Standing Orders — Sessional

I move, That the recommended amendments to the Standing Orders set out in Part 2 of the report of the Standing Orders Committee on Members’ attendance, absence, and suspension be adopted, as a sessional order, with effect from 1 January 2014, the sessional order relating to compassionate leave that was adopted by the House on 26 September 2013 be revoked with effect from 1 January 2014, and compassionate leave under the sessional order of 26 September 2013 granted by the Speaker for a period after 1 January 2014 be treated as permission to be absent granted under new Standing Order 37B(1). This motion recommends the amendments to the Standing Orders set out in Part 2 of the report of the Standing Orders Committee on members’ attendance, absence, and suspension. It requires that it be adopted as a sessional order with effect from 1 January 2014. Previously the House passed a sessional order relating to compassionate leave, which was adopted on 26 September of this year, 2013. That will now be revoked, with effect from 1 January 2014, as these new provisions apply. Compassionate leave under the previous sessional order was to be granted by the Speaker, and that arrangement will continue, but will be given effect under the motion we are passing today.

Parliament is somewhat unique in that members are elected to be free to come and speak in this place on behalf of those whom they represent, but there is a requirement that they do, in fact, attend. Parties, as they are structured under our system, do have some leeway to allow people to do the things that the community expects them to do—to turn up to events and to offer the various points of leadership that people expect from this place—and that means that a party is restricted in the number of people whom it can have out of Parliament on any day. That means that there will be occasions when there will be personal circumstances when, in any other workplace, the member would be able to take leave to go and attend to that business, but, because of the structures we have here, he or she is unable to. There is also somewhat of an anomaly that exists around paid parental leave for those who have partners in the workforce. MPs are restricted from some of that access at the present time.

Although this Standing Order does not deal with that, it is a challenge for Parliament at some point. But what this will mean is that the Speaker, upon representation from the various party whips and then having reported it to the Business Committee, will be able to step outside of the requirements to have only a certain number away each day and to grant leave on a compassionate basis. I think this is just the sort of thing that exists in most workplaces. It lines this place up with what would be expected in a modern workplace, and I do commend it to the House.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party and also support Government motion No. 2. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee said, Parliament is a workplace a little unlike any other. If I was in another workplace—say, my previous workplace, working for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation—and I left my office to go and have a meeting with union members, I would still be at work. I would not need to seek leave from my employer to go and do my job outside of my office. But in this work environment—and many members of the public may not know this, and why should they; it is a little unusual—if, as a member of Parliament, I need to go back to Hamilton to attend a meeting of importance in my area, then I need to have specific leave from Parliament to go and do my job in another location, to leave my office here in Parliament to go and do that. Even if I was to go down the road here in Wellington and meet with some people from the social development sector in my role as our spokesperson on social development, I would also need leave to be off the premises to go and do my job somewhere else.

So the application of leave in a parliamentary environment is a little odd. It is not necessarily—although sometimes it is—leave to attend to a personal matter. It does cover that as well, but more often than not it is actually leave to not be here in the parliamentary precincts, in order to do our job in another location. I think it is right and proper that we have a very robust process in the way in which that is monitored, and I note that Government motion No. 2 certainly gives a lot more structure around that. I guess the changing feature this brings in is a systematic approach to recording unauthorised, unpermitted absences from Parliament. It is right and proper that the New Zealand public should have confidence in our systems.

This is designed to operationalise, I guess, a piece of legislation recently passed by this Parliament whereby if a member of Parliament was to be absent in an unauthorised manner for 4 or more days throughout the year, there would be a financial penalty to their salary for that. That is right and proper, because I think that does reflect the practices of workplaces up and down New Zealand—that there is a penalty if people have unexplained, unauthorised absences from their employment. So, without further ado, I do rise on behalf of the Labour Party to recommend and support Government motion No. 2. It will be a new systems approach for us, and I am sure that members of Parliament will treat it with the dignity and respect it deserves.

Motion agreed to.