Echo Chamber: Chris Hipkins, you frickin’ smart-arse sausage roll eater

Echo Chamber: Chris Hipkins, you frickin’ smart-arse sausage roll eater

Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and WellinSource: Google News
gton editor Joel MacManus.

There was a certain grumpiness in the air on Tuesday – for the government MPs, at least. Maybe it’s those wintertime blues or that mid-year slump that seeps in around this time, or maybe it’s the news of inflation being at its highest point in the last 12 months (at 2.7%), a Talbot Mills poll that showed 51% of New Zealanders think the country is on the wrong track, or maybe it’s that “frickin’ Chris Hipkins”, up to his old tricks again.

After question time kicked off – following a statement from foreign affairs minister Winston Peters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza – the Labour leader and his counterpart in blue had their usual stand-off, and as per usual these days, it was over FamilyBoost. The childcare rebate scheme was recently expanded after figures showed only 241 of the expected 21,000 families had received the maximum refund amount, and the Labour Party has been all too happy to rub its enemy’s nose in it.

When prime minister Christopher Luxon opted to answer Hipkins’ question of how many families had received the full $250 a fortnight rebate with the number of families who had received any payment under the scheme, Hipkins was undeterred. He asked the question again, and Luxon let him know that the great news here is that those middle and lower-income New Zealanders the working man’s party purports to care so much about are finally getting some support.

Source: Google News