Parliament has reached its final sitting week for the year. There are just two days of shouting to go, and with it being the last week, possibly a little slightly manic laughing as well.
At this point in most years MPs would be in full wind-down mode, but this week there is still a surprisingly ambitious agenda of work to fit into these final two days.
Listen to Chris Hipkins outline the final week in Parliament for 2021
Leader of the House, Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
MPs are expected to tackle debates on eight different bills; plus a debate over approving sixteen Covid Orders, and a final clean-up of the estimates (from the final reading of the budget legislation).
And then, just when they're all out of puff, an adjournment debate - which is the final wrap-up of the year with many rounds of thanks for all and sundry and quite a few jokes.
Under debate
Along the way key bills being debated include a couple of major third readings (final debates):
- Resource Management Act (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill - this bill overrides some local council housing planning rules in the major cities, to encourage greater density.
- Sexual Violence Legislation Bill - changes victim evidence rules for sexual assault trials to try and make them less traumatic for victims. For example an ability to prerecord evidence and special judicial permission required before a victim's sexual history can be mentioned.
There are also a number of new bills getting first readings. First readings are an agreement by MPs to have a closer look at legislation (initially via a Select Committee inquiry), which also allows public feedback:
- Maniapoto Claims Settlement Bill - an iwi settlement bill with Maniopoto.
- Oranga Tamariki Amendment Bill - a tidy-up of legislation relating to the child protection agency.
- Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) - a bunch of fiddly education changes including allowing ERO to review teachers’ professional development, and strengthening the Teaching Council’s disciplinary processes.
- Security Information in Proceedings Legislation Bill - rules about what happens when ‘Security and Intelligence’ information intersects with court proceedings.
- Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Bill - extends ACC cover to a specified list of maternal birth injuries that have the same characteristics as non-maternal birth injuries that are already covered (so that the injury is the deciding factor, not the cause of it).
Presuming the House gets through that massive workload the Select Committees considering those five bills will likely be asking for public feedback soon. So that gives you something to do when it entirely fails to stop raining across summer.
One more bill will get debated - but unusually it will be a quick burst through all stages. It’s a tidy-up on problem caused when a Covid-fix bill (relating to charity fund-raising via lotteries), wasn’t assented to by the Governor General before the bill it was replacing expired. That left a few days when some charity fund raising was (strictly speaking) breaking the law. Whoops, best to fix that.