Act leader David Seymour has taken his first turn filling in as Prime Minister at Parliament, while deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in Australia.
The deputy usually fills in for the Prime Minister on a Thursday and the incumbent, Christopher Luxon, is in Auckland. Peters’ absence meant the honours fell to Seymour for the first time.
During Question Time, Labour continued to pressure the coalition government on the actions of Associate Health Minister Casey Costello and the party policies she provided to officials to assist in developing smoking-related strategies.
Deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni asked Seymour to assure the House that no members associated with the tobacco industry were involved in the development of the policy documents given to officials.
Seymour began by saying he had received assurances from all coalition partners that they had had no funding from the tobacco industry, and added there had been “no undue influence” from anyone from the industry on government policies.
But Labour complained to the Speaker that he had avoided the question, to which Seymour repeated how he was confident there was no undue influence.
Opposition parties continued to argue for a better response to the question as National argued the party policies were not something that the acting Prime Minister should have to answer for.
Speaker Gerry Brownlee said he would reflect on the matter and make a decision next week.
Sepuloni tried to probe further, asking about whether Seymour was confident all conflicts of interest had been declared by ministers, and when Luxon would dismiss Costello from her ministerial portfolios - something also called for by Labour’s Dr Ayesha Verrall.
Seymour said he was confident conflicts had been declared and was assured Sepuloni would come to see the value Costello had as a minister.
During Question Time today, Costello claimed her words and actions had been “distorted by a media article” regarding the advice she requested from officials about strategies to lower smoking levels.
An RNZ report today claimed the NZ First MP had written to officials asking advice on freezing excise tax increases on tobacco products. Costello told RNZ through a statement she had not written for that advice.
Verrall pressed her on why she had asked for that advice and why she had denied it to RNZ.
Costello said it was “unfortunate” her actions had been distorted by RNZ and again stated how she had sent various documents to officials, including previous party policy documents. She said she was unaware of who wrote the documents.
