The general election is looming on the horizon and the Government will use urgency to try and get through a long list of bills before that takes place.
Leader of the House Chris Hipkins Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Parliament will dissolve in August ahead of the September 19 election date meaning the Government has only four more sitting weeks (including this one) on the calendar to tick off legislation on its to-do list.
The Leader of the House Chris Hipkins is in charge of deciding the order in which bills will be worked on in the House and is often the Minister who moves for urgency to take place.
"The effect of urgency in this instance is to effectively increase the number of hours that Parliament sits," he said.
"So because we lost so many sitting hours during the Covid-19 lock-down we've got quite a significant backlog of legislation that the Government now wants to progress."
Normally the House would sit from 2pm to 10pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and till 6pm on Thursdays (on weeks scheduled as sitting weeks in the calendar).
Urgency is a Government tool which allows the House to sit in the morning from 9am until midnight and continue sitting on a Friday.
"We gain about just over 22 hours on top of the hours we would normally sit," said Mr Hipkins.
"We lost somewhere between 50 and 60 hours depending on how you count it during the Covid lock-down because whilst Parliament sat on a limited basis, it really was just for debates related to Covid-19. We didn't really progress much else during that time so we're got quite a lot of catching up to do."
Normally a bill cannot go through more than one stage during a sitting day, so a first and second reading debate wouldn't happen on the same day.
But under urgency a bill can be passed more quickly including through all its stages or skipping select committee consideration - a process which usually lasts for about six months and often includes an opportunity for the public to have their say.
Mr Hipkins said the bills listed to be considered under urgency this week have typically gone through the regular process.
"Even if it's been a slightly truncated regular process, they've been to select committee, there's been public submissions on them. So in some cases we'll be doing just the second reading and in other cases we'll be doing what's called the committee stage and the third reading which is the last remaining part of the bill."
The Government has tried not to put bills through all its stages under urgency where possible said Mr Hipkins.
"We've tried as a Government to avoid over-using urgency. We do like to have a bit of a select committee process if we can even if it's a shortened select committee process."
Urgency and extended hours (where the sitting day is extended in to the following morning but does not allow for bills to be progressed more quickly than normal) are not unusual in the lead up to an election.
"You do often have a sort of 'clearing the decks' before a general election, that's not uncommon," said Mr Hipkins.
"Some of the legislation that the Government is introducing or has introduced won't pass before the election because of the Covid-19 lock-down but we'll campaign on those things and endeavour to pass them in the next term of parliament if that's what the will of the voters is."
One of the rules for urgency is that the Government has to list everything it wants to do more quickly and it isn't allowed to add new things later.
Mr Hipkins will read out the full list of business in the House when he moves for urgency shortly after the General Debate at about 4pm on Wednesday.
