We have been in urgency this week. When the week is over, we’ll update our urgency counter. But between 8 December 2008 (the first day the House sat after the 2008 election) and 31 December 2009, the House had sat for 644 hours and 1 minute. 254.53 of those hours had been in urgency. That’s 39.52% of all legislative time. It’s an abuse of the urgency procedure.
We made a small protest agains that abuse this morning during debate on the Judicial Matters Bill. Chris Finlayson wanted to add 3 important constitutional changes by Supplementary Order Paper to that Bill. In consequence, they would not go to a select committee. There were several changes, but the main ones were were to increase the maximum number of District Court Judges by 16, increase the number of Court of Appeal Judges by 1, and make statutory provision for High Court Judges sitting in the Court of Appeal to receive a higher duties allowance.
David Parker, our spokesperson on these matters, was consulted by Chris Finlayson last year, and agreed that the main changes could be done by SOP. But he never agreed to consider these issues under urgency. As Trevor Mallard said, they are important changes, but not urgent ones.
So we decided to deny the leave necessary to allow them to go forward today. They’ll have to be considered another time.
Let’s hope all this “urgency” stops!
That’s 39.52% of all legislative time. It’s an abuse of the urgency procedure.
Yes, there is no other way to look at it. I support all opposition parties in doing what they can to stop this abuse.
That’s great, just when the courts are over loaded with work and there is a crying need for more judges
Labour decides to make a point!
Couldn’t you have picked something more inconsequential?
I will grant you that something has to be done with urgency although it was not unknown for Labour to use it in the early days of the last government
Isn’t there some way you can force ALL members to be in the House for each vote? Might stymie some of the urgency and become sufficiently burdensome for National Ltd™ to finally get their (proverbial) together and better manage the affairs of Parliament. What happened to the days when the “bells” rang and MPs had to scuttle like bugs back to the House for a vote?
This legislation can be moved through the normal channels Raymon. Urgency has a place, this isn’t it.
In the last government urgency was used during 9.9% of the House’s sitting hours, see Grant Robertson’s piece. Nearly 40% of parliamentary hours being held under urgency is a clear ongoing abuse.
@Sean, in addition the Government has had a notice of motion on the Order Paper since 9 December to allow the House to sit for four hours on Thursday mornings (while allowing select committees to meet as well.)
The way it is crafted leads me to think the idea has been carefully considered and agreed at the Business Committee (where all parties are represented).
I am stunned that the Government has not put the motion up to be adopted in the five sitting weeks available since then.
It looks as if National Ltd™ has learned well from ACT’s Roger Douglas. He wrote:
Brian Easton in “The Commercialisation of New Zealand”; pp 80-81.
This is exactly what is going on in the privatisation of Auckland which, in turn, is the model National Ltd™ intends for all of Aotearoa.
Labour’s task is to remain alert and not get distracted into sideshows like Filching Phil Cheatley. What else is going on that the media chooks are ignoring in favour of sensationalist headlines rather than analysis of the deep implications of National Ltd™’s commercialisation of our country?
I can’t stay up watching debates till midnight this much… It is seriously affecting my beauty sleep…
Can any formal protest be made to Speaker Smith..?
I can’t stay up watching debates to midnight this much, it is seriously affecting my beauty sleep…
Can a protest be made to Speaker Smith..? Are there any Speaker’s rulings on this..?
Sorry Jeremy, when approached on this point the Speaker will say it is the responsibility of the Leader of the House.
So it is all up to Gerry Brownlee.
Can we introduce under urgency a plan to resurrect jobs & innovation in our economy?
Raymon – you say “That’s great, just when the courts are over loaded with work and there is a crying need for more judges Labour decides to make a point! Couldn’t you have picked something more inconsequential?”
No-one who has ever looked at this in any detail thinks that more judges necessarily means more judicial throughput. In fact we need a radical overhaul of the structure of our justice system. Have a look at the excellent report of the Law Commission in 2004 – Delivering Justice for All: http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/UploadFiles/Publications/Publication_89_219_R85.pdf
which to our discredit in Government we largely ignored, and which is certainly too radical for Christopher Finlayson. It maps ouit the sort of revamp that is required, instead of tinkering with costly band aids like ever more judges. Another reason to refuse to let this sort of thing get pushed through under urgency.
So was leave refused to do this which caused delay, or was it a failure of Finlayson to take a call which caused delay. This post and Trevor’s seem at odds.
Was National trying to pass the bill anyway without these new bits in it, and Finlayson stuffed that up, or were they not trying to advance it at all?
Graeme – If you want to see the blow-by-blow, you should watch the re-run of all of this on the net. Trevor and I have summarised two different parts of the sequence, so here it is in full. Finlayson needed leave to move the SOP because of the omnibus nature of the legislation. We refused it as our protest about unwarranted urgency. The next item on the Order Paper was therefore called. Dunne was the Government Minister responsible for that item (the bill allowing for a small credit for anyone paying their student loan off early). Dunne had not made it to the chamber, and no other minister got up to take a call, so technically we should have moved then to the next item of business. Someone then prompted Finlayson to seek to move a motion – effectively allowing him to do what he originally sought to do by division. Dunne arrived in the middle of all of this. Trevor pointed out that Finlayson was too late because the next item of business had been called, but indicated that we would not refuse leave to a minister to try to move on with that next item if Dunne then sought a call. He did, and we moved on. Just another chapter in the shambles that is procedure in the House of Representatives under Gerry Brownlee.
Gerry Brownlee just admitted he can’t even come to grips with rules on credit card use… leader of House… Minister of Crown. Yikes!