Hi. Today we start off as normal with Question Time. Some of the ministers are going to get a bit of a hard workout. ’s got a couple of early questions: one friendly fire and the other from the Opposition.

Bill English is continuing his pressure on Kelvin Davis, who’s the Acting Prime Minister, to get some facts around Government policies. And , Minister of Education, also has two questions in a row – one from his own team and one from the other. So that should be pretty interesting. Ministers are getting a bit more used to answering questions, and Opposition members (some of whom have never asked a question before) are learning how to do it.

We then go on to the Address in Reply. Grant Robertson has the first call and I think that could be a bit exciting: the Minister of Finance and the Address in Reply, in his first time up and first real speech as a Minister of the Crown, should be something to look forward to. Later on in the afternoon, 4:45, is going to speak, and that one might be a bit special for the waiata that follows it. I understand that some of her former police colleagues are going to come across to give her some support, and it might be that the gallery is shaking as they sing.

At 5:00 and 5:15, two new Green MPs, Chlöe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman, are going to speak. 5:30 , and 5:45 , so that rounds out the afternoon. This evening we’ve got a very short motion around agreeing to the sitting pattern for the rest of the year. Essentially the Government’s saying, let’s make next week a recess and then have four weeks of sitting following that, leading up to Christmas, and then back into the Committee, dealing with parental leave and employment legislation and getting onto the Healthy Homes Bill.

So a bit of a variety – sort of high level stuff, lovely maiden speeches, and then the nitty-gritty of committee stages and quite a bit of dissent likely this evening.