Is parliament a safe workplace for MPs?

The Leader of the House says it's 'a rambunctious place' right now. His Act colleagues allege more serious problems – including bullying and racial harassment.

Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, August 2.

In today’s edition: Journalist Evan Gershkovich freed from Russia in historic prisoner swap; independent investigation finds that workers who caused Northland’s pylon collapse were inexperienced and poorly supervised; hospital doctors expected to make beds and clean. But first, Karen Chhour says bullying behaviour has pushed her to her breaking point. Her opponents say she’s out of her depth.

‘I’m a minister, but I’m still a person’

The House has always been a fractious place, but tensions are higher than usual right now. The relationship between Te Pāti Māori and Act, never exactly warm, has descended into rancour amid the debate over the repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. That law change, which will remove the requirement that the organisation take into account the Treaty of Waitangi, is being shepherded through the House by Karen Chhour, who this week told Jenna Lynch of Stuff’s ThreeNews she felt parliament was an “unsafe workplace” where she was being bullied. “Yes, I’m in a position of being a minister but I’m still a person, I’m still a person. And I feel like I’m getting that stripped away from me day by day in this place and I’ve had enough,” she said through tears. 

Chhour to Tova: your questions are ‘revolting’

Chhour’s distress stems from criticism directed at her by Te Pāti Māori, who are campaigning hard against section 7A’s repeal. In a post on social media in May, the party said Chhour, who is wahine Māori, had “a disconnection and disdain for her... people” because she was raised in a Pākehā environment. Around the same time, Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, speaking to the House in te reo, said Chhour had been made a “puppet by her party”. The Herald’s Audrey Young (paywalled) says the comments were out of line. The Speaker “needs to use any influence he has with Te Pāti Māori to get them to lay off Chhour and apologise … She’s tough, but even titanium has a breaking point.”

Chhour is one of the ministers currently embroiled in the controversy over the government’s boot camp programme. In an interview on Wednesday with Tova O’Brien about the risk of abuse to children in the care of a boot camp, Chhour told O’Brien some of her questions were “revolting”. Presented with a number of hypothetical situations in which abuse could occur, Chhour said she was “horrified that you think I could do that to children”, before abruptly ending the interview. Labour leader Chris Hipkins says Chhour’s ethnicity and past experience in state care aren’t at issue. “I think they should be kept well out of it – but her actions as a minister show that she is not coping with the job.”

‘A green light to racial harassment’

Back in the House, Act leader David Seymour has accused the Speaker of giving “a green light to racial harassment” by refusing to take action on an incident involving Act’s Laura Trask. Act says the MP was left feeling “shaken, saddened and angry" after TPM and Green MPs opposed her chairing a sub committee on the repeal of section 7AA. "She was told by other members that it would be better if it was someone who was Māori or Pasifika because submitters, quote, 'could not see themselves in her'. In no workplace in New Zealand is that acceptable," Seymour told the House. Committee member Carmel Sepuloni (Labour) said the allegation about what happened to Trask was a “disappointing and actually quite ridiculous misrepresentation” and the Act MP had actually been deemed unsuitable due to the “sensitive nature of the submissions”. The raw feelings over Trask fed into Wednesday’s stoush over lapel pins, which Act MPs wore in protest against what they believe is unfair treatment by the Speaker. 

Not just Act

As Stuff’s Glenn McConnell writes, “The question about the standards of Parliament is a hot topic in Wellington”. Leader of the House Chris Bishop told RNZ that tensions are riding high and the influx of new MPs had contributed to the febrile atmosphere. "[I]t's quite a youthful Parliament in the sense of experience... so it's quite a rambunctious place at the moment." It’s not only newbie MPs who are causing headaches for their leaders, however. Green MP Julie Anne Genter has been found in contempt of Parliament for her intimidating behaviour towards National’s Matt Doocey in early May. She will face censure in parliament later this month. 

Meanwhile Labour MP Ingrid Leary has apologised in the House to NZ First MP Tanya Unkovich for comments made at the health committee last month. Leary reportedly said that Unkovich was “a known anti-trans activist”, to which Unkovich took offence. Unkovich is the MP behind a Member’s Bill which would fine “anyone who uses a single-sex toilet and is not of the sex for which that toilet has been designated”. Rounding out our apology series is National’s Todd McLay, who this week apologised to Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March for telling him "you're not in Mexico now, we don't do things like that here", a comment Menéndez March called “​​a really overt and disgusting form of racism and xenophobia”.

Writing isn't just writing for Pip Adam

"Writing can be everything. It can be watching a movie, putting narratives together, sometimes it’ll be reading a book, sometimes it’ll be going for a walk."
In this piece for Art Work, Sam Brooks speaks with Pip Adam about her writing practice which is all things, everything and award winning. Read it here. (sponsored)

Journalist Evan Gershkovich freed from Russia in historic prisoner swap

Journalist Evan Gershkovich is among four wrongly imprisoned American citizens who have been released and are heading home from Russia in what President Joe Biden has termed a “feat of diplomacy and friendship”. The release is part of the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, reports NBC News. “The massive deal, cut among seven nations, involves 24 people, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens held in Russia, and eight Russians imprisoned in the US, Germany, Slovenia, Norway and Poland.” Gershkovich, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges and last month was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Also being released is Paul Whelan, a businessman who was detained while visiting Russia for a friend’s wedding in 2018. He was also convicted of espionage and had been serving a 16-year sentence in a penal colony. The other two American prisoners being released are Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

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Pylon collapse workers were inexperienced, poorly supervised

An independent investigation into the pylon collapse that knocked out power to Northland has confirmed initial reports that it fell because crew members from Transpower contractor Omexom who were carrying out base plate maintenance did not follow standard practice and removed all of the nuts from three of the tower's four legs. The investigation added that there was insufficient oversight of the two less-experienced workers by the supervisor, who was sandblasting one tower leg while another worker unscrewed the nuts on two more legs. "We cannot comprehend how a crew without sufficient training was assigned to this job," said Transpower’s acting chief executive. The less-experienced workers had not received any formal training for the work they were doing, and were not certified by Omexom as competent for the tasks they completed unsupervised, reports 1 News. Omexom's managing director said the company had been "doing this type of work successfully for decades" and reiterated his apology to everyone affected.

How the world ran out of everything

What happened to the world’s supply chains during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, and how much of the damage caused is permanent? In this week’s episode of When the Facts Change, Peter Goodman, a New York Times business journalist and author of How the World Ran Out of Everything, joins Bernard Hickey to explain the complex international pathways of manufacturing and transportation that bring products to our doorsteps, through the example of one fledgling American toy startup.

Click and Collect

• Hutt Hospital doctors are being asked to make beds and clean medical equipment on top of their heavy workload.

• Queenstown has voted against becoming the first council in the country to make developers pay a contribution towards affordable housing. (BusinessDesk, paywalled)

• Travellers were stuck at Auckland Airport for almost two hours after the airport’s check-in system went down last night. It’s not clear whether the glitch was connected to the Microsoft outage that affected NZ users yesterday morning.

  

• NZ’s Lucy Spoors and Brooke Francis have won gold in the rowing double sculls last night, while the men’s and women’s fours won silver and bronze respectively.

Right now on The Spinoff

Nick Iles creates a map o' Wellington's best mapo tofu. Toby Manhire looks at why Simeon Brown’s plan to reverse lower speed limits became a piping-hot political issue. Bella Ireland uncovers what Harold the Life Education giraffe is teaching today's children. Jeremy Hansen talks to two university students about affording life in the central city. Alex Casey reviews We Were Dangerous, a soaring celebration of misfits and girlhood. Hera Lindsay Bird advises a reader worried that people will think they're judgy for not wanting to fly overseas any more.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading.

Let me know in the comments, or get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz, if you have any feedback on today’s issue or anything in the news.

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