Periodically at Parliament a new bill is tabled in the House, and sits waiting for MPs to grant it life.
From the outside new bills seem to arrive suddenly and fully-formed; springing fully formed from the heads of MPs.
In reality they are typically the result of lengthy gestations; especially government bills which are often built upon thousands of hours of research, policy development, consultation, and negotiation. Followed by the fiendishly difficult task of drafting.
Snail racing Photo: Screenshot
Ministerial policy teams sweat years of their lives into the creation of a good policy and the legislation that brings it to life. Sometimes the progeny of all that effort never quite arrives.
If you want a quick run through of the usual process of creating a bill you could look here.
Believe me it is not quick. Call it thorough.
Chris Hipkins is the chairperson of Cabinet’s Legislation Committee, which oversees all new government bills. He outlined the quick version of an idea becoming a law like this.
“In a really truncated fast process that might take a year, maybe a year and a half. Sometimes it can take two or three years. If you’re doing something urgently, then that can all happen within a matter of weeks. Now that’s not great law-making but sometimes it’s required, sometimes you just need to do it.
“So in the case of Covid-19 we’ve had plenty of things where we’ve just had to do stuff and we’ve had to do it really fast. So, we’ve sat here and we’ve said ‘right, this is what the change needs to be’, and sometimes that change has been drafted almost instantaneously, introduced to the House, passed through all stages, becomes law within a matter of days.
“The Russia Sanctions Bill, which Parliament will be debating this week is a good example of that too.”
Basically, making law is a slow and steady process, but sometimes circumstances demand faster feet. This is one of those weeks.
