It's the third to last sitting week before Parliament dissolves ahead of the election and it's going to be a busy one with extended sittings and urgency planned for the rest of the week.
Leader of the House Chris Hipkins Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
In charge of figuring out what gets worked on first is the Leader of the House Chris Hipkins. He said the Government is looking to try and finish off a range of business and make up for time lost due to the Covid-19 lockdown in March.
The House normally sits on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2pm to 10pm and on Thursdays from 2pm to 6pm.
Tuesday this week starts normally with question time at 2pm and the MPs will work on a variety of bills beginning with the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill.
"On Wednesday morning we're doing something unusual which is we're extending Tuesday's sitting into Wednesday morning but for Members' business," said Mr Hipkins.
Members' Day is when bills from non-Ministers are debated. Getting a bill before the House is trickier when an MP is not a Minister and relies on it being pulled randomly from a ballot. Usually every alternate sitting Wednesday is set aside for debate on Member's Bills.
"We obviously lost a couple Members' Days during the lockdown period and as part of the agreements around conditions for Parliament to sit during level three we agreed that there wouldn't be any Members' business progressed during that time."
Parliament sat with fewer MPs and observed social distancing when it resumed sitting on April 28th under alert level three.
"We didn't have a lot of time and also we didn't have a lot of MPs here and it would be unjust to be progressing their bills without them being here to take part in those debates."
Mr Hipkins said there was an agreement to defer the Member's day to when Parliament resumed normal sitting and make it a Wednesday morning so MPs will Debate members' bills from 9am to 1pm.
From 2pm on Wednesday the House will work through the remaining stages of the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute Vesting Bill and then the House will sit under urgency.
Urgency is a Government tool which allows for the sitting hours in the House to be extended and for bills to be passed more quickly than usual.
"We've got quite a range of bills that we're aiming to progress through," said Mr Hipkins.
"I'm trying to avoid too many bills going through all of their stages under urgency so we're still trying to only progress bills in a limited way so we're largely claiming the extra hours.
"What we are doing in this case is the committee stage and the third reading of a number of bills at the same time. Once you're through a committee stage the third reading really is a formality. It's the final finishing off debate because you can no longer change anything to do with the bill."
Urgency affects the Parliamentary calendar by stopping it on the day that urgency was moved until all the business listed is completed or the House decides to stop.
Mr Hipkins said the House will sit from 9am through to Midnight (with a lunch and dinner break) on Thursday and potentially Friday and Saturday as well if needed before the MPs go home for the weekend.
"Members will be out and about when they do eventually get home whenever that might be, they'll be out and about campaigning."
See the full list of business before the House in the order paper here.
