There’s been a distinct niggly energy about the exchanges in the House this week, and it’s got something to do with the fact Parliament is sitting under urgency.
Urgency means the MPs have to work longer hours, start earlier and finish later, like around midnight. The Government has sought these additional hours because with the end of the year fast approaching, it wants to get a quite incredible raft of legislation through the House.
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David Seymour Photo: Johnny Blades / VNP
So there’s a lot of work for MPs, and the strain started to show late last night during debate on the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes standards) Amendment Bill, one of several Bills being debated from beginning to end under urgency this week.
The Bill, which extends the final compliance date for landlords to meet healthy homes standards, had the support of all parties except Te Pāti Māori and the ACT Party, whose leader David Seymour stood up seeking a call to speak just when presiding officer, Jacqui Dean, sitting in the Speaker’s chair, had begun the voting procedure. Seymour raised a point of order, curious why she had ended the first reading when only ten of the maximum 12 speaking slots had been used. Dean referred to the rules which say you can’t interrupt a vote.
There was some back and forth, and Seymour urged Dean to “actually make an effort to look up and see if anyone is seeking a call so that people can come to this house and do their job, which is to debate the motion on the table”. Dean wasn’t about to reflect on her ruling, and as Seymour embarked on what seemed like dozens of points of order in the next hour, she issued warnings and at one point had him withdraw and apologise.
These testy exchanges illuminate matters of procedure in Parliamentary debate, and also how MPs get a bit scratchy around the rules when, under urgency, the hours start to stretch.
Meanwhile, at least one National MP took issue with the intensity of debate by Chlöe Swarbrick who spoke frequently on the Residential Tenancies Bill. The Green MP is focussed on the housing crisis confronting many people in this country, but Simon O’Connor suggested what was needed was “a moment to take a breath after what was quite a lot of words firing out there from the previous member”. Where was he when fellow National MP Andrew Bayley was bringing fire and brimstone and breaking volume records for the chamber during debate on the previous bill?
Jacqui Dean in her role as Assistant Speaker Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
The notion of debate gets tested when fuses are short. After all, it was past 10pm when the House would normally have adjourned by. And it had been a very long day, much of which was spent debating the finer details of a bill that enables the Government’s Three Waters reform, a Committee Stage that seemingly went on forever. Heading into the corresponding stage of the Residential Tenancies Bill, with deputy Speaker Greg O’Connor presiding, you could sense that weariness coming through when he said he had forgotten Swarbrick’s name as she took a call.
“Only been here for five years,” she quipped, adding something about ageing. But time doesn’t mean what it usually does during sitting days under urgency.
At this point, Parliament is to sit tomorrow, Friday, which doesn’t usually happen. And unless the Government is happy with the progress made on the very long list of legislation set out for urgency, they could even go into Saturday.