Parliament’s full-steam-ahead Christmas wind-down

It is apparently still winter in Wellington, but despite that we can tell that Christmas is coming. There are seasonal clues. For example: hay fever, that fifth horseman of the apocalypse; and the fact that Parliament is running out of sitting weeks for the year.

This week is MPs third to last week in the House. Their final week is usually something of a write off, so after this week there is really only one full week of debate left.

Reading that, you might think that MPs are winding down, and it’s nothing but piss-ups and Christmas mince pies from here on out; but you would be very wrong.

As planned Parliament went into urgency late on Tuesday evening. Now, instead of taking it easy and getting in some early practice for the holidays, the MPs appear to be trying to fit more than two month’s of debating into a single week.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but the Motion that Leader of the House Chris Hipkins read out to MPs late on Tuesday (when he asked their permission for urgency to be accorded), was immense.

Urgency motions include a list of the bills that the urgency would cover, so the MPs know what they’re agreeing to. This list of the bill names went on and on and on…

Like great comedy, it took the joke to breaking point. And kept going.

The size of a debating Everest

The urgency motion includes 25 different bills progressing through 34 reading debates and 13 committee stages. Unless it runs out of time, or the Government calls time early.

By my rough calculation, even debating at a really good clip (with governing-party MPs saying very little), all those debates would take about 86 hours… out of an available 49. 

The 49 hours are available because urgency is a big extension on a week’s typical debating time - which is about 13 hours once you ignore Question Time and the general debate. But 49 hours is still not enough.

Unless the opposition collapse in a heap or suffer collective laryngitis, it is inevitable that the MPs will run out of time before they get through the list of bills they set themselves to debate this week.

The Government will have planned it that was. After all it is better to run out of time than to run out of bills.

The time allocated to urgency automatically expires at midnight on Saturday, when carriages turn back into pumpkins and MPs trudge home, exhausted after the ball.

The midnight Saturday deadline is because a second later it would be Sunday and that’s a no-no. I suspect the rule dates from when it was more widely considered sacrilegious to work on the Lord’s day. 

But between now and then MPs will be debating each day from 9 in the morning until midnight. With an hour off for lunch and for dinner. 

That’s a very big week, a lot of debating.

Slow starts and the tactics behind them 

Thus far (tea time on Wednesday), it is not going quickly. But there is a good reason for that.

When the Leader of the House considers the order to debate a long list of bills there are tactics to consider. It is tactical to begin with the most contentious bills first - especially if the debate plan includes committee stages which are not time-limited.

If you put controversial bills later on, the Opposition might filibuster non-contentious bills in order to slow the eventual arrival of the ones they really don’t like. So you begin with the slow ones and expect to speed up later.

So urgency began with the committee stage for a bill that enables the Government’s Three Waters reform. It is highly contentious and the Opposition filibustered it (that means slowing it down as much as possible) and pretty successfully. 

As a result, of the 25 bills in the urgency motion, and the 47 stages the House is allowed to move those bills through under urgency - so far they have debated… one. 

Not the quickest start, but it can be surprising how quickly these things can speed up.

The list of bills in the urgency motion

Below are the bills and stages in the urgency motion, listed in the order they will be debated. How far do you think they will get by Midnight Saturday?

I would think that they would hope to get through the group of first readings (Chris Hipkins has spoken of wanting them available for the public to consider over the summer).

Anything after that is probably a bonus. They might hope for some of the group of Third Readings that come after those first readings. Anything beyond that would be a surprise.

Here are the bills and stages:

• the committee stage of the Water Services Entities Bill;

the passing through all stages of:

• the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Bill;
• the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill (No 2);
• the Social Security (Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill;
• the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill;

the passing through the remaining stages of:

• the Dairy Industry Restructuring (Fonterra Capital Restructuring) Amendment Bill;
• the Climate Change Response (Extension of Penalty Transition for Forestry Activities with Low Volume Emissions Liabilities) Amendment Bill;
• the Arms (Licence Holders' Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill;
• the Companies (Levies) Amendment Bill;

the first readings and referral to a select committee of:

• the Grocery Industry Competition Bill;
• the Fuel Industry Amendment Bill;

the introduction, first readings, and referral to a select committee of:

• the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill;
• the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill;
• the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Legal Services Amendment Bill;
• the introduction, first reading, and referral to a select committee of the Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) Amendment Bill;
• the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill;

the third readings of:

• the Security Information in Proceedings Bill;
• the Security Information in Proceedings (Repeals and Amendments) Bill;
• the Māori Purposes Bill;
• the Remuneration Authority Legislation Bill;
• the Statutes Amendment Bill;

the passing through the remaining stages of:

• the Organic Products and Production Bill;
• the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill;
• the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill; 
• the Civil Aviation Bill.