The House

This week's bills are a mixture of unfinished business from last week and a selection of other bills plucked from the Order Paper, and awaiting their respective next stages.

Last week the Speaker made a series of new rulings and interpretations on the fly in punishing an MP who dared governing party MPs to demonstrate some spine regarding Israel and Gaza. We survey and analyse the incident and aftermath.

On Wednesday, the Governance and Administration committee were joined by two officials from the Office of the Auditor-General to hear about the long term plans of Local Government.

National avoided taking a stand on Palestine in Parliament’s urgent debate. What can we learn from the Prime Minister’s answers on Palestine and Gaza during Question Time?

One of Parliament’s quiet, powerful committees is opposition-led and cross-partisan. A new law from ACT may undermine that, ceding parliamentary oversight to the Executive. We chat with the leaders of the Regulations Review Committee: Arena Williams and Nancy Lu.

The Sunday edition of The House includes one fresh story, and a replay from Thursday. The new story covers the first debate on the bill to change the electoral law – including the requirement to enrol to vote earlier. The replay from Thursday's House looks at Private and Local Bills.

The big laws debated by Parliament get a lot of attention, but others are so small as to be barely noticed.

After the rare occurrence of a recommittal, the Crown Minerals Bill found itself back in committee where the Opposition tried their best to extract answers from the Minister.

Parliament’s Speaker, Gerry Brownlee, is considering a major rewrite of the rules for Question Time, potentially the first major reworking since the 1980s. Specifically the Speaker indicated he may ask the Standing Orders Committee (which proposes changes to Parliament’s own rules), to consider balancing the playing field by allowing questioners to contextualise their questions.

This week on The House, we chat with a visiting MP from the European Parliament, and hear some of the highlights from Parliament's newest MP, David Wilson

This week Parliament hosted MPs from the EU Parliament in Brussels. We chat with Ireland's Seán Kelly who lead the visiting delegation.

Parliament this week is all-House, with extra debates and an interesting array of topics including space, espionage, and stalking.

The sitting week this week began with a Ministerial Statement from Foreign Minister Winston Peters. The House looks at the subsequent Q and A that followed.

To mark the launch of the Ministry for Women's Free to Lead campaign, MPs discussed online harm and the safety of public figures in a panel this week at Parliament.

A parliamentary committee tasked with keeping a check on the Executive has heard how the Regulatory Standards Board would duplicate its role, but without its powers.