Some days at Parliament MPs work at the pace of Wellington cyclists inching up hill into a northerly.
They balance that on days when the House relentlessly gathers pace; a skateboarder careening down the sweep of Brooklyn Hill.
On Tuesday this week the MPs were definitely free-wheeling when they swooshed past two Covid-19 motions, and swept five bills through ten stages.
All those bills were completed to become law.
Photo: Phil Smith
Well, it wasn't quite that zoomy, there’s a bit of double counting going on because two of the bills were a bit unusual.
One was the Supplementary Estimates (which are accounting adjustments to last years’ budget). Typically that debate is piggybacked with a second bill – an Imprest Supply Bill which gives the Government permission to access a set amount of cash (it’s spending money until the budget gets approved later in the year).
To increase the apparent speed further those bills aren’t debated at every stage. So with a single debate MPs achieved the progress of two bills through five stages! And no, that’s not cheating - it’s always that way.
But even without that double counting Tuesday was still super quick. When MPs came back from a quick bite to eat they had just three hours of debate left in the evening and had only two bills and two motions in the bag.
In those three hours they polished off three more bills moving them through five stages.
Here are the bills that got approved.
The Commerce (Grocery Sector Covenants) Amendment Bill passed on a voice vote. It prevents supermarkets from buying and reselling blocks of land in order to create covenants on their future use. Those covenants prevent future competition (sometimes even including things butchers, green-grocers or hairdressers). The bill also makes all previously covenants of this type unenforceable.
The Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Bill was more contested but passed with the support of Labour, Green and Te Paati Maori. The Bill tightens requirements on financial institutions in an effort to have fairer behaviour towards sustainers (aimed at things like banks pressure-selling insurance to customers via financial incentives to tellers). It will also now become law.
Then the House turned on the afterburners to unanimously pass a bill through three consecutive stages, bang, bang, bang.
The Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill aims to help prevent local body candidates from being easily stalked or abused by those who would previously have been able to learn their home addresses from their electoral advertising.
Electoral law previously has required physical addresses on advertising, now it will allowable to use a variety of less identifying addresses instead.
That bill was supported by all parties who had agreed to make sure it got across the line in time for this year’s local body elections, which begin in earnest in July.
So it positively galloped through its three final stages and will now become law – all in all a speedy Tuesday.
