Mark Richardson lets rip on the Government and babies

Mark Richardson interrupted the usual flow of The AM Show on Monday morning to tell the nation what he really thinks about the Prime Minister having a baby.

"Can you just indulge me momentarily, 'cause I've sat back and I've thought about a few things," the controversial broadcaster said, eliciting gasps from co-hosts Duncan Garner and Amanda Gillies.

"I just want to say, I get it - babies you make you clucky. Even me, and I accept this one has notoriety," he said, referring to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's daughter Neve, born on Thursday, and the headline-grabbing clash the pair had last year.

"But now we've all gone goo-goo, ga-ga," he continued. "But can we remember one thing? Our Prime Minister has just had a baby. Rather than us all going, 'Bloody hell!' Jacinda actually wants this to be considered the norm.

"Well, if that's to be the case, the stakes have just gone up. The ship - or more the baby stroller, in this case - has got to keep moving forward. Actually, it's got to start moving forward. It's back up the truck right now, isn't it?"

Mark Richardson and Amanda Gillies.
Mark Richardson and Amanda Gillies. Photo credit: The AM Show

He soon got to the point, explaining how, in his view, Ms Ardern's maternity leave is an incredibly risky move for not just the young Government, but the country.

"If over the next six months, Winnie and Shane 'Tonto' Jones go rogue and shoot up the place, if Twyford's hare-brained schemes go unchecked, if Kelvin continues to get nervous and fluff his lines under pressure because he's not getting the support from his captain he needs, if the Greens continue to get marginalised and this coalition continue to look more like Modern Family than the modern way, then well - you get the picture, don't you?

"Failure is now not an option, because it will be hard to lay the blame on nine years of neglect now, won't it? I'm a New Zealander, and regardless of whose politics I vote for this Government is accountable to me - not the other way around."

A glossary of Mark Richardson terms

In case you've not been paying attention lately, "Winnie" is Winston Peters, the Acting Prime Minister and leader of NZ First, a party that got only 7.2 percent of the vote.

"Tonto" is NZ First MP (formerly Labour MP) Shane Jones, who has made headlines for calling for the heads of some of New Zealand's largest companies to roll.

Phil Twyford is the Housing Minister and in charge of KiwiBuild, which in recent months has arguably morphed from a scheme in which the Government would build affordable housing, to one where it buys slightly less affordable housing.

And "Kelvin" is Kelvin Davis, deputy Labour leader who recently admitted to getting "nervous before interviews".

As for the Greens being marginalised, they aren't technically a part of the ruling coalition - that's just Labour and NZ First - and have recently been forced to swallow some dead rats and let a Chinese water bottling company buy land, which it opposed during the election campaign.

"Nine years" refers to the length of not just the previous National-led Government, but the Labour-led one before it. Each party likes to blame problems on the other, saying they had "nine years" to fix it. Sometimes they say "nine long years", to emphasise the point.

Modern Family is a critically acclaimed sitcom that screens on Three about a diverse family of different races, ages and sexual orientations.

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