25 Feb 2010

Govt defends urgency

10:45 am on 25 February 2010

The Government says its latest urgency session in Parliament is required because it needs to get work done.

Parliament remains in urgency to pass or progress a range of bills.

The Government has used urgency 17 times since coming to power and usually allows Question time to go ahead, but there will be no Question time this week.

Labour says that's because the Government does not want the scrutiny - particularly of misuse of a ministerial credit card by Housing Minister Phil Heatley, and of Education Minister, Anne Tolley, who Labour says is struggling.

The leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, says questions take up a lot of valuable time and the Government wants to get work done as speedily as possible.

However, the Government will allow a session on Thursday.