Parliament meets in the debating chamber for 17 hours each sitting week (plus many hours in select committee). Roughly four of those hours are spent on questions and general business, the rest is devoted to debating legislation.
Some weeks the House gets through a dozen or more different debates, some weeks many fewer. This week, at a stab, about 10 bills will likely get an airing and many of them are quite punchy.
Thematically two each are on death, crime, and farming. Let’s start with death.
ACT Party leader David Seymour speaks to media ahead of the committee stage for his End of Life Choice bill. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Choosing Death
The media focus of the week will be Wednesday, when the End of Life Choice Bill will be debated for the final time (from about 4pm-6pm and 7:30pm-8:30pm, in case you plan to watch).
It is expected to pass with unanimous support from ACT (1), NZ First (9) and the Greens (8), and a mix of ayes and noes from the two larger parties (for a total of roughly 70 votes in favour to 50 against).
The debate will take three hours (and hour longer than usual), before a vote circa 8:30pm which will be in-person (as this is a conscience issue). If the MPs vote to pass the Bill its implementation will rely on a referendum at next year’s election.
Peeni Henare, Labour MP for Tāmaki Makaurau Māori; and Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Whanau Ora, and Youth. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Organ Donation
Also on the death theme, a bill from Labour MP and Minister Peeni Henare should also pass it’s third and final reading this week (on Tuesday).
It seeks to improve organ donation rates by making recommended changes including adding the management of organ donation to the remit of the NZ Blood Service (which already looks after blood donations).
Green MP Jan Logie in committee Photo: © VNP / Phil Smith
Sexual Violence
Jan Logie’s promised sexual violence legislation is expected to received a first reading. Green MP Jan Logie is the Associate Minister for Justice with a focus on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
The Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will be introduced at the start of the week and gets a first debate on Thursday after the standard period for MPs to read the text. MPs will be familiar with the problems and concepts from the recommendations of this Law Commission Report from 2015.
The Bill will seek to ease the experience of victims during the procesution of perpetrators, and therefore decrease the high rate of attrition of sexual violence cases; a problem highlighted in a recent Ministry of Justice report.
The text isn’t available as of writing but it is expected to include a number of changes including providing victims with options for how they testify (including by a pre-recorded video of their initial evidence), and implement limits on lawyers’ ability to raise a victim’s sexual history as a defence tactic.
Minister of Justice Andrew Little speaks to media before heading into the debating chamber. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Criminal Reviews
Not a reference to Hugh Grant’s brilliant song-and-dance finale to Paddington 2. Instead a new independent body empowered to investigate both convictions and sentences (even sentencing tendencies) and refer them to the appeal court.
The new approach would replace the ‘royal prerogative of mercy’ currently exercised by the Governor General on the advice of the Minister of Justice (which can be a political hot-parareka).
Andrew Little’s bill may get final sign-off from Parliament on Tuesday (depending on how quickly the House gets through other business).
If you want more detail we looked at the details of the Bill and did it again for good measure after its first reading just over a year ago.
Damien O'Connor being interviewed by the media Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
We need to talk about the farm
There are two farm-related bills from Minister of Agriculture Damien O'Connor - both on Tuesday.
One seeks to improve the animal tracing system (NAIT) that was shown to be flawed during the 2017 Mycoplasma Bovis outbreak.
That bill gets a second reading (when the House will review the evidence provided by kiwis to the Select Committee over the last few months and the suggested amendments that arise from it). The committee's report back to Parliament is here.
The other bill implements a change to how creditors can deal with farm debt. People holding security in a farm will be forced to engage in mediation with farmers before taking enforcement action when a farmer is heading into default. Basically banks won’t be able to call in debts and foreclose without warning.
This is also at the second reading (hasn't the Primary Production Select Committee been busy), and the report is here.
