Under a submission tsunami Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
The House - In its first year, this Parliament has sent 78 new laws to the 12 subject select committees - about six each. But the Justice Committee has received 26, including many of the most contested. Why?
A year ago, this 54th Parliament began with a madcap dash of urgent law making. More than a dozen new laws were passed after skipping the Select Committee process entirely.
Since then, many more bills have been sent to committee. In the first year, the 12 subject select committees received 78 different bills (including a few bills picked up from the previous Parliament).
Spread evenly across the committees this workload would be very manageable - six or seven bills each. It would ensure each bill received solid consideration and allow for good public feedback. Except that's not what happened.
Foreign Affairs has had one bill, Environment two, Education and Transport have picked up four each. Economic Development, Health and Māori Affairs have each received a respectable five each. Finance, Governance and Administration, and Primary Production nearly hit the average at six each, while Social Services received an abundant eight. But Justice got 26 separate bills.
This level of imbalance is unusual. Why has it happened and are there negative impacts?
It seems likely that there are quite a few contributing causes, but a few stand out: one is structural and a few others are political. Structurally, justice is a slightly different area of legislating. The Justice Committee's workload includes any bills that deal with criminal sanctions, and such laws really need to be in primary legislation, not altered on-the-fly by ministers via regulation.
So, even minor changes to criminal law tend to end up as a separate bill, and are likely to go to committee. That structural difference is amplified by some of the political reasons.
'Law and order' politics
It is standard operating procedure for conservative political parties to use a promise to be 'tough on crime' as an electoral theme. The strategy works. Fear, and a desire for vengeance are emotional responses to crime - and emotions are good at driving voter preference. The strategy is also popular because it is available regardless of the overall level of crime - there is always at least one type of crime experiencing a statistical boom (knife crime and ram raids are recent examples), which can be focused on.
This government, having promised to be tough on crime, has followed through and focused its legislative agenda very heavily in that direction. Crime legislation has become a focus of KPIs and policy buzz-wording. That follow-through is likely the biggest contributor to the Justice committee log-jam.
It is likely not only the Justice Select Committee (and its staff) who are experiencing a punishing workload as a flow-on from this focus. It has surely also piled on pressure at the Ministry of Justice, which is largely responsible for making political promises into workable policy and then guiding the legislation. The ministry also processes the public submissions sent to the committee. Its recently reduced in-house workforce is unlikely to have proved sufficient to the task this year.
I may be wrong, but I would expect that the Parliamentary Counsel's Office has a team that specialises in drafting criminal law. If they do, those poor souls are also likely desperate for a Christmas break.
The Māori Affairs Select Committee Room (Māui Tikitiki-a-Taranga): reviewing fewer bills than it might. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Stealing the Māori Affairs Committee's lunch
And finally there is another political factor. The Justice Committee is being given bills that really belong elsewhere - particularly those that would normally go to the Māori Affairs Committee.
This is true of three highly contentious bills: the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill, which reworks an existing law after a judicial interpretation that the government is unhappy with; the Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill, which makes it harder for local councils to introduce (or retain) Māori wards; and the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, which aims to legislatively reimagine the Treaty of Waitangi.
The Takutai Moana bill attracted 6692 submissions. The Māori wards bill received more than 24,000. Those are big numbers, but the the Treaty Principles bill will likely dwarf them both when it closes on 7 January, 2025. (You can add your own thoughts here until then).
All three bills are ideally suited to the expertise that exists within the Māori Affairs Select Committee. Two of them (Takutai Moana and Māori wards), cover legislative territory the committee has recently traversed, and Treaty-oriented legislation is the Māori Affairs Committee's forte, but is not typical territory for the Justice Committee.
In the debate over committee instructions on the Takutai Moana bill, Labour MP Dr Duncan Webb (who sits on Justice), noted "While …I consider myself competent to consider a lot of the material that goes before the Justice Committee, this bill in particular will be a technical challenge …it will require some upskilling so to speak. There are issues which are at the heart of this bill which go to customary title and tikanga, and they're not things which I'm particularly familiar with."
So why are they being handled by the Justice Committee if it is comparatively ill-suited?
The Māori Affairs Committee, which would normally manage all three bills, is a split committee (ie it comprises equal numbers of governing-party and opposition MPs). Without a controlling majority, the government cannot guarantee what will occur in the committee, how long it might take to consider the bills, or what will come back to the House. It doesn't have control.
National knows that split committees can be unpredictable - National MPs have themselves caused havoc in split committees whilst in opposition.
Justice, by comparison, is a governing-party majority committee. Nothing too embarrassing is likely to happen there. The bills won't get stuck. The preferred amendments will get approved.
Justice may also have been chosen because it is one of the better-led, and more efficient committees (yes, they can vary). And usefully, it is a committee where all six parties are represented, though I suspect that's more of an excuse than a reason.
As to whether there will be an impact from so much work done by so few in such a short time, and sometimes outside their skill areas - only time will tell. It is possible to identify what might be hasty law making, but bad law making becomes more evident with time.
I have chatted with MPs from both sides of the Justice Committee. The governing-party side reassured me that the committee was doing well and getting very good at considering bills (they've certainly had a lot of practice). The opposition response was that it is not vaguely possible to give proper consideration to so many bills and properly do them, well, justice.
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