Beehive Diaries: The National Party’s Awkward Couples and Prime Minister’s Property Call

The Beehive Diaries breaks down the week in politics, including some awkward pairings for the National Party and Greens road show calling the prime minister about the wealth tax.

Bad weather:

A seemingly endless period
Bad weather in Wellington provided the first point of tension between the prime minister and his new deputy, Grant Robertson, who is also a deputy from Wellington Central.

When he arrived in Wellington on Monday, Ardern posted a screenshot of the Auckland and Wellington weather reports with the joke: “I came to Wellington to chair the Cabinet … And to remind @grantrobertsonMP that it is summer elsewhere.”

Auckland was 20 degrees, Wellington a miserable, miserable 9 degrees. Fix it, Grant.

The strange couples:

After their caucus meeting on Tuesday, the national deputies were sent in pairs to hear some homemade truths from party members and volunteers about the election result.

Whoever settled on couples is clearly a fan of the absurd, resulting in some odd couples being forced to have a good time together.

Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon, the two MPs considered as potential future leaders by Sir John Key, were dispatched together for the Canterbury region, while Collins supporter Maureen Pugh and Bridges supporter Paul Goldsmith were dispatched to the Wellington region .

Mark Mitchell and Todd Muller drove up the Kapiti coast to Wairarapa.

The two are half of the “Four Amigos” (the other two are Chris Bishop and Alf Ngaro), but Mitchell backed Simon Bridges for Muller’s leadership coup, then leaned into the job himself after the fall. from Muller.

Perhaps the folks at National decided Muller might need a bodyguard, and Mitchell’s experience as a police officer and in security in the Middle East was a perfect fit.

Meanwhile, Bill and Ted’s partner of new Southland MP Joseph Mooney and Simon Bridges roamed the Deep South.

Lash a dead horse:

The Green Party’s wealth tax proposal was rejected by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern before it made it to the post-election negotiating table, but it takes more than that to keep the Greens down.

Within hours of the Reserve Bank saying it would provide $ 28 million for banks to lend to their clients at low interest rates and forecast it would further boost the housing market, the Greens released a statement calling for a tax on the heritage as a mechanism to cool things down. down.

Ardern’s response was to say that the property price increases were not sustainable. “It just can’t keep increasing at the rate it has been.”

How it will stop it remains to be seen. She is not the first King Canute on this particular beach.

Quote of the week:

“Interestingly, I lost by 163 votes and I heard about 200 votes came out of Ngawha prison. I put some of those guys there so probably none of them are mine.” Former Northland MP Matt King’s police past catches up with him.