A member’s bill freshly picked from the biscuit tin is like a rough diamond waiting to be shaped. That’s how the MP behind the latest member’s bill picked from the ballot describes it.
For many MPs, it’s a godsend when their member’s bill gets picked from the ballot, to have its chance to become law. Most proposed member’s bills don’t get picked, and stay languishing among the crumbs of the biscuit tin.
But getting picked is just the start of the nitty gritty involved in honing a member’s bill into law. So to find out what’s involved, I spoke with Labour MP Angie Warren-Clark whose Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill was plucked from the tin last week.
Labour MP Angie Warren-Clark in select committee Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
“A member’s bill sits in this grey area. The machinery of government doesn’t sit behind this legislation. So basically you come up with an idea, that idea is progressed, we get a bit of help drafting, and then at that point it gets put into the ballot,” Warren-Clark explains of the embryonic stage of the bill.
Her particular Bill has a stated aim of reducing the harm that family violence causes in New Zealand by allowing a party to a marriage or civil union to apply for an order dissolving a marriage or civil union if they have been the victim of family violence inflicted by the other party in the relationship, rather than waiting the mandatory two years for that dissolution.
“In our situation, in the Labour Party, our caucus agrees to it, that it can go into the ballot. But at that point, it’s sort of a rough diamond really. It needs consideration, and that’s why it’s always great to bring bills through to have their first reading and go to select committee, and that’s where you really sharpen and shape.”
A public process
The process around most bills is designed to be a public process. In fact, as Warren-Clark’s bill shows, the public can play an instrumental role in the conception of a member’s bill.
Her Bill’s background is traced to the harrowing experiences of many women that the MP supported during her previous work in the domestic violence space. After she had become an MP, Warren-Clark was approached for help by a woman with an abusive husband who had gone to prison for the violence he inflicted on her but continued to manipulate and abuse her for two years in various ways including by using digital technology and banking services. That experience informed the basic aim of this Bill.
During the gestation period of a member’s bill, the MP will often seek out indications of support from other parties in Parliament. In her case, Warren-Clark says other parties have indicated support so she’s “pretty hopeful” it will progress at least to select committee stage. At that point, the public can have its say.
“It becomes quite a public process. Everything is live-streamed, all those discussions and the things that are raised,” she says, adding that it is invaluable to have the community entering the discussions to highlight potential fish hooks in the legislation, “to talk to you perhaps about things you hadn’t thought of, or concerns, and I know there will be some on this Bill”.
“It’s all part of the hurly burly of the process.”
