Points of Order — Bills—Availability in Urgency

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have raised this point a number of times today. It is still the case that none of the other bills that the House will consider are on the Table of the House. The previous Government never adopted the practice of going into urgency and taking as long as this to table bills. Either this Government is so incompetent that it has not got them drafted yet and does not really know what it has taken urgency on, or it is deliberately withholding the bills from the House.

A couple of things have become evident to me in the last couple of days. One is that Dr Cullen is hell-bent on everybody following the letter of the Standing Orders to the nth degree. That is exactly what is happening here. There is no requirement on the Government at this point to table any bills at all—no requirement whatsoever. After the extraordinary performance of the huge amount of outrage from the members of the previous Government at the reinstatement of most of their own business, it seems to me that those members have very little interest in knowing about anything that this Government will do. But they will have those bills on the Table in time for them to be debated, at a time to be chosen by the Government. If I were to seek leave to introduce those bills now, Dr Cullen would say: “Well done, you have just put them on the Table; they can stay there for 3 days.”, or he would play some other clever trick that the Standing Orders might, by the letter of the law, allow. We will play it very safe so he can be happy.

That is an incredibly arrogant response. People in that member’s position in the past have taken the view, very properly, of reminding Governments of their responsibility in these matters. It is clear now that the Government has got the bills available—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes.

—yes—and the Government is choosing not to table bills it has available, out of spite and out of arrogance. This is the second full day of this Parliament and this Government is acting like one already heading for the graveyard, because it does not want to follow any kind of normal procedure. That is not the practice that has been followed in this House for many years now. I went with the practice, as Leader of the House, of being very, very full about what business the House would consider. The Opposition always knew well in advance what business would be considered. In urgency, if bills were coming forward to go through all their stages, they were tabled at the earliest opportunity. That is just basic common courtesy about making this House work. If the Government chooses to have no cooperation at all, then it will pay for that in a very significant fashion over the period of time. It will come to regret it. That member should know that this House cannot work if there is no cooperation between the parties in it.

Thank you, Dr Cullen. Earlier this morning I made the point, on advice, that when the House is sitting under urgency at the time that a bill is to be introduced, copies of the bill must be available at the Table. There is no requirement to have a bill available prior to that. Standing Order 263 sets out the general rule but it does not deal specifically with bills introduced under urgency. It simply establishes the principle that copies of a bill must be available upon its introduction.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your advice on an apparent conflict between two Standing Orders that bear upon this matter. Standing Order 116 prohibits members from making personal reflections. For example, when I reflect upon the fact that the Leader of the House, Mr Brownlee, earlier today gave his undertaking to do his very best to put these bills on the Table in advance of debate on them, I am prevented from making any comment on his honour, or lack of it, in now not doing so. By his own free admission, the bills are available. However, Standing Order 106 prohibits misrepresentation. It would appear to me that Mr Brownlee may have placed himself in the position of misrepresenting his own position, because he earlier said that he would do his best to bring the bills forward for scrutiny. This is against the background that no select committee process is available to the country in respect of these fundamentally important bills. He has made a statement. He has contradicted that statement. I am prevented by the Standing Orders from reflecting upon that. Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask your guidance: what happens when a member, the Leader of the House, apparently contradicts himself on a matter of this import?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The first point, Mr Cunliffe, is to ask whether you are taking exception under Standing Order 116, concerning personal reflections. You mentioned that. Do you take offence at the comments made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee?

I may not have made myself clear, Mr Deputy Speaker. It was not that I take offence; it was that if I were to characterise the Leader of the House’s late change of position on this matter, he would likely take offence, because I would have to refer to him as being dishonourable in this House, and that would be a very serious charge. I take it that I am prevented from doing that by Standing Order 116. On the other hand, the House remains in the situation that the member has apparently contradicted himself on a matter of significant constitutional practice. On a strict reading of the Standing Orders, it may be an option legally available to him not to present bills before the debate on each bill starts. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is that he gave an indication to the House earlier in the day that he would do his best to get the bills here in advance, in response to an earlier point of order made in good faith by the previous Leader of the House, who made exactly that a standard practice. There is both a substantive and a procedural lack of apparent honour in this matter, and I do not know how the House will handle it unless the member—

Mr Cunliffe, you have made the point very clear. I remind members that when points of order are taken they are to be heard in silence. Please observe that. On advice, these are matters of debate. Standing Order 106 does not prevent misrepresentation; it provides a manner for dealing with it. I am sure the member can find a way of expressing his views without making a personal reflection. It is a matter for debate.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You might recall that on a previous occasion, during the previous Government, Mr Brownlee took some time of the House in seeking to table one by one the Standing Orders of Parliament. I would like an indication from you, Mr Deputy Speaker, whether that would be a legitimate thing for me to begin to do as this particular point.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will find there is a Speaker’s ruling on that particular matter. The Speaker ruled that deliberate disruption of the House or its progress in that way would be considered unruly behaviour likely to lead to the member concerned being ejected or named.

I make the point that that matter was sparked off by nothing at all on the part of Mr Brownlee; what we have now is Mr Brownlee deliberately failing to implement an undertaking that he gave at 2 o’clock. He said at 2 o’clock that I had made a fair point, and that he would address the matter and see that it was seen to. He is now point-blank refusing to honour an undertaking given in this House, across the House. He should be experienced enough by now to know that behaviour of that sort does have consequences in Parliament. I suggest to him that he might care to go home, have a cup of cocoa, think about life, come back in the morning, and, while we are still in the third reading of this bill, think about tabling some of the bills that are coming up tomorrow.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point has been well made.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the issue for the Green Party is that, clearly, the Leader of the House has some animus towards the previous Leader of the House and the Labour Party. However, that has nothing to do with us, I say to the Leader of the House. This Parliament is not just a Labour and National Parliament; it is an MMP Parliament. All of us need to be able to look at the legislation, which the Leader of the House has now told us is in his possession. It is very difficult to see how we can undertake our democratic responsibilities if the bills are not placed on the Table.

I made it very clear before that there is no requirement for a bill to be tabled before the time that it is to be debated. That is a point I made earlier this morning. I intend to move on.