Business of the House

There are somewhat unusual circumstances prevailing here in Wellington this morning with the airport being closed. As you will be aware, the Business Committee had enabled select committees to sit outside of Wellington yesterday. Those members are having difficulty getting back. Most important, one of those committees is the Māori Affairs Committee. There might have been an expectation, quite reasonably, that many of those members would be speaking to the bills that are before the House this morning. What I would like to point out is that whilst select committees continue to operate this morning here in Parliament, over two-thirds of Cabinet are present in the House, as well as senior members of the Opposition. They are filling those benches while Parliament’s committees continue to operate in difficult circumstances.

I thought it was worth making a comment about that so that there was no feeling that these bills were of lesser importance to those people who worked very, very hard on them. I am sure the contributions from all this morning will reflect the fact that Parliament has considered very favourably the intention of these bills.

Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, your explanation is most helpful. Thank you very much.