On Thursday afternoon, like on all days in Parliament, before the MPs got down to the rowdy business of Question Time and legislation they quietly went through the housekeeping.
The clerk alerted them to the reports and petitions received, and the new bills introduced and ready for debate.
There were three new bills added to the roster, in the names of Shane Reti (National), Damien Smith (ACT) and Ginny Andersen (Labour).
The wide party mix is because they were all member’s bills chosen from among the 71 possible bills available inside the proverbial biscuit tin in Thursday’s lunchtime ballot.
National MP David Bayly Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
The new contenders
Those three bills were these ones:
- New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Restriction on Crown Funding Agreements and Unfunded Cancer Medicines) Amendment Bill (Dr Shane Reti)
- Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill (Damien Smith)
- Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill (Ginny Andersen).
Shane Reti’s bill wants to enable people to get public medical care for cancer but with unfunded medications that they’ve paid for privately.
Damien Smith’s bill would allow investment from OECD countries to bypass approval from the Overseas Investment Office (except for residential land).
Ginny Andersen’s bill would create new offences and increase penalties for the online grooming of children.
The coulda-been contenders
The Thursday ballot was needed because Wednesday had been a Members’ Day and the House managed to get through quite a few first reading debates.
It needed to replenish the stock of members’ bills up for a first crack on the Order Paper. The rules require eight new bills ready at the starting post, just in case.
The Order Paper is replenished whether or not the newly debated bills were successful or banished to the darker realms of dusty filing cabinets.
This week the bills did not have a happy Wednesday. Five were debated and four (all the first reading bills) were negatived into dusty oblivion.
The fifth bill was further along its path into law and has now finished the committee stage - meaning it has just a sindle reading remaining before it gets signed into law. That bill slowly doubles residency requirements for superannuation (from 10 to 20 years).
Here are the bills that left the starters blocks only to trip and fall at the first hurdle:
- From Andrew Bayly (National) - a bill to require electronic record keeping for second hand dealers. Failed - Labour voting against.
- From Simon Bridges (National) - a bill for triennial automatic recalculation of tax brackets. Failed with National and ACT in favour, others opposed.
- From David Seymour (ACT) - a bill to implement rigid strictures around government law and regulation making. Failed with National and ACT in favour, others opposed.
- From Simeon Brown (National) - a bill to let electric response trucks to get traffic priority with flashing lights like first responders. - Failed - just National in favour.
ACT leader David Seymour makes a point during the general debate Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
That’s how it goes sometimes. Especially when all the bills are from opposition MPs. The opposition did have that one bright point - although that superannuation bill had originally been a New Zealand First bill but was picked up by Andrew Bayly when they left Parliament.
One moment worth noting among the failed debates was the beginning of David Seymour’s speech on his Regulatory Standards Bill - and a fun story from the beginnings of New Zealand’s parliament.
“..let me take you back to the very beginning. Our first Parliament met in Auckland for only two months. The contest at the time was whether the Ministers appointed by the Governor, who was appointed from London, should be responsible to the elected officials. In the end, the Governor prorogued the Parliament and in a fit of outrage parliamentarians suspended Standing Orders, half of them tried to climb up the walls out the Speaker's gallery to deny the other members a quorum, and at one point the Prime Minister, one Henry Sewell I think it was, actually decked a member of the Opposition—something I sometimes think about at question time in our Parliament today.”
