New Parliament to meet, elect Speaker

5:30 am on 5 December 2023
National Party Whip Chris Penk gives his leader a status update.

File photo. The first meeting of the new Parliament will take place on Tuesday morning. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith

The first meeting of the new Parliament will finally take place this morning, 52 days since the election.

The Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro, will send commissioners to formally open the 54th Parliament at 11am, after which the Clerk of the House will preside over the swearing in of MPs and the election of the Speaker.

National has already indicated it will nominate Gerry Brownlee for the role.

The State Opening of Parliament - where the Governor-General delivers the Speech from the Throne in Parliament's Legislative Council Chamber - will take place tomorrow.

The speech will contain the government's plans for this term of Parliament. After that comes the Address in Reply Debate, which normally spans a number of days.

The government does not expect to get to its first piece of legislation - a bill to return the Reserve Bank to a single mandate of fighting inflation - until next Tuesday.

Leader of the House Chris Bishop intends to put the House into urgency to get that legislation over the line, as well as repealing Fair Pay Agreements, removing the Resource Management Act reforms, and sending legislation reinstating 90-day trials to Select Committee.

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