Mike Houlahan

1 week ago | odt.co.nz | Mike Houlahan

You are not permitted to download, save or email this image. Visit image gallery to purchase the image. OpinionAnother Scrutiny Week is done and dusted, although some ministers and ministries came under more scrutiny than others. Take Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson, for example.

2 weeks ago | odt.co.nz | Mike Houlahan

As regular readers of Southern Say will know, this is a column which likes a cheap pun as much as the next hack. Environment Minister Penny Simmonds making a keynote speech to the Waste Minimisation conference, as she did this week, certainly offers a multitude of possibilities for mischief.

3 weeks ago | odt.co.nz | Mike Houlahan

You are not permitted to download, save or email this image. Visit image gallery to purchase the image. OpinionOne of the things MPs like most about the Budget debate — the freewheeling discussion of the Finance Minister’s hard work — is that it enables them to speak about almost anything so long as it can (sometimes very loosely) be linked back to the Budget. Hence this week our southern MPs have been talking about possums, utes, outer space, Barker’s sweet chilli sauce ...

4 weeks ago | odt.co.nz | Mike Houlahan

You are not permitted to download, save or email this image. Visit image gallery to purchase the image. OpinionIf you like Parliament you well and truly had a treat last week, as the House sat until midnight Saturday under urgency to consider the wide range of legislation the government wanted to progress. Some of the matters considered under extended hours were entirely reasonable — every government needs to push through Budget-relevant law changes as soon as possible. Some matters, not so much . . .

1 month ago | odt.co.nz | Mike Houlahan

You are not permitted to download, save or email this image. Visit image gallery to purchase the image. OpinionVendetta is the Italian word for "revenge", and it was used quite a lot by Labour in the House on Tuesday. No, not because its MPs were complaining about the National Party’s views of Te Pati Maori (which they were), but because they were complaining about that well-known political mafiosi, Invercargill National MP Penny Simmonds.