Back Benches - First Episode

Excellent! ... I reckon a free trade agreement should be one page that just says you can sell any of your goods to us, and we can sell any of our goods to you.

– Maurice Williamson's ideal free trade agreement

Global warming, true or false?

– Presenter Wallace Chapman fires his first question at National MP Maurice Williamson

We're a small country ... we've got plenty of things to export, particularly milk powder, beef...

– National MP Jacqui Dean is a fan of New Zealand's looming FTA with China

[Wallace] Chapman reported that ex-National MP Maurice Williamson was one of the first MPs to accept an invite to the fairly unorthodox show, but he never came back. "He hates the show," Chapman said, because the first question Williamson received was: "Global Warming, real, yes or no?" "He said that's not a question and he never came on the show again."

– National MP Maurice Williamson's brief relationship with Back Benches, Stuff, 30 September 2017

I've pictures of my tūpuna. I've pictures of me with a whole load of cops, smiling...

– Maori Party MP Hone Harawira describes his office at Parliament

When politicians bring up 11 and 12-year-olds as the basis for their argument, you've got to put in the fact that more 11 and 12-year-olds in this country die from alcohol poisoning and killing themselves drunk in cars than any have ever died from party pills...

– Hone Harawira pushes back on Jacqui Dean's idea banning so called 'party pills' from dairies will 'save' kids

Hi, you were talking about party pills before prohibition didn't work with alcohol in the States in the '20s, it's debatable about whether it's really working with marijuana now, why is it going to work with party pills, now?

– An intelligent question for the panel from a Wellingtonian pub punter

This is how democracy should look, where you have a live unregulated audience who have come off the street, no security and you had your elected representatives form across the road who were right up against the audience.

– Presenter Wallace Chapman on the grassroots appeal of show Back Benches, Stuff, 30 September 2017

Any Saudi Arabian daggers in your office?

– Wallace Chapman asks Hone Harawira about his office decorations