Parliament has just six weeks left before it breaks for the election. There is still a lot yet to do, and to slow that down, one or two matters of privilege.
One matter of privilege on its way out the door and another one (regarding Michael Wood's reporting of hi financial interests ) arriving before the last one has even departed. "It never rains…"
Here on The House we will explore the concept of Parliamentary Privilege a little more on Wednesday, but first we asked the Leader of the House Grant Robertson for a quick rundown on what a Privileges Committee entails, and also about the week’s huge workload of legislative debate. A workload significant enough that Parliament will spend at least two two days under urgency.
Labour MP and Deputy PM Grant Robertson in the House Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
The debate that began (post-Question-Time) business on Tuesday was an open-ended debate on the report back from the Privileges Committee on a matter referred to it by the Speaker a few weeks ago. The House asked Grant Robertson to outline the committee and the issue.
“The Privileges Committee is called (by some people), ‘Parliament's court’ in the sense that it's where people can be referred if they breach the rules of Parliament. And the Speaker has to determine whether or not they think that the breach is of sufficient seriousness for the Privileges Committee to assess it.”
The breach in question was by the Minister of Education who had failed to correct an incorrect answer in a timely manner. 'Misleading the House' is a serious no-no, so ministers who get their facts wrong need to correct the record ASAP.
Jan Tinetti failed to do this fast enough and the Speaker subsequently referred the failure to the Committee. (The Speaker is not a member of the committee, he just provides the cases it must rule on.)
“The Privileges Committee then meets now the committee is made up of representatives of all parties in Parliament, and the Committee meets and decides whether it agrees that there is a ‘question of privilege’ (has somebody breached the privileges the rules of Parliament)? In this case, the committee agreed that there was a case to be answered around some answers that the Minister of Education gave in parliament and whether they were accurate.”
Labour MP Jan Tinetti in the House Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
That’s part one. The second question for the committee is how serious was the breach? According to the Committee's report Tinetti thought she needn't correct an answer as the mistake was inadvertent. The Committee was not impressed, but not so much as to take any further serious action.
“What the Committee concluded was that while there were some breaches of the rules of Parliament, it didn't reach the level of a censure or beyond. What they said was that the Minister of Education needed to apologize.”
Jan Tinetti has already apologised. But regardless of her getting ahead of that finding MPs still needed to received and consider the report. The House automatically has the opportunity to debate the report back from the Privileges Committee.
In the House today, even before that matter of privilege exited the order paper, another was hatched; with the Speaker announcing that the inquiry into Michael Wood's failure to correctly report his pecuniary interests is also worthy of an inquiry by the Privileges Committee.
So, more of the same to come. Same Bat Channel, Same Bat Time.
Six Weeks and much to do
Once that privilege debate is polished off the House plows into a huge list of work for the week, much of which will be debated under urgency. That means that MPs will begin their debating days at 9am and (from Wednesday) go until midnight until the work is done, or the Government relents, or Sunday is reached.
Grant Robertson outlined why the urgency is happening, the main reasons being much to do and just six weeks left to do it in.
“Clearly we have a lot of legislation that we'd like to get passed. It is the nature of this place that …things back up, and there's a great desire to complete work that we've started. So this week, we'll have a couple of second readings of the bills that are replacing the Resource Management Act (they will go through their committee stages the following week), and then the rest of the week will be in urgency. We will be knocking off all [post-select committee] stages of a number of bills.”
That list of work this week includes:
- Natural and Built Environment Bill Second reading
- Spatial Planning Bill Second reading
And under urgency:
- Therapeutic Products Bill Committee stage, third reading
- Fuel Industry Amendment Bill Committee stage continued, third reading
- Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2023 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill Second reading, committee stage, third reading
- Business Payment Practices Bill Committee stage continued, third reading
- Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill Second reading, committee stage, third reading
- Inspector General of Defence Bill Second reading, committee stage, third reading
- Crown Minerals Amendment Bill Second reading
They may not get that far, they may get further (there are a few more possible bills to debate after that). What is certain is that by the end of this week the MPs will be tired. And they may not consider that feeling a privilege.
