The House

This week, the Parliament Bill committee heard from a 16 year old high school student, and a former prime minister, 65 years his senior.

Atop the Beehive a lone national flag is tortured daily by Wellington’s gales. We join its handlers up on the roof to chat, watching as its fraying edges whip the sky.

Parliament is a mercurial place. Debate can flick from amity to antagony with each shift in topic, especially if that topic is climate change or agriculture, or both.

Today, Parliament begun a new, three-week-long sitting block. If Question Time was the first round warm-up for a new bout - when the boxers are still a little tentative and trying out new things, - it's unlikely to be a quiet lead-up to Christmas.

In politics, they say you shouldn't have any skeletons in your closet. But what about in your Parliament?

In the Sunday edition of The House, a story from Thursday and a new story: Returning some stolen citizenships gets likelier, and a petitioner to Parliament wants to include an oral undertaking to The Treaty of Waitangi – a guarantee of freedom of religion.

After a robust select committee process, all parties now support a Members bill that would restore New Zealand citizenship to a select group of Samoans who lost it 4 decades ago.

Among all the government's resource management changes, the Fast-track Bill has received the bulk of attention. This week, a less traversed but equally significant bill from that suite became law.

Parliament has featured in New Zealand’s official Gazette thrice in three days. Once over a possible referendum to ban fireworks, twice over the removal of an MP who caused fireworks.

New Zealand's official newspaper, The Gazette, has mentioned Parliament twice this week. Once to announce an MP was getting the rocket, and once to outline a hope to ban rockets entirely.

In the Sunday edition of The House Louis Collins talks Ministerial Statements with Chris Penk, and Phil Smith considers messages coming from public to government.

On Tuesday, the Government made a Ministerial statement about the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui. RNZ's The House sat down with the Minister who made it.

Watching people make submissions to select committees about laws can give you an idea of what types of expertise and experience are most useful; and that one of the most crucial might just be... people like you.

Rather than wait for the Opposition to apply for an urgent debate, the Government decided to get in first and on Tuesday, gave a Ministerial Statement on the sinking of HMNZS Manawanui.

In sports, you don’t argue with the ref. It’s a similar situation at Parliament with the Speaker. The Speaker isn’t just Gerry Brownlee though. There are four other presiding officers he can rely on to help carry the load.