Most sitting days, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, asks the prime minister: "Does he stand by all his government's statements and actions?"
Mr Hipkins followed with a rather snippy "Is the reason there are only two roads of national significance in the South Island because the South Island's roads aren't significant or because the South Island isn't significant to National?," which earned a scornful "Nice try" from the Christchurch-raised PM.
"The South Island's very important to me. I consider myself a prime minister from Christchurch, actually. We've got great road investments in Christchurch as well as the investments that have already taken place up and down the South Island. "
Well if the South is so important, Mr Hipkins pressed, what about a new ferry?
"Well, I would say to you, rail has an incredibly important part to play in New Zealand's infrastructure mix and transport mix," Mr Luxon replied.
"We are big supporters of rail. We're going to make sure we've got a rail capacity-enabled ferry that's going to materialise at some future point, so watch this space."
Which sounded very good on Tuesday, although given by Thursday KiwiRail was calling for voluntary redundancies, one could be forgiven for feeling cynical about the prospect of seeing a new ferry any time soon.
Or the new hospital Dunedin was promised, for that matter.
"Does he stand by National Party leader Christopher Luxon's statement to the people of Otago-Southland, to ‘trust us’ that National would future-proof the new Dunedin hospital," Mr Hipkins asked.
"They can trust us that we're going to build them a great hospital for $1.9 billion," Mr Luxon roared back.
"That's $300 million more than the last government was going to spend."
Which is fine, but a "great hospital" is not the same as the hospital which successive politicians — including National Party leader Christopher Luxon — pledged to build during the last election campaign.
Mr Hipkins was not done with Dunedin though, asking: "Why wasn't he aware that his government had declined funding for a longer-term strategy to deal with the flood risks in South Dunedin; was he not properly briefed before his visit or does he just not care?"
"I'd just remind that member that it was his government that declined the proposal," Mr Luxon — wrongly — responded, to howls from Mr Hipkins and Taieri MP Ingrid Leary that he had misspoke.
Now standing orders say that once an MP knows that they have misled the House, they are meant to return to correct their answer.
This could have been embarrassing for Mr Luxon, whose government it actually was which had declined the proposal, but over the following 24 hours he and his team figured an ingenious way around the problem.
"What I should have said," he told the House on Wednesday, "was that the previous government did not fund the proposal. The South Dunedin Future programme was not included in the National Resilience Plan projects which the former Labour government funded on 18 September 2023."
Which is all very neat and clever, but not one jot of help to the people cleaning up sodden carpets in St Kilda and St Clair, a point which Taieri Green list MP Scott Willis made forcefully in the general debate later on Wednesday.
"When the PM says he's unaware about Dunedin's request for partnership and support, we can only assume significant dysfunction in the caucus, because why did the government reject the Dunedin City Council's plea for $132.5m to help the city cope with climate impacts earlier this year?
"I live in the greater Dunedin area and, in the 2006 floods, I was rowing across paddocks rescuing drowning sheep while the rest of the wider Dunedin area was under water, and there have been many flood events since ... We need to act now. The climate is not going to wait for politics to catch up."
Plain speaking
He did not get all shouty about it, but on Tuesday night Waitaki National MP Miles Anderson was as mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it any more.
Through the lens of the second reading of the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, Mr Anderson — from proud farming stock — was going to defend rural folk to the hilt.
"The first thing I'd like to say is that farmers are sick to death of being lectured to by people who know nothing about farming and continually paint a narrative where the farmers are out to destroy the environment, so we've had quite a bit to go through here," he said.
"Quite a bit" covered catchment regulations, significant natural areas, fertiliser usage, animal welfare, herbicides, GE and sustainability, and featured — predictably — a few clashes with Green MPs and, less predictably, a running battle between himself and the co-leaders of Te Pati Maori about, well, who knows really.
Essentially though, Mr Anderson’s point, echoing an earlier contribution from fellow farmer and Taieri New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson, was that carrying on the way things are was driving farming families off the land.
"The costs associated with these current rules are excessive. They're driving farmers out of business and they're driving poor farming practice," he said.
"I look forward to the second and third lots of changes to make life easier and to make pragmatic and smart decisions around this and to actually involve the people who know about it rather than people who read about it in a book or hear about it at their NGO meeting."
