When living in London for just under two years, July 2009 to April2011, I used to enjoy watching this weekly when Parliament was sitting. Started with Gordon Brown and finished with David Cameron.
For thirty minutes on a Wednesday any MP from either side of the house lucky enough to `catch the Speakers Eye’ could ask the Prime Minister any question they wanted. Cameron was quite good at it Gordon Brown not quite so good and of course the Speaker was John Bercow who on such occasions was (I thought) quite fair and gave members from both sides a fair go within the bounds of time constraints.
Past New Zealand Prime Ministers Muldoon, Lange, Moore and Key would have revelled in it.
Bolger, Shipley, Clark and English would have handled it okay I think.
Palmer would have hated it and Ardern probably would not be able to handle it – even with The Despicable Mallard ensuring that only patsy questions got through.
Why do I say Ardern wouldn’t handle it? Well I just heard Jamie McKay from The Country say that they have to forward her the questions for her fortnightly interviews he day before and as I said the other day O’Connor now requires the same. It is probably fair to say that Ardern in particular does not front for any interviews without having received the questions ahead of time.
Are all the current Cabinet Ministers the same?
We are lead by people unable to think on their feet and that is appalling.
No Minister 
You are not led. You are ruled.
And with the dumbarse demographic so prevalent in NZ, you can look forward to many more years of it.
Thanks for that Adolf.
You may join the `dicated to by lefties’ club if Albo the liar wins this time next month.
Don’t worry. There’s little chance of that. The bullshitter from Grayndler fucked up again today by refusing to answer questions on illegal immigrants. (He calls them refugees.)
Hell, I’m so old I can remember when he said he was going to answer all media questions. (Wednesday last week.) Then he said he’d rather fly them here before they get on boats.
pdm, Adolf is correct I think: Arden doesn’t appear on Hosking’s show because she isn’t good enough to handle the questioning, not provided in advance. I heard from reliable sources that her press conferences have pre-arranged questions too. It’s all about control of the message. Control of the people. And basically, Control.
Nick – I have no doubt about that.
Time we put politicians on the mat as used to be the way.
Way too many conservatives make the mistake that Ardern can’t handle oral questions in parliament. From what I have seen she is pretty competent at it.
The last 3 National leaders have not been able to beat her, and on far too many occasions have lost the daily joust or oral questions.
Of all the Prime Minsters of the last 30 years, I would say that Shipley was the least capable. I would say Clark and Key were the best, though obviously with very different styles.
However, all of them, whatever their ranking as Prime Ministers, are good parliamentary performers, some are excellent. No one gets to be Prime Minister unless their caucus colleagues have judged them to very good in the parliament. It was way too a public arena for there to be any other option. The leaders of either Labour or National who become Prime Ministers have to be very good parliamentary performers.
Wayne, how much time do Ministers have to prepare for question time? In other words, how much preparedness can they have?
Back in the days when plain English was used, they were Questions Without Notice. I think that changed so then the supplementary questions became the real questions without notice.
The written question gets to your office around 11.00, so you have 3 hours before question time. Most Ministers would spend 30 minutes to an hour in preparation, mostly around the possible supplementaries. The supplementaries of course are not known in advance.
Sometime much less time would be required if you well up to speed on the actual issue.
Wayne Ardern makes speeches for answers and rarely addresses the question properly.
Aided and abetted by The Despicable Mallard who regularly shuts the opposition down..
Not sure she would have looked as flash as you indicate y=under Lockwood-Smith who held Ministers far more to account.
ps I hardly watch question time these days because of Mallard and the number of Patsy questions.
Pure nonsense Wayne.
If she is so quick on her feet, why did she give up the Hosking show and also demand that sycophant Jamie McKay submit questions in advance.
You know not of what you speak.
Lloyd – exactly the point I was trying to make and it appears to extend to all Cabinet Ministers.
What an inept lot they are.