Urgent Debate Or Urgent Farewell: MPs Discuss Chris Penk

Louis Collins

Tuesday’s urgent parliamentary debate
on Chris Penk’s demotion was about a fairly specific topic:
the prime minister’s decision to remove one of his ministers
from Cabinet for disloyalty. In practice, it was a rather
more eclectic collection of reckons from around the House.
At times it resembled a fond farewell tribute.

There
was the expected political crossfire over the events of the
previous week. Labour argued it exposed deeper problems for
Christopher Luxon’s leadership. National MPs’ responses were
tantamount to “nothing to see here”, instead aiming to
spotlight Labour’s hypothetical tax policies. But there were
also more personal interpretations of the
situation.

ACT’s Simon Court used a decent portion of
his contribution to lament the end of Penk’s ministerial
tenure, and praise Penk’s work in the Building and
Construction portfolio. He tucked in some campaigning too.
Court is standing in Penk’s electorate and hoping some of
Penk’s supporters might jump into the ACT waka instead of
the National one as a protest or proxy vote.

Court’s
praise contrasted with the political argument surrounding
Penk’s removal. At times the debate sounded less like a
dispute over a ministerial decision and more like a
valedictory for someone who had already left.

Te Pāti
Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni
both went out of their way to acknowledge the now former
minister personally, describing him in warm terms as an
“honourable man” who was “here for the right reasons”, and
praising the way he conducted himself across the
House.

Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
described Penk as “one of the better human beings on that
side”.

Almost the only party not to praise the fallen
minister was his own party. As speeches ping-ponged back and
forth between the two major parties, the very short
contributions from National MPs largely stuck to the party
line: Penk acted alone, actions have consequences, and it
was time to move on.

Then there was Kieran McAnulty,
who praised Penk but focused on picking apart attempts by
various National MPs to draw a line under the
events.

Through all of this, there were two notable
absences – both the demoter and the demoted.

Chris
Penk isn’t at Parliament this week, and was not in the House
to explain his actions, or respond to the various
assessments of his character and political judgment. The
prime minister had departed the House prior to the end of
Question Time; his actions as well as Penk’s were debated
without him. The one minister present who was discussed was
Erica Stanford, who sat still and silent, like a pupil sent
to await the headmaster.

Ultimately, the House’s
traversal of last week’s political melodrama was a forum for
criticism, defence, campaigning and a fond farewell from the
most unexpected quarters, missing only its
protagonists.

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