Ministerial Grillapalooza: Photos from Parliament’s Estimates Hearings

You might think that all that MPs do all week at Parliament is blame each other for the world’s ills, order a surfeit of Teslas and sadly occasionally see their careers vanish unexpectedly. But there’s a lot more to an MP's job than calculating rebates. At the moment, MPs are knee-deep in an annual oversight event called the Estimates Hearings. 

During Estimates Hearings it feels like you can’t walk into any room in Parliament House without stumbling into a committee of MPs grilling a minister. The committees hold their hearings back-to-back and simultaneously, like a combination of Glastonbury and The Inquisition.

The endless quizzing does have a purpose. The Estimates Hearings are the next phase of Parliament consideration of the Budget Grant Robertson announced back on 18 May. 

Each year when the House receives the Government’s budget plan the Finance and Expenditure Committee divvies it up among Parliament’s 12 subject select committees. Each committee sends off hundreds of questions to the various ministers responsible for their purview (be it education, or health etc). And now, with the answers in hand, they dig further, but this time in person.  

Above is the audio of The House story on the Estimates Hearings. Below are some pictures from last week’s hearings.

A Photo Essay: Viewing the Hearings

So much better than Question Time. As an opposition spokesperson getting to question a government minister for an extended period is both a highlight of the role and also crucial to the functioning of New Zealand’s Parliamentary democracy. Here Chris Bishop (National Party spokesperson on Housing) has a very detail-orienting Q&A with Megan Woods (Minister for construction, housing etc). The session was fascinating and showed both minister and MP were well-versed and focused.

With a minister in their sights though, opposition MPs can easily forget the point of the hearings. Here Governance Committee Chair Naisi Chen tries to steer National MP Melissa Lee back to asking about the actual estimates. 

…and Duncan Webb answers Lee, whose off-topic question was over an upcoming media bill the Minister of Broadcasting has been talking about. In fact that’s a bill he had been talking about in another hearing just across the corridor.

Here he is, as seen from the Select Committee corridor, Minister of Broadcasting Willie Jackson.

The sign says “Quiet Please, Estimates Hearings Now Underway, Noise from this corridor can be heard in the meeting rooms…”. There were four different hearings happening simultaneously in this corridor, with visitors guests for upcoming meetings periodically waiting outside. The doors of Room 3 were (unusually) open because the heating system inside was trying to achieve the setting ‘sultry night in Dubai’.

Step inside and you can hear Green MP Ricardo Menendez March asking a question of Willie Jackson. Jackson is with two senior officials from the Minister of Culture and Heritage (Chief Executive Laula Mac Leauanae and one of his deputies, Emily Fabling). Any hearing involving Willie Jackson is a fun, bare knuckle ride. He is want to begin with an simple answer and then start riffing more wildly, potentially making news by going well off script.

It’s not a body double. Melissa Lee was in this hearing across the corridor as well. MPs bounce around between select committees, so as to attend both committees they are normally members of, as well as hearings with ministers with responsibilities adjacent to their party ‘spokesperson’ responsibility. In Lee’s case this is anything media or broadcasting, the digital world, and ethnic communities.

Across in the Women’s Suffrage Committee Room, National’s Simeon Brown is asking predictably unanswerable questions of the Minister for the Public Service. Different MPs have different approaches to the Hearings. For most it is a crucial aspect of their responsibility as the overseers of government to dig deeply into the budget plans for the coming year. For some it is a chance for political showboating. Some politics is, of course, unavoidable.  

The best MPs from any party take it seriously because the Estimates are core to the role of backbenchers as the overseers of government. The group to whom a government is ultimately responsible. Hence the description of our democratic form as Responsible Government.

It’s not only opposition MPs that ask questions. Governing party MPs can surprise with very pointed inquiries. Here though Rachel Boyack (Labour MP for Nelson), is adding some friendly, useful information to the conversation. What in the House might be called a patsy question. 

Andrew Little and two officials at the answering end of the equation. He is appearing here as the Minister for the Public Service, so the officials are leaders from the Public Service Commission. In this case Deputy Commissioners Hannah Cameron and Heather Baggott.  

As a relatively new minister (since February) Barbara Edmonds was experiencing her first year of Hearings. This was her fourth and final appearance for the year (having appeared as both a minister and associate minister). This time it was as Minister for Pacific Peoples, so she was accompanied by various officials and flanked by the Ministry boss Geraldine Clifford-Lidstone (Secretary for Pacific Peoples) and money man Leatigaga Jason Tualima (a Deputy Secretary). 

Ministers don’t get all the fun. Often the officials who run their ministries also get to add information. Here Geraldine Clifford-Lidstone, the Secretary for Pacific Peoples explains some details to Green MP Ricardo Menendez March. The secretary was masked for the occasion on account of a slight cold. 

MPs are a very collegial bunch (obviously more so within a caucus), and tend to be quite proud of their party colleagues’ achievements. Here Labour MP Anahila Kanongata’a takes a photo of her colleague Barbara Edmonds’ first committee appearance as a minister.

In case you are unfamiliar this is Anahila Kanongata’a from the front, along with her Labour and Green colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee.

Parliament actually has a committee room dedicated to the Pasifka community but it isn’t that one. Here it is with portraits across the back wall of former and current Pasifika MPs. The Hearing on in this room was for the Minister of Immigration Michael Wood and the committee was Education and Workforce. 

Michael Wood had two hearings back-to-back on Wednesday morning, which between them took the meat of the morning. He appeared first as Minister of Immigration and then, with just seconds to reframe (and switch out ministry teams), as Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety. It seems likely that his very next Wednesday appointment was with the Prime Minister, at which Chris Hipkins asked him to resign his ministerial warrants. Presumably he appeared before committee knowing Damocles’ sword hovered, but while maybe a little more reserved than usual, he was still surprisingly highly focused.

When a committee changes topic and/or minister during the hearings it is quite normal for a number of committee members to swap out as well. So, for example when Michael Wood was appearing on the topic of workplace relations his chief interlocutor was National MP Paul Goldsmith…

…but when he swapped out hats and moments later appeared as Minister for Immigration the National MPs also swapped and the questions came from the same chair, now occupied by another MP, Erica Stanford.

And for both jobs he was also quizzed by Green MP Ricardo Menendez March (with fewer MPs Green MPs each cover many portfolios). March is here experimenting to see if looks really can kill. He had just been corrected by Michael Wood and was not savouring the experience.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that Select Committees are where you can see backbench MPs do their thing. MPs that might get less chance to shine during high profile moments in the debating chamber (like Question Time), can show their stuff here.

Like ACT party MP Karen Chhour who is not often front and centre for ACT;

Or National’s brand new backbencher Tama Potaka (Hamilton West) who is still learning the ropes.

Or a duet from Labour’s plethora of Doctors; Dr Emily Henderson (Whangarei) and Dr Liz Craig (list, Invercargill).

Or chairing the Education and Workforce Committee, Labour’s Camilla Belich, on this occasion reminding Paul Goldsmith to stay on the topic of the Budget. Which is also kinda where we began.