Business Statement

The House will lift today for a 1-week adjournment. When the House resumes on Tuesday, 17 August priority will be given to the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill, the Tariff (New Zealand-Hong Kong, China Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) Amendment Bill, and other bills on the Order Paper.

I thank the Leader of the House for that short description of the next House sitting week. I offer him our thanks for the work that he is doing on planning the second week of the next sitting period, where he is offering consultation with other parties on what the programme might look like. I thought, after a particularly difficult session, it might be a nice way to finish by saying I think he has done a very good job on that, and we are genuinely grateful to him for it. It is a good sign.

Also, if you could indulge me, Mr Speaker, I ask the Leader of the House to pass on to the Prime Minister something that we omitted to do on Tuesday, which was to also recognise his own appointment now as a right honourable member of the House. Mr Key campaigned for there to be a step change for the economy, but he has been quite focused on a spelling change for his own name, and we want to make sure that he is recognised for that. We did not get a chance to do that on Tuesday, and we should have done that.

I thank the shadow Leader of the House for the initial backhanded comment. We simply say it comes as no surprise to us that on Thursday Labour is waking up to what it should have done on Tuesday.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I am not sure how I would score that.