Various presiding officers might have felt like humming it to themselves in the House this week as Invercargill National MP Penny Simmonds made several attempts to convince the Speaker that the torturous debate about Three Waters reform was the perfect opportunity for her to prosecute the Government over its handling of reform of the polytechnic sector.
Both do, loosely, have something to do with plumbing, but Ms Simmonds’ point was far broader than that.
"This Water Services Entities Bill ... is the second in a series of this Government's centralisation ideology, the first, of course, being the combining of the vocational education sector," she said.
"There are many similarities here, and I'm very keen that the same mistakes are not repeated ... I'm wanting to make sure that mistakes are learnt from that, that Minister Mahuta, who I feel much more charitably towards, doesn't find herself in the same mess that Minister Hipkins has found himself in."
It seems very unlikely that Local Government Nanaia Mahuta felt at all grateful for the assistance of Ms Simmonds, or her National colleagues for that matter, as they combined with Act New Zealand to stretch the deliberation of the water entities Bill over two days.
In some ways this was a self-defeating filibuster — the longer it went on, the more likely that the urgency Parliament assumed on Tuesday would have MPs still stuck in the complex on Friday and beyond.
But it did National’s morale no harm whatsoever — their benches were well-stocked with MPs for the final tub-thumping speeches given by Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop — and afforded the likes of Ms Simmonds, and to a lesser extent her Southland colleague Joseph Mooney, plenty of valuable House time.
Ms Simmonds’ various interventions were mostly used to put Te Pukenga (the new national polytechnic) up against the proposed new water entities and pre-emptively find them both wanting.
That very loose connection to the subject commanding the House’s attention gave Ms Simmonds as a great a licence as she could get away with — which was considerable — to continue her ongoing series of disclosures about what she perceives as the failings of Te Pukenga.
The dismantling of the former system played a large part in the one-time chief executive of Southland Institute of Technology embarking on her political career, and during her two years in the House Ms Simmonds has mounted an increasingly effective campaign against the usually impregnable education Minister Chris Hipkins.
In last week’s general debate Ms Simmonds held little back: "The mess Chris Hipkins has made of our vocational education sector used to make me angry, but now I am just heartbroken at the waste," she said.
"Waste of good staff, waste of community and industry engagement, waste of credibility with international students, waste of money, and, most importantly, waste of what used to be a world-class vocational education and training for our students."
She followed up with an oral question on Thursday which, to her delight, was fielded by acting Prime Minister Grant Robertson in Mr Hipkins’ absence.
However, she did not get very far, as Mr Robertson said he knew nothing about the piece of paper Ms Simmonds was waving in the House.
That A4 sheet was a print out of an advertisement Te Pukenga had posted on Seek, advertising for eight new "regional co-leaders", something Ms Simmonds subsequently slammed as offensive when teaching and support staff were waiting anxiously to discover if their courses — and hence their jobs — were to continue next year or face the chop.
On Tuesday this week came further grist for Ms Simmonds’ mill when Otago Polytechnic chief executive Megan Gibbons warned that leadership roles at the facility — regarded, like SIT, as a model of how to run a polytechnic — would likely need to be disestablished once the Te Pukenga national structure bedded in.
This one is going to run and run, in no small part because Ms Simmonds has been able to combine her formidable knowledge of the sector with her ever-increasing political skills to have made it a both major issue, and an area in which the Government is battling to find a coherent answer to her attacks.
Sign ’o the times
National leader Christopher Luxon was in Dunedin last Friday and called a stand-up at Queens Gardens, where he proceeded to attempt to sound very tough on law and order indeed.
However, for those listening, it was a touch difficult to take him seriously, as just behind him Sam Sharpe — usually seen protesting outside Dunedin Hospital — had spied an opportunity and was cavorting behind the National leader waving a range of colourful signs.
The long parliament
As mentioned earlier, the House went in to extended hours this week, MPs finally pulling the pin on Friday.
On which day, for the second week in a row, Dunedin MP David Clark had to be in the House both at adjournment and when it resumed, which for the sake of urgency meant knocking off at midnight and being back by 9am.
Dr Clark did manage to get his Companies (Levies) Amendment Act passed and the first reading of his Grocery Industry Competition Bill through first reading, so it was at least a productive use of the midnight oil.
