Summarised by Centrist
Broadcaster and former MP Michael Laws tore into Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick for what he called a self-indulgent stunt in Parliament, after she was expelled for refusing to apologise for her Gaza-related remarks.
Laws said her actions, and the emotional energy poured into foreign conflicts, show just how far Parliament has drifted from the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders.
Responding to Christopher Luxon’s rare comment that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot,” Laws remarked that for once, the prime minister made a statement that actually meant something.
As an aside, the Israeli deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sharren Haskel NZ shot back, “I guess when you don’t really need an army because your most deadly enemy is a possum or a cat you wouldn’t comprehend the challenges that come with facing Hamas…”
But the broader spectacle around Gaza, Laws argued, is misplaced. He pointed to the abuse and neglect of children in New Zealand that rarely receives the same political passion.
“We’ve got a stagnant economy, an education system in crisis, broken infrastructure, and a health system that is a disaster,” he said. “Yet we waste time on Gaza.”
Swarbrick’s protest, he argued, was political theatre. “She doesn’t care about us. Her passion is for a part of the world she cannot influence. She is paid by the taxpayer to solve our problems.”
Laws said New Zealand’s fixation on Gaza and Ukraine is irrelevant. “We are the Hobbit of international affairs. Nobody takes us seriously.”
