Tuesday at Parliament was, and this is a technical term, a little bit bonkers. It felt like someone tried to stuff into the day a whole week’s worth of - well everything.
MPs dashed from glory to tragedy, from taking credit to taking blame, and from bill to bill to bill.
Normally, as you’ll remember, days in the House begin with Question Time then MPs get down to considering the legislation that’s up for debate. Normally.
Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
The agony and the glory
Yesterday began with a motion from the Prime Minister to congratulate our Olympics team. But glory was tinged with sadness and an acknowledgement of the pain of pressure.
A motion like that is not unusual. Occasionally a success needs a nod and each party takes a turn with adding their congratulations or, in the event of a significant tragedy or death, their commiserations.
And then the House gets down to business. Usually.
About that problem
On Tuesday it didn’t go like that. Next up was a Ministerial Statement on Monday night’s electrical supply grid failure.
Ministerial Statements have been a bit more common recently and are like a free form - one topic question time, with someone from each other party quizzing the minister on said topic.
The MPS seem to enjoy the relative lack of strictures in the format. Possibly this was what Question Time was like when it began - but decades of accreted rules and ruling have shaped it into the format that - finally - came next.
Mea Culpa
After Question Time there was a special debate - this event was the only extra elements to the day that had been long planned.
The dawn raids debate included a number of powerful, moving and enlightening speeches, particularly from the pasifika members of Parliament.
Both the major parties recognised their historical fault in the racist policies and actions of government, immigration and police.
But the key moments were those that put faces on the dawn raids.
Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Anyone feeling urgent?
After that debate the Speaker noted that he had been asked for an urgent debate on two different topics - the apocalyptic climate change report and the electricity screw-up.
The Climate topic didn’t meet the requirement of ministerial responsibility - the Green Party hadn’t managed to tie the IPCC report to the Government. The wording for a request for a special debate is a skill I suspect - and I understand that often those requests come with substantial supporting materials.
The electrical supply screw-up did meet the requirements - but the Speaker decided that after everything else that had already happened, there just wasn’t time. He would look at it again on Wednesday (when he did allow it).
Covid Orders
At this point the House has been sitting for about 3 hours, it must finally be time for some legislation? Not so fast, the first thing on the Order Paper is a motion for the approval of five Covid-19 orders and two related reports.
When the government gave itself powers under the Covid-19 Reponse legislation to make regulations on the fly, it determined that each of these mini-laws would be reviewed by the regulations review committee and then approved by the House.
I’m not sure anyone realised there would need to be quite so many.
Chris Hipkins in outlining the motion noted the constant flux.
“…this is an evolving situation, and these orders sometimes, by the time we get to confirm them, quite a lot has happened in the intervening period. So we're confirming a stop of the quarantine-free travel, a start of the quarantine-free travel again, and there's another one in the process that will have stopped it.”
And finally some legislation
As the rest of the country was preparing dinner or still stuck in traffic the MPs were reaching the actual legislation.
You might think, in the time left you’d think they wouldn’t get much done. And yet, no, they just turned on the afterburners and went like the clappers.
If everyone speaks as long as they are allowed the debate on any reading for a government bill will take a little over two hours.
The House had 4½ hours of debate left. So if they could expect to get through two readings, probably get a speech or two into a third.
But nothing good on Tuesday followed the usual form.
The House completed readings for five different bills.
- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bill was read a third time.
- The Fair Trading Amendment Bill was read a third time.
- The Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill was read a third time.
Those three are a full day’s work all by themselves. All of those three bills will now get signed off to become law.
Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
But, wait there’s more...
The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Hazardous Substances Assessments) Amendment Bill was read a first time.
According to David Parker (the minister in charge of this bill), “the purpose… is to amend the underlying Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 in order to improve the assessment and reassessment of hazardous substances. These substances include the chemicals that are widely used in industry and in agriculture.”
The Environment Committee will be requesting public submissions on this bill soon.
And finally, (whew) the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill was read a second time.
In the final minutes of Tuesday evening, with all the political parties in favour of the Bill and wanting it moved on to the next stage, the debate started to feel like a highlights package.
Here are the final six speeches on that bill - which collectively could have taken 50 minutes (two speeches were a split call - so could be 5 minutes each).
“I commend this bill to the House.” [cheers] Arena Williams (L-Manurewa)
“This is an outstanding bill. We fully support what the Government is doing. We commend this bill to the House.” Chris Luxon (N-Botany).
“Brilliant, outstanding, wonderful bill. I commend this bill to the House.” Glen Bennett (L-New Plymouth)
“This is a fantastic moment, and I commend this bill to the House.” Paul Eagle (L-Rongotai).
“I commend this bill to the House.” Mark Mitchell (N-Whangaparāoa)
“I commend this bill to the House.” Shanan Halbert (L-Northcote)
And clear!
Finished and voted on with one minute to spare before 10pm.
A special debate, a ministerial statement, two different debatable motions, Question Time and then the debated stages of five separate bills passed - that’s pretty impressive. And pretty exhausting.
At that the MPs likely crawl off to bed for a few hours of sleep before being back for their Select Committee meetings early Wednesday morning.
