It was a week where government ministers couldn't dodge the spotlight, but plenty of them still managed to duck questions over their budget decisions
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
New Zealand politicians have survived the first ever Scrutiny Week, an innovation that clears the parliamentary decks and lets them eyeball each other over budget decisions.
Today on The Detail we call in Newsroom's senior political reporter Marc Daalder to tell us what we learned from the week where politicians had to turn up to be questioned on the finer details of the Budget, what their priorities are and where their thinking lies.
Some of it was a revelation - and not just because of the news that emerged such as the conservation minister Tama Potaka's hesitation over saving endangered species, or the thinking behind National's decision to reverse a Labour move over pay for disabled workers.
"We came out of this week learning quite a few things - the ministers who are across their portfolio and the ones who aren't," says Daalder.
With some it felt like they were winging their way through; some deferred questions to officials for operational or technical details; and others such as technology minister Judith Collins were very familiar with their areas.
Daalder says the majority of the questions are allocated to the opposition, which is able to push ministers and related officials in sustained lines of questioning to really figure out "what money's been spent, what are the impacts of cuts that have been made, and what are the next steps in key policy areas".
Some of those sessions were quite long, in contrast to Question Time that "really doesn't get anyone any answers", says Daalder.
"It's very performative, a lot of grandstanding ...(whereas) this takes place in select committee rooms, people are sitting down which helps, and the people that they're questioning are only a couple of metres away from them, looking at each other in the eyes and able to have more of a conversation.
"That's not to say there wasn't plenty of argy-bargy, there was plenty of that.
"But I think there were opportunities for real discussions, real questions and real answers which you don't get in Question Time."
Of course, some questions were too political and felt like point-scoring opportunities; others from National MPs were obvious 'patsy' questions and were a waste of time.
Newsroom made a point of covering as many of the hearings as possible, Daalder saying the new scrutiny is designed to hold politicians to account.
"If the public doesn't know that that's happened it isn't hugely effective."
Daalder says there are a lot of factors going in to whether you're going to get a real answer or not.
"It depends on the minister, it depends on the chair of the committee and the quality of the person asking the questions."
On the podcast he talks about what we learnt out of the hearings that was new, and the headline stories we learnt more about.
And Daalder says he's looking forward to the next Scrutiny Week in December.
"I think overall I would say that Scrutiny Week was a success, with the caveats that it was the first time we were doing this, and ministers were still getting used to their portfolios. I'm really hopeful that we would have learned lessons from this, we will incorporate those lessons into how it's done at the end of the year, and the ministers will be more across their portfolios so we can build on this.
"If it just stayed at this level of quality for ever that would be disappointing. But with the context that this was the first one, I think we did a pretty good job, and it will be good to see it grow and improve over time."
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