In the weekend audio edition of The House we have a three-for compilation of parliamentary coverage from during the week. First we take a deepish dive into the friendly world of patsy questions (that's friendly questions in Parliament).
Then we judge the widely divergent party responses to two big new bills that were philosophically similar responses to very different issues: one on housing, one on health.
Both bills are now open for public submissions - so sharpen your pencils and wits, and assume a position.
Photo: supplied
This weekend edition audio is above. Note: while the weekend version of the audio is more comprehensive, the day-by-day articles are more in-depth, so listen above but for the details you can also follow links to articles (below).
Playing patsy-a-cake in question time
First on the list is a dive into a day of patsy questions, the questions that ministers get asked by MPs from their own political party.
Patsy questions attract frequent derision. What is their purpose and how much time do they take in Parliament (or if you tend to dislike them… how much time do they waste)?
Love it, hate it: a week of policy responses
There were four particularly significant bills debated in Parliament this week. Three were controversial and one was a cosy campfire sing-a-long by all parties except for ACT.
Two of the big bills were first readings (their first debate in Parliament), so we gave each a closer look during the week.
First up, the National-Labour love-in was over a new housing policy. It’s a bill that plans to override local council planning rules and allow much denser, taller city housing.
NIMBY now needs a middle N (for neighbour's) to more accurately cover those afraid they'll lose their sun to a new three-story townhouse just across the fence.
Health - Diagnosis and second opinions
The second new bill totally overhauls the structure of health administration - with an end to DHBs, a new Maori health body, and centralised strategic planning. It’s a massive change from the current regionalised system that Labour brought in 20 years ago.
National was fighting fiercely to save the old Labour plan, ACT had a totally different prescription, and Green seconded the planned surgery.
We outline the proposals and the party positions on Health reform here.
A unifying theme
The other two things particularly fought over hard this week were Three Waters Reform, and a Covid-19 bill which retrospectively allows commercial tenants without access to their rental premises to renegotiate with landlords, or to seek arbitration.
Interestingly, three of the highest profile issues this week could all be described similarly; ‘central government taking back some control from local authorities to fix a crisis’.
That loosely describes the housing bill (the Government super-ceding council housing rules), the health bill (replacing regional governance with national strategy), and also the Three Waters reforms (taking local council control of failing water infrastructure). Two of those moves are highly contested, the third is widely agreed.
