'Yesterday was a day of incompetence by the Government' – Simon Bridges' dramatic move in Parliament just 'vigorous testing'

National warned it would be a strong opposition in Parliament, and that was shown on day one when they pulled a shock move threatening to force a vote on the Speaker of the House.

They used it as a bargaining chip to secure more seats on select committees, after the previous government and then-opposition unanimously agreed to a recommended cut to numbers down to 96.  

Naitonal's Shadow Leader of the House Simon Bridges said on TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning they were "just testing the competence of the government, and what became quite clear was they didn't know the rules and they didn't know their numbers".

"Yesterday was a day of incompetence by the Government."

Although Leader of the House Chris Hipkins said they were "caught slightly by surprise" at the move, he said they knew they had the numbers but didn't want Parliament to get off on the wrong foot.

"We'd offered the National Party the Deputy Speaker position in exchange for what we thought was an understanding they would support Trevor Mallard to be the Speaker, and then as the vote was beginning they indicated they weren't intending to proceed with that."

Labour did have the numbers to vote in Trevor Mallard as Speaker, but only just, with MPs like Winston Peters and David Parker at APEC.

"It wasn't a bluff, but I didn't know [the numbers] exactly," Mr Bridges said.

"You can call it a bluff.. I'd call it vigorous testing."

"I could tell it was close one way or another."

He said he was "making it very clear" to Mr Hipkins National were now unhappy about "limiting our ability to scrutinise the government" through the cuts to MP select committee numbers.

"Ultimately in a pretty dramatic fashion in the house, but we got we thought was reasonable."

Mr Hipkins was adamant Labour "wouldn't have begun Parliament without knowing we had the numbers", but the Government wanted to avoid holding a vote.

He said Ms Ardern "wanted to get Parliament off to a different start and not one where there was a very close day for the election of Speaker".

"We thought there was some goodwill there, there clearly wasn't. Lesson learnt, they won't catch us out on that ever again in the future."

"I think it's embarrassing for the whole Parliament, I think New Zealanders expect us to govern the country, to get on with the job they elect us to do not play silly parlour-games."

Mr Hipkins had assumed they would have had to reach "a compromise" over select committee numbers, but thought that would be that afternoon.

"They indicated they wanted to go back to 120, where we landed was somewhere in the middle with 109."

"This was the National Government's agitation during the last Parliament that resulted in the recommendation for a smaller select committee size. I thought it was a good proposal when I was in opposition and when I was in Government. We supported it, it was unanimous."

He said the Government will be "much more careful about making any assumptions about good behaviour on the part of the opposition" in the future.