by frog
A question that is yet to be answered around here – where is Winston going to sit in the House when Parliament resumes?
Rumour has it that the Frown Affairs Minister (as he is dubbed in this morning’s Herald) wants to be on the opposition side so that he can maintain the fiction of not being part of the Government.
But constitutional convention (if there’s any left after The Deal) says that Winston (and Peter) should be at the far end of the Government benches. Of course, from there he’ll be poorly placed to hurl abuse at the Labour front bench and an absolute sitting duck for the Nats.
Certainly the Green Party doesn’t want to be sitting closer to the Government than NZ First or United Future and Rod intends to tell the Clerk of the House that the preferred position, and indeed the logical place for the Greens, is next to the aisle on the opposition side, facing the Speaker.
One suspects that this is one thing the Greens and National are going to agree on 
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Published in Parliament by frog on Thu, October 20th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Do NZ parliamentarians have a reserved seat each?
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yes they do
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Frogblog that makes sense. How can Winston and Dunne answer questions about their portfolios from the opposition if they are sitting next to each other?
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Yes, that is surely an OSH issue. If Winston has to turn his neck every time the opposition ask him a question, he could risk damaging his spine…
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He has a spine?
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The logical order is Labour, Progressive, NZ First, United Future, Green, Maori Party, ACT, National.
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He’s a shiver looking for a spine to crawl up
I think a lot of our precious constitutional conventions will be going out the window. I’m not particularly sorry, since most of them surround the government’s ability to abuse power they were not actually given.
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Ben- could you elaborate?
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David – This is a curiousity thing. What is the basis of the order you just gave, not saying you’re wrong. You’re probably right, but I haven’t much familiarity with the mechanics of parliaments and I was wondering how the order would be determined?
respectfully
BJ
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The best thing would be to remove a chair every 3 months or so… whenever the music stops.
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I’m none too alert this morning, but don’t we have a one-seat overhang? Couldn’t we put up a folding chair in the aisle for him? It’d make it much easier for him to nip out for a fag.
Erm, cigarette.
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I agree with David, with the exception that NZ First (who gets to choose before United Future does) would choose seats next to the Center aisle, squeezing United Future between NZ First and Labour.
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they could set up a swivelling highchair for him in the middle of the chamber..then he could throw tantys at everyone….
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“don’t we have a one-seat overhang? Couldn’t we put up a folding chair in the aisle for him?”
As Winnie is so keen to help out the country in whatever way he can – (you know, becoming a Minister against his will just so we have stable government) – then I am sure that he won’t mind making his seat a business class one, on whatever airline is leaving next.
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The entertaining thing with the centrists is that everyone except Labour will be ripping them new ones.
Here’s Rodney :
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10351208
Mr Hide said he was not surprised Mr Peters and Mr Dunne had “sold out their votes”.
“Winston Peters and Peter Dunne are now the castrated poodles of New Zealand politics.”
His line is that this government is all Helen all the time… the centrists are sellout makeweights.
What would be his line if it were a LPG+M government?
Quite the opposite I expect : we would be the tail wagging the dog in his rhetoric.
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bjchip:
I’ll answer your question to David Farrar:
Start with Labour: (govt), then govt supporters ranked in order of degree of support then size. ie: Progressive: (coallition partner), NZF: (largest number main supporter) , UF: (second l.n.m.s), Green (minor support)
Then do the same starting from the other side, ie National (opposition), Act closest supporter.
Maori Party sits between these two groups as “unaligned”
Hence Lab, Prog, NZF, UF, Maori, Act, Nat.
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Thanks Eredwen – Not sure David will speak to me after my last shot at him
respectfully
BJ
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