Louis Collins

It was a sad day at Parliament on Thursday, with news of the sudden death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp. Before adjourning, the House paid tribute to her.

The first business for Parliament this week was not Question Time, but a Ministerial Statement on the evolving Middle East situation.

Foreign Affairs is a portfolio that often receives bi-partisan respect. In an otherwise adversarial Scrutiny Week, Winston Peters' Foreign Affairs hearing was positively amiable.

For electorate MPs, weekends are generally spent in the community meeting constituents. Louis Collins popped into a morning tea Q&A hosted by Matt Doocey.

Parliament and the courts are different branches of our democracy. On Thursday, during the debate on MP punishments, it felt like they overlapped.

The Health Committee has heard oral submissions on the government's Medicines Amendment Bill, which aims to speed up the approvals process for medication.

The House chats with senior MPs about the political strategy behind members' bills.

MPs were stuck in the House from Thursday afternoon until midnight Saturday, when they debated a long list of legislation under urgency. The House breaks down the bills.

The House sat down with senior parliamentary clerk James Picker to chat through the Budget process and what you can expect to see in the House today.

The highly anticipated debate on the Privileges Committee report lasted just 25 minutes before it was adjourned. What has been said so far?

Public organisations are treating Treaty commitments like transactions, not relationships, the Auditor-General says.

MPs began the week with an urgent debate on redress for abuse in state care, and criticism of the government's change of mind about an independent redress system for survivors.

After over two decades, Labour stalwart David Parker is calling time on a long career with just a few things left unachieved.

Parliament's select committees are well known. But the public never gets to watch the Cabinet committees, which scrutinises all policies before they reach Cabinet.

The new Budget is six weeks away, but this week Parliament was still debating spending from the 2023/2024 financial year, in a long-delayed annual review debate.

Nearly 25 years after the "corngate" saga, the debate on genetic modification is back thanks to the Gene Technology Bill currently in select committee.

Submitters on a bill about Parliament asked for more MPs, a budget office and changes to Parliament's funding model. Audio

This week, Parliament began with a secret bill and ended with a debate on coping with climate change. Between the two the word "growth" bloomed. Audio

Under urgency, parliament has updated the law on electronically-monitored bail, bringing it into line with actual practice.

The current government is 16 months old. In just another 18 months or so, NZ will once again be at the polling booth. Audio

Parliament kicked off this week with the first reading of a bill trying to improve something everybody hates - sitting in traffic.

This week, MPs and the public got a rare glimpse behind the curtain of New Zealand's spy agencies.

When the bill to restore NZ citizenship to some Samoans passed this week, Parliament's galleries were full to the brim with members of the community.