what the Government should be focused on—tackling the cost of living, not fighting amongst themselves, not trying to defend the indefensible, and not trying to pretend the failed leadership coup didn’t actually happen. Better is possible, but it’s clearly not going to happen under this Government, so it is time to change it.

I rise on behalf of the National Party in this debate. I’ll tell you what, Chris Hipkins was trying to prove that he could speak for 10 minutes without saying the word “tax”. That’s all he was trying to do. He was trying to roll down the clock just to prove that he could spend 10 minutes not talking about tax. Well, I can tell you what, New Zealanders listening at home know exactly what Chris Hipkins has got in store for them, and it’s more taxes—more taxes, more taxes.

Willie Jackson, who’s just got up off his chair, is really interested in not only a streaming levy, which suddenly has just disappeared off the website, but of course, he also was musing on Friday about the land tax which their mates in the Opportunity Party have. The Labour Party has taxes for New Zealanders, and that’s exactly what they’re trying to focus away from, because they know that their taxes are hurting them in the polls and they don’t want to talk about them. They want to talk about anything other than their capital gains tax, their 45 percent top tax rate, their asset tax, their inheritance tax, their digital tax, their gift tax, their business tax, their rental tax, their land tax, their ute tax, their streaming tax. They’re trying to hide and talk about anything else—they’re happy to talk about anything else other than tax.

I rise on behalf of the Government to respond to the urgent debate regarding the removal of Chris Penk from the ministry.

Hon Willie Jackson: Tell us about that!

Hon SIMEON BROWN: I’ll keep my remarks brief, Mr Jackson.

Hon Willie Jackson: Give us some details!

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The events of last week have been well traversed in the media. The actions of Chris Penk ultimately made his position in Cabinet untenable, and, as such, he was removed from his portfolios, and they have been reallocated to other Ministers. Paul Goldsmith has picked up Defence, Veterans, Space, GCSB and NZSIS. Simon Watts has become Minister for Building and Construction, and that is the end of the matter. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I find it an interesting reflection on our Prime Minister that he is capable of dismissing one of his own Ministers for challenging whether he is the Prime Minister that New Zealanders deserve, yet he did not and cannot find the spine to fire his own Minister of Foreign Affairs.

SPEAKER: Don’t make it worse by throwing in words like that, which you know have caused trouble in the past. Just carry on.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Mr Speaker, it’s a really relevant point that we are debating, which is that a Minister has taken the fall, on his own individual shoulders, and that the Prime Minister is claiming that one Minister on his own was primarily responsible for a leadership challenge, and that Minister has been rapidly removed from his Cabinet portfolios. It is really relevant to then highlight why the Prime Minister has not been able to find the same spine to—

SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry—

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: OK, sorry, I apologise. Why was the Prime Minister not able to take swift action to also hold his Minister of Foreign Affairs to account for what the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged were racist, unhelpful remarks that were actually anti foreign affairs? It is beholden on the Green Party to highlight that particular lack of action when we have seen the Prime Minister, for the sake of his own job, take swift action.

The thing about this debate is that the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ statements were not the first time. Even just in this term, under the same Prime Minister, that Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke outwardly unacceptable and racist remarks towards a New Zealand - Filipino MP, a New Zealand - Mexican MP, a New Zealand - Chinese-born MP—and the latest remark, just this year, again towards New Zealand - Chinese MPs. The thing about those racist remarks is they are not just about the MPs in this House—they never are. Migrant communities have been very, very clear that that has caused harm to entire communities—not just to migrant communities but to relationships between all communities and our migrant communities. It’s also recognising that they are also us. We have mokopuna who are of mixed whakapapa. It was damaging to foreign affairs, but it was damaging to community relationships right here.

We saw the Prime Minister needing someone to take a fall for challenges to his leadership. Swiftly, within 24 hours, perhaps, of the Prime Minister trying to tell the country that he has the full support of his caucus, we saw that not to be true. How on earth are we supposed to believe that? Less than 24 hours later, the Prime Minister took action and held that Minister to account. Where is the rapid accountability from a Prime Minister who, supposedly, is able to lead a caucus, to lead a Cabinet, and yet, time and time and time again, has allowed for harmful, outwardly racist, derogatory, anti - foreign affairs remarks to be consistently targeted at New Zealand MPs?

We know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs consistently does that because he intentionally wants to lay blame for the fact that so many New Zealanders are struggling to live affordable lives, the fact that so many New Zealanders are worried about the harm that this Government is doing to their environment, the fact that so many New Zealanders can see undue influence in this Government. The Minister of Foreign Affairs wants to consistently distract away from the real cause, which is the prioritising of corporate interests over ordinary, everyday New Zealanders. Where is the Prime Minister’s leadership and accountability for a Minister of Foreign Affairs who is anti - foreign affairs, who consistently makes heinous remarks that are racist and harmful to all of our mokopuna, including in the playgrounds and in our communities?

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT Party is disappointed to lose such a collegial, competent, and hard-working Minister from our Government. Minister Chris Penk, as the Minister for Building and Construction, has delivered important parts of the agenda that ACT campaigned on: making building easier, cheaper, and more accountable. He has led the opening of New Zealand to overseas building products and reformed the earthquake-prone building regime, which was going to cost New Zealanders billions and billions of dollars and which ACT leader David Seymour pointed out the bleeding obvious about nearly a decade ago. It’s only by getting ACT back in Government to drive that reform, and with Chris Penk as the Minister able to deliver it, we now have sense in the way building earthquake risk is managed.

We’ve introduced a professional self-certification regime for building professionals, and we’ve moved away from joint and several liability towards proportionate liability in insurance. There’s still much to do to achieve ACT’s agenda in Government, particularly giving trusted builders an alternative to council consenting. We have made some progress with setting up a national building consent authority, which I’ve heard from many in the sector, including councils, is actually much more efficient. They’re getting much faster turn-around in consents, and a lot of dumb questions are no longer being asked of builders. Minister Penk, in his time as a Minister, made substantial progress on policies that ACT campaigned on and that we were proud to get into our coalition arrangement with our National colleagues.

For the Opposition: Minister Penk delivered more good policy than the Opposition could ever dream of. He delivered something in his time as a Minister that no member of the former Government—the Labour Government—could ever dream of. When it came to representing his electorate of Kaipara ki Mahurangi—that’s north-west of Auckland; that’s from Kumeū, Huapai, Helensville, up to Wellsford, Warkworth, and Mahurangi on the east coast of Auckland—he sought practical solutions for the problems facing the people in his electorate, particularly those significant infrastructure issues that were revealed after the 2023 anniversary weekend floods in Auckland. He advocated for residents concerned about the impacts of ongoing residential development, particularly fast-tracked developments where there was a lack of infrastructure, like roading, transport, pipes, and, of course, all of that flood management—stopbanks and other things—that keep people’s homes safe but also enable us to develop our communities, particularly in fast-growing places like around Kumeū, like around Warkworth, and the coasts on both sides of Auckland, where people want to live. They want to have a home with enough space for a trampoline in the backyard, or to park a boat on the driveway. Chris Penk understood that, and he represented the people of Kaipara ki Mahurangi very well.

That’s why, in this election, the people of Kaipara ki Mahurangi are going to have a choice as to who should replace Chris Penk as their MP and their representative. They can have more of the same; they can have these Opposition candidates who may or may not have any experience in local matters; or, potentially, they might choose to select Parliament’s only civil engineer. That’s right, I’m standing as the candidate in Kaipara ki Mahurangi, and I offer to those people, and to all the other people of New Zealand, experience as a civil engineer—how we fix infrastructure, how we fund and finance it, including through the private sector, and of course how we deliver resource management reform so that people can have a say about development in their community. When it comes to building the infrastructure, and actually unlocking New Zealand’s potential, ACT has the answers. I’ll be proud to represent ACT and offer the people of Kaipara ki Mahurangi a choice when it comes to the election in November.

SPEAKER: Does the member want to take an extra five seconds to add his authorisation to that?

SIMON COURT: Mr Speaker, with the leave of—

SPEAKER: It’s all right. We’ll take it as read—take it as read. The Hon Jamie Arbuckle—oh sorry, Jamie Arbuckle.

Thank you for that, Mr Speaker. That may be something that comes after 7 November.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in this urgent debate. The decision we are reflecting on is a decision for the Prime Minister. That decision has been made by the Prime Minister, and, obviously, there are some portfolios that have moved. One of those portfolios is the defence portfolio, and all I could say is that, on 7 November, help is on its way with an increasing number of New Zealand First MPs and a very experienced person coming back to this House. Thank you.

First of all, we are here to talk about the decisions that were made last week. It’s a real hōhā for those of our people in Aotearoa who have had to endure some of the highest power bills, who are now experiencing increased Māori unemployment. They’re having to worry about how they’re going to pay their power bills and whether they’re going to get their right entitlements with the winter energy payment. Our health services are really experiencing hard times. We’re watching clawback on public services. We’re watching hits within Te Tiriti, hits within education, and, in the meantime, we’ve had to watch a Government decide to fight about who should be the Prime Minister, who deserves to have jobs.

The hardest part about all of this is that, while that’s going on, we’ve been hearing the Government tell us, “Trust us. We’re going to get this right.” What happened last week was that the man who had been given one of the highest ministerial positions—in charge of defence and security—and who barely had it for four months was removed. He was removed because he was apparently, singularly, solo, on his own, responsible for the bringing down of a Prime Minister—solely, singularly, on his own. This Government is asking us to believe that and trust, and to take on the confidence that the Prime Minister said that he had.

The thing that’s really difficult to understand in this process is at what stage the Prime Minister decided that this high-ranking Minister had become untrustworthy. How many months into the job did the Prime Minister decide that he needed to force, immediately, the Minister of Defence and Minister responsible for the GCSB and NZSIS out of his post. What conversations happened? Are there others? How long was the Prime Minister going to sit on this situation? We should be really concerned, because we did have some of the most senior politicians in this country holding that portfolio. There’s been no explanation, other than the fact he singularly, solo, on his own, was part of a coup. That doesn’t sit well with us, because motions have to be seconded. Conspiracy has co-conspirators, and we’re not hearing that. We’re being asked as a nation, while everyone’s suffering and enduring some intolerable pain, to believe that that was just a little rotten egg on its own, and everything else has been removed.

That doesn’t sit with the mana that we know Chris had out in the community. He was in the navy and he worked alongside Māori, who hold him in high esteem. In fact, some of the feedback about him is that he was one of the better human beings on that side. He was extremely uncomfortable with some of the decisions that were being made—culture wars. These wars were being asserted and led by the Prime Minister. When we have Māori who are saying to us that he was a man of principles, that he was a man of high standards, and then we watch the public persecution of him, on his own—to use a caucus, on his own, to remove the Prime Minister—that doesn’t sit well with us. Everyone here knows about leadership issues, but what we’re being asked to believe, as a nation, is that that leadership issue was only down to one senior Minister responsible for our defence and our highest security.

If he served, and is perceived as being one of the better ones, then what other better Ministers are we expecting to be rolled next? We’ve seen a Prime Minister that allowed David Seymour to drive his jeep up the steps. We’ve heard from my esteemed colleague in the Greens about what he allowed with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I think that’s what’s not sitting well, and why we needed to have this debate. We have seen this Prime Minister sign two years of his leadership away to the Hon Winston Peters and to David Seymour, all at the cost of holding that seat. I think the biggest thing we know is that Chris Penk, this honourable man, saw something and he knew it had to change. He knew that he was in a Government where Chris Luxon is lite—not “light” but “lite”. Chris Penk dared to enact what the rest of the country are asking for, which is a change of Prime Minister, a change of Government. Te Pāti Māori, who are asking for his candidate votes, are saying exactly the same. Kia ora rā.

I do want to start by acknowledging the Hon Chris Penk. He is a man who many of us would say, through our own experience, was a gentleman in every way. He is a man who served his country with distinction. He is a man who played the ball, not the person, and he is someone from across the House who many of us admire greatly, and so the starting point for my speech has to be an acknowledgment of that loss—someone who was deeply passionate about their portfolios and was here for the right reasons.

I’m looking across the House and I see many of the National members hanging their heads in shame, and they should hang their heads in shame. They have lost a good man as a result of that man standing up with the strength of his conviction and demonstrating some courage to actually say something about the fact that we have a Prime Minister who is deeply unpopular across the country, who has demonstrated time and time again that he is out of touch with everyday New Zealanders, and a man who made all the promises in the world before getting elected into Government, and elected as Prime Minister, that he would fix so many of the challenges that New Zealanders faced, not least of which was the cost of living challenge.

In fact, under his watch, everyone and the country has gone backwards. Then we had a man, the Hon Chris Penk, who dared to challenge the Prime Minister and to try and persuade his colleagues that, actually, they needed a change of leader if they were going to have any hope of winning back the trust and confidence of New Zealanders. Instead, his colleagues allowed him to take the fall, allowed him to be sacked as a Minister, and then, of course, now to be standing down as a member of Parliament altogether. It is a great loss, but an indictment on that side of the House.

We do need to mention what is blatantly obvious to all Kiwis who watched this unfold over the course of the week: it is a distraction. It has served as a distraction, and it has been a circus. Whilst every New Zealander is struggling to make ends meet, to pay the energy bill, to put food on the table, while there are thousands of New Zealanders who have lost jobs under the watch of that Government, they’ve turned on each other and decided that, instead of focusing on the things that are priorities to Kiwis, they would just have this internal battle and the Prime Minister would come out acting like he was the man because he had won his leadership position for a second time after being challenged over the course of months. It’s instability. It’s instability, and it doesn’t provide the sense of security or the sense that the Government is focused on what matters to New Zealanders—to all of New Zealand.

It was a circus, and it was an internal battle that we saw unfold, and as a result, as I said, the Hon Chris Penk is no longer here, but it comes off the back of coalition infighting across the course of this whole three years. You’ve got New Zealand First, you’ve got ACT, and you’ve got National all publicly turning on each other. You’ve got a Prime Minister who refuses to hold to account members of his Cabinet for much more abhorrent behaviour than what we saw Chris Penk involved in. We’ve got a foreign affairs Minister who has been denigrating our biggest trade partner, China; we’ve got another Minister in New Zealand First who’s been making racist comments about our Indian community, and the list goes on and on and on. None of them was punished by the Prime Minister, but the one person in his own team who had the courage to stand up for what, to many people, would be deemed as right has lost his job as a result of that courage. This is a reflection of the weakness of the Prime Minister’s leadership, and we all need to remember that.

I rise to speak on this debate and I’ll keep my remarks short because there’s a very large crowd here for Te Here ā Nuku, and I don’t want to hold them up any longer than necessary.

The events of Mr Penk’s removal have been well traversed in the media over the past few days. Ultimately, as a Minister in the Cabinet, challenging the leader of the party left his position in Cabinet untenable and he was removed. He’s been replaced by a couple of excellent Ministers who will do their best to carry on the good work, and this Government is determined to use every day that it has in the lead-up to the election to carry on its work to deliver for New Zealanders by fixing the basics and building a better future for New Zealanders here in this country.

It is appropriate that we acknowledge those in the gallery that are here for the Te Here ā Nuku bill, but make no mistake, the Hon Paul Goldsmith did not cut his speech short so that we could get to that bill. He cut his speech short because he doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, because he’s a member of a party that is in disarray and that is desperately trying to spin this as if everyone in the National Party caucus backs Christopher Luxon’s leadership. Who believes that? No one. They don’t even believe that. They don’t believe it, because they know it isn’t true. How could the Prime Minister stand there at a press conference—which Erica Stanford’s staff thought she was going to win and were standing there waiting for her to come out—and tell everybody that he’s got 100 percent support and then, only a matter of minutes later, sack a bloke for challenging him?

There’s the first point where it doesn’t stack up. The second one is that you’ve got front-bench Ministers of the Government refusing to pledge support to the Prime Minister. There’s the second point where it doesn’t stack up. If the Prime Minister had full support, why would they need to drag every National Party MP down to Wellington to have a meeting, at a cost to the taxpayer of over $35,000, to have us believe that they sat there for three hours giving each other hugs and high-fives? What a load of rubbish—what a load of rubbish. They wanted to get rid of him. They tried for the second time, they bungled it for the second time, and the bloke that’s taken the fall is actually a decent bloke—a bloke that is really well regarded across this House. He’s an honourable man, and that is why he’s keeping his mouth shut right now, but if only he had the freedom to be able to tell the full story, the full story that everybody knows is the case: that, just by the mere nature of it, no one goes up alone.

If this was one bloke stirring trouble, they wouldn’t have called the meeting. If it was one bloke stirring trouble, this wouldn’t have happened twice. He was a stalking horse, and everybody knows it. There were two people that were fighting amongst each other, that were trying to take the leadership—Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford—and the only reason one of them didn’t do it is because neither of them would step aside. In the end, they decided not to do it, and they forgot to tell Chris Penk! He went over the top, and he found out—like most of them will find out eventually when times get tough—that they don’t have mates that are willing to stand alongside them. And he is the one that paid the price.

This is a shameful affair and another example of a Government that is not focused on New Zealanders. It’s not focused on the cost of living or on unemployment or on homelessness or on jobs or on housing. They’re only focused on themselves, and this is a desperate bid to try and distract attention away from one solid fact—anyone that watches this debate will see it to be true—the ACT Party are desperately trying to take the National Party’s votes. The New Zealand First Party are trying—and, I have to admit, not very well, but they’re giving it a go none the less—to take National Party votes. The National Party are stuck in the middle, and they are bleeding. They are bleeding themselves dry. They’re losing left, right, and centre, and I think they will be decimated. And, frankly, they deserve to be.

Why should New Zealanders give them another chance? Why should New Zealanders back Christopher Luxon when his own mates don’t even back him? Why should they back a National Party who are so incompetent that they can’t get rid of a useless leader twice? Imagine that; what a hit to the old self-esteem when Christopher Luxon outmanoeuvres you twice! Goodness me, you’d struggle to sleep if that was the case. But it is the case, and there are MPs on that side of the House, in various seats—and I’m looking at them now—who won’t be back. They won’t be back because they rely on the list, or they won’t be back because they’re in a marginal seat. How can they look their constituents in the eye and say that they are focused on the things that really matter to New Zealanders when, actually, in an adjournment week, they spent their time plotting, they spent their time scheming, and then, ultimately, they blew it? Now, we’re stuck with him, so thanks very much! You could have done the country a favour: you could have got rid of him. You had a second go and you still buggered it up, and now we are stuck with him. We are stuck with a Prime Minister who goes around the country and talks down about New Zealand. He talks down about those that are downtrodden, he talks down about New Zealand businesses, and he even talks down about his colleagues. How does that inspire this country?

How can those New Zealanders that have left this country turn around and look at this situation, where this man is still our Prime Minister, a man who doesn’t inspire hope, who doesn’t drive us forward, and who only talks us down—why would they come back? Those members should have done us a favour and done the job, and got rid of him in the first place.

We’ve just heard a lot of fantasy and fairy tale from the other side, so let’s look at a very simple fact of what has happened. We had one member of the Cabinet, the Hon Chris Penk, who challenged the Prime Minister for leadership. In anyone’s world, it is untenable to have the very privileged position in Cabinet and to have someone challenging the leader of that Cabinet, and so he was dismissed.

That is the fact, it is simple and clear, and this side of the House is very clear about our focus. It is on fixing the basics and building the future for New Zealanders. We’ve got a track record of the enormous gains that we’ve been making in turning the economy around, dealing with the cost of living pressures, making New Zealand communities and families safer, and improving education and health. That’s what this side of the House will continue to focus on, with a strong Prime Minister in Christopher Luxon.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.