Standing Orders — Instruction to Regulations Review Committee

I move, That the recommended amendments to the Standing Orders set out in Part 2 of the report of the Standing Orders Committee on the Review of Standing Orders be adopted, with effect from the day after the dissolution or expiration of the present Parliament. I also move, That the Regulations Review Committee be instructed to inquire into Parliament’s legislative response to future national emergencies, and to report to the House on the inquiry. These two motions reflect the recommendations made to the House by the Standing Orders Committee in its report on the Review of Standing Orders. I would like to speak to each motion in turn. The first motion is to adopt the amendments to the Standing Orders that are set out in Part 2 of the report of the Standing Orders Committee. Members will see the recommended amendments shown as tracked changes at the back of the report. Once the amendments are adopted a new edition of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives will be published before the start of the new Parliament.

The committee reviews the rules and practices of the House during every term of Parliament and recommends changes where there is overwhelming support for them. Such broad support is necessary, because the Standing Orders are recognised as an important constitutional set of rules that should not be adjusted by a simple majority. This does not mean that everyone agrees about everything, but we have discussed various proposals and arrived at something that acceptably balances the interests of the Government, the Opposition, and the institution of Parliament as a whole. Although this approach means that each review is unlikely to result in radical changes, the fact that there is a cycle for a regular review of the Standing Orders means that the House is able to update the way it operates and sometimes even come up with some innovative ways of progressing legislation. This is an important feature of our parliamentary system and should not be taken for granted. Not every Parliament regularly reviews its rules in this way.

Can I make a point that this Parliament has made significant use of extended hours to deal with matters such as the ones we are dealing with this morning where there is widespread support—in fact, unanimous in the case of this morning—across the House and, therefore, a desire that the effects given by any of the motions that have passed this morning be enacted as quickly as possible. This was a very good innovation, and Parliament should be proud of the achievements of it.

Briefly, then, I want to run through what the committee’s new recommendations are. The Business Committee, after receiving a proposal from the Prime Minister, will be able to make arrangements for what will be known as State occasions—events at which Parliament, as New Zealand’s pre-eminent forum, can mark occasions of special significance. Speeches by foreign leaders can be part of Parliament’s proceedings, and a State occasion could mark, for example, the approach of Anzac Day next year. This is the centenary year and we may in fact have some commemoration of that in the Legislative Council Chamber. Those matters are yet to be decided. The House will recall that the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke in this Parliament some time ago. There was a question about whether that should be a session of Parliament or otherwise. What this Standing Order will do is allow for those matters to be sorted out as a matter of normal course, with the Business Committee making most of those decisions.

The right of members to address the House in New Zealand Sign Language is also now part of the Standing Orders. That means that alongside English and Māori, as a formal language of New Zealand, it can be used in this House, although at this stage it will need to be with some notice to the Clerk so that the translation service can be provided.

This report includes discussion about the House’s consideration of legislation and, particularly, looks at New Zealand Bill of Rights Act matters. This is a significant development. At the moment, papers are presented to the House by the Attorney-General to call attention to any apparent inconsistencies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. These Standing Orders will mean that that reference is now made directly to select committees. We have set a strong expectation that there should be good information for members when they decide whether a significant limitation on rights and freedoms is justified. Inevitably when you are passing law, there will be a question about New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues; it does not mean that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act pre-empts any choices that Parliament itself might make about those rights in the promotion of law. For that reason, we did not reach agreement about including further formal New Zealand Bill of Rights Act mechanisms in these Standing Orders.

Another new initiative is revision bills. These will start to appear in the new Parliament. They are special bills that are intended to express laws more clearly, without significantly changing their meaning. I noted hearing, on my way to the House, the comments of the Attorney-General about the 1908 Legislature Act and the need for clarity in the way law works. These revision bills will do that, and there is now a formal way in which they can be presented to the House and dealt with quickly. I would expect that before too long it may be a matter of standard course that these are dealt with in extended sittings of the House where there is widespread agreement.

Financial scrutiny will also be a little rationalised under the Standing Orders, so that the examination of spending plans and the performance of agencies can be arranged according to themes or sector groupings. The Finance and Expenditure Committee will be able to suggest groupings when using its existing powers to allocate financial scrutiny to other committees. This should flow through to a more thematic arrangement of scrutiny and debates in the House. To encourage this, the estimates debate is being lengthened, with some of the time being reallocated from the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, which occurs at the beginning of each year. That used to be a 17-hour debate; in the new Parliament it will be reduced to 14 hours, which is still plenty of time to make comments on the Prime Minister’s statement.

The Parliamentary Privilege Bill has just been passed, and a small change is needed to ensure that the bill’s language is reflected in the Standing Orders. A new paragraph in Standing Order 3 will provide for that. Whenever proceedings are published, circulated, or made available to the public under the Standing Order or otherwise by order of the House, the communication of those proceedings is under the authority of the House or the committee. This reflects the wording of clause 15 of the Parliamentary Privilege Bill, and is intended to ensure that dissemination of proceedings is protected.

The report includes an endorsement of more extensive webcasting of select committee hearings of evidence. Select committees are also encouraged to request that the Business Committee arrange set topic debates so that committee reports and other matters of interest can be debated—for example, during extended sittings. It worth noting that the Business Committee did do that this term with debate in the Health Committee and it worked very well. We had one previously on relations with the Pacific. Those are very important occasions.

Turning then to the second motion, regarding the instruction to the Regulations Review Committee, you will recall that the previous Standing Orders Committee recommended in 2011 that there be an inquiry into Parliament’s legislative response to a national emergency but that such an inquiry be referred following a reasonable period to enable the progress of recovery from the Canterbury earthquakes. The Standing Orders Committee has suggested that this time has now come. This is not to say that there have been significant deficiencies in the way in which the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act has been used, and I know that the Regulations Review Committee has kept a watching brief on this. But I think it would be good—and Parliament agrees it would be good—to set out constitutional principles for the arrangement and delegation of recovery powers for the House’s ready reference on the next occasion, should this country be unfortunate enough to require the passing of special disaster-recovery legislation.

I think this is particularly important because when that legislation is passed, it will be because Parliament expresses a will—in most cases unanimously, I am sure, as it was in the case of Canterbury—to ensure that there is the facility for things to be done to improve people’s lives. I think it is best that the way in which the Act is tested is through having the Regulations Review Committee formally look at the way in which that Act is being used. It is generally a group of parliamentarians who are experienced and who understand the way in which legislation should be interpreted. It is always chaired by a member of the Opposition—these are very important points, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, as was a valedictory speech that went well over time yesterday, I might point out—and I think it is important that we establish a way that gives some surety, particularly to the courts, that Parliament is constantly reaffirming what it intended when it passed legislation. With those comments, I commend these reports to the House.

Thank you very much for letting me take the call, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, and I would also like to acknowledge the excellent speech you gave in your valedictory. In fact, I acknowledge all of the excellent valedictory statements given yesterday, whatever their length.

These are important matters, as the Leader of the House has said. I want to work through the areas that the Standing Orders Committee considered and to pick up on one or two matters. Some matters have resulted in recommendations and some have not, and I believe those matters should be revisited by the Standing Orders Committee in the next term of Parliament.

What I would say at the outset is that I endorse Mr Brownlee’s views that these regular reviews are an important occasion for Parliament to look again at how we do our business and what we can change to improve that business. There were many innovative ideas put before the Standing Orders Committee both by members of Parliament and by parties, and also by those who submitted. I would like to thank all submitters for their contributions. Not all of the innovative ideas have made it back to the House, and it is fair to say that on the committee there was a range of views about just how far we could go, but it always important to respect your elders, I find, and those who have been here a little longer than myself. So we attempted as a committee to come to a consensus, and it is those recommendations that are with us today, but there are a number of matters that could be considered again in the future.

Just working our way through, one side note is that a very minor change has been made to the Standing Orders to recognise that if Anzac Day or Waitangi Day falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, the following Monday is not a working day. That is a good reminder of the excellent piece of legislation that was passed in this term of Parliament under the name of Dr David Clark.

💬 Sue Moroney: But who was it written by?

Well, my colleague asks who it was written by. I am too modest to note who the author of that legislation was, but I do just say that it is good to see that particular law now having some effect. We look forward to 2015, when that has its first—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Always looking for a day off.

We are just giving hard-working New Zealanders their full allotment of holidays every year, and I am sure that even if Mr Brownlee voted against it, he is pleased that it has now happened.

I want to also make reference to the question of a review that the Speaker will be undertaking of the prayer at the start of each day. The current prayer was adopted by the House in 1962. Its wording is very much evocative of that time and perhaps does not take into account the increasing diversity of New Zealand and the increasing range of faiths and beliefs that we have in our country. On a personal note, I would say that it is very important that this House starts the day with some time for reflection. I think that is an excellent thing. We are all elected here as honourable members—as you often tell us, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson—and it is important that we take a moment to consider what that means. We need to do that in such a way that every member of this House feels included in that reflection, and my view is that there is now an opportunity for the Speaker to review that issue. There is no outcome that is specified; it is merely something that the Speaker will now do in the next Parliament, and I look forward to the outcome of that review.

I also want to pick up on Mr Brownlee’s comments about what I think is a very important change, which is the amendment to Standing Order 105 to recognise that any member may address this House in New Zealand Sign Language. That is an important development. New Zealand Sign Language is an official language of this country. It is about time that this House recognised that, as it does with Māori, and also English, which is not actually an official language of this country, but is obviously the most commonly spoken language—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Yes, it is.

Not by law, it is not. It is, in fact, not by law an official language.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: No, it’s not an official—you’re quite right.

Yes, but it is obviously the language of convention. The Attorney-General has—for the second time, actually—said I was right about something. We had better get that in the Hansard. Yes, it is a very important moment.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Don’t worry.

Ha, ha! That is right. He will return to type later—it will be fine. But what we do strongly understand and appreciate here is that as members of Parliament move to being able to use sign language more often, we will be working in consultation with the Speaker’s office on that. But it is an excellent development for this House.

The area that I want to dwell on for just a couple of minutes is the question of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vets that are undertaken. The committee had a significant discussion about this, and certainly some of us on the committee believe that the recommendation we have here—to amend the Standing Orders to provide that a paper presented by the Attorney-General about the inconsistency of a provision with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act stands referred to a select committee for consideration—is a good first step to ensure that select committees will look at the Attorney-General’s section 7 comments. However, there were a number of members on the committee who felt that that did not go far enough, and, certainly, Labour members on the committee would have preferred that a report from a select committee comes back to Parliament after the reference of an Attorney-General’s section 7 recommendations.

We feel that this is an important area. If Parliament is going to say that we are going to allow an inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, then that is something that should be debated openly and clearly and should be given some attention in a select committee, and at the moment we do not believe that is certain enough.

The other area that concerned a number of the members on the committee was when very large Supplementary Order Papers find their way into the House at the last minute and we do not have time for the Attorney-General to look at those in the same way as substantive pieces of legislation are looked at. We have seen in this Parliament very large Supplementary Order Papers that have not had substantive consideration, and certainly have not had the Attorney-General’s oversight in terms of their New Zealand Bill of Rights Act consistency. So on those two matters, certainly, the Labour members of the committee would have liked to see this go further, but we are pleased to support the amendment to Standing Orders that will at least mean that select committees will always consider the Attorney-General’s wise words on inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

We made an important decision to increase scrutiny in a number of areas. The time for the Budget debate will now move from being 14 hours to 15 hours and the estimates debate will now move from being 8 hours to 11 hours. Those two debates are very important parts of the scrutiny of what the Government does with the hard-earned dollars of taxpayers, and the committee agreed that more focus on that would be beneficial to the House. That sees a reduction in the time allowed for debate on the Prime Minister’s statement from 15 hours to 13 hours. It has been the practice in the last few years for that debate to become a bit of a catch-all, and I do not think that losing 2 hours off that versus having an increased financial scrutiny would be a bad trade-off at all. So we are pleased to support those amendments and changes in the way in which debate takes place.

Another area where we felt that the committee did not go as far as it could have was on the question of what to do with petitions and e-petitions and online engagement. I am of the strong view that this is an area where Parliament could do a lot more to engage with the communities that are interested in our work. So much of what happens in political debate nowadays happens online, and all of us know that the signing of e-petitions is now the way in which many people express themselves politically, rather than going to a public meeting, or rather than even filling out a written petition. It is my strong view that we would encourage more interest in Parliament if we were to adopt something like a process where a threshold is reached on an e-petition and that then generates a debate in Parliament or, at the very least, results in a petition being referred to a select committee for some significant consideration.

We need to do more to engage with the public about how our democracy works and what people can engage on. We could have taken that opportunity here, and I am sorry that we did not. There are, as Mr Brownlee has mentioned, occasions for set topic debates, which we also endorse. I do believe that the debate on the Health Committee report was a very, very good one. We can do more of that, perhaps by using the extended hours provision a little more there, and we can look at that in the next Parliament. But we do need as a Parliament to think of new and innovative ways of engaging with the public, and I would urge the Standing Orders Committee to take another look at this next time.

I will not dwell on the changes to the pecuniary interests register except to note that, obviously, members of Parliament will need to look carefully at the changes, particularly around the question of the definition of “gift” and to note, in particular, that multiple gifts from the same donor that breach the $500 threshold now need to be declared. That means that members of Parliament will need to look much more carefully at the number of gifts that they receive and keep a record of them, should they end up being over $500—if you get, perhaps, three or four smaller gifts from the same person within a 1-year period. There are a number of changes around the definition of “gift”—description of real property, unit trusts, discharged debts, and so on—that will make a change for us.

Overall, there are some very useful advances in the report of the Standing Orders Committee. We would have liked one or two more, but we are happy to support the report.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to rise to support the two motions related to the triennial review of the Standing Orders. I would like to acknowledge the chair of the Standing Orders Committee, Mr Speaker. I would like to acknowledge the members, the submitters, and the officials. We did a good job.

I guess I would like to start with an apology. We have got a bunch of students in the Chamber today. Sorry, guys, I think you have walked in on the most boring, dry debate Parliament could have. But it also gives you a bit of background on how Parliament works. [Interruption] I am not speaking of myself. What we are doing is that every 3 years—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for this particular contribution to be wide ranging so that it might be more entertaining.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is hardly a point of order, Mr Brownlee. In fact, Mr Brownlee, I thought that you were going to raise with me Speaker’s ruling 47/3 that addressing people outside the House, radio listeners, or those in gallery was out of order.

I would not dare try to top Gerry Brownlee’s entertaining Standing Orders Committee speech.

What we are talking about is that every 3 years Parliament gets together and reviews its rules—the laws that Parliament operates for itself. It is a triennial review. It is critically important because the way we operate in this Chamber is how we make decisions, how we hold the Government to account, and how we act—our code of conduct. I see—I will not make a joke about the departing students. As the former Speaker Lockwood Smith used to always point out, we are the fourth-oldest continuous democracy in the world. This is something we should be proud of. We should be proud of our heritage and our traditions. But we should also be open to the future—open to new ideas, new ways of doing things, new technology—and I think in this Standing Orders review what we are seeing is some modest progress. It is not as wide ranging as we saw in the last Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders review, but it is some modest progress all the same.

The Green Party made a submission. I understand it was one of only two parties to do so. We made a number of points covering improving legislative quality, improving accessibility for members, recognising New Zealand Sign Language as an official language, improving the lobbying disclosure regime, recommending a code of conduct for MPs, positive suggestions on voting reform and the process for amending the parliamentary prayer and members’ oaths, improving executive scrutiny, and, lastly, ensuring that international treaties are brought to Parliament before ratification. We put a great deal of positive solutions into the mix. Some of them were picked up; some were not. We would like to acknowledge the changes in this Standing Orders review. I think the tidying-up of the pecuniary interests register is particularly good. Moving some of the financial debate times around will, I think, make a difference, but very modestly. So, in a nutshell, what I was trying to achieve through this process was some practical steps to make Parliament more accessible, more transparent, and more democratic. I think it is fair to say we are not there entirely. We have still got a long way to go to actually make Parliament more accessible, transparent, and democratic, but I would like to point out some highlights from the Standing Orders review process.

First up, is amending Standing Order 105. In this term of Parliament we have seen New Zealand’s first ever profoundly deaf MP elected to Parliament, Mojo Mathers. To be frank, we had to fight to get her the resources she needed so she could participate like any other member in this Chamber. It was a battle played out through the media, through backroom pressure, and it was good that Mojo Mathers got the support she needed so she can follow what is happening in this Chamber. But, of course, there was always the inconsistency that, despite being fluent in New Zealand Sign Language, she could not address the Chamber in that language for want of interpreters and also for want of a Standing Order that reflects the law of this land. As has been pointed out in the previous contributions, New Zealand Sign Language is an official language of New Zealand. It was outrageous that a member could not speak to this Chamber through New Zealand Sign Language. I think it is an incredibly positive step that we are taking, because I think Mojo or any other member could have tried to address this Chamber in New Zealand Sign Language and it would have been incredibly embarrassing for this Chamber to have had that contribution struck down. So it is incredibly positive, it is something that we have pushed very hard for, and we would like to acknowledge the committee members.

When it comes to select committees, which are the workhorse of our Parliament, where parliamentarians work together and where real change actually happens, it is good to see three big areas of change. First of all, is the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act reporting and the section 7 reports of the Attorney-General. I would like to acknowledge Minister Finlayson, in particular, on this section. The text in the Standing Orders report gives members, I think, some good guidance. The text is: “We consider that papers presented by the Attorney-General under section 7 of the NZBORA should receive detailed consideration by being referred automatically to select committees. We encourage committees to invite officials or Ministers to assist them in their consideration of these issues.” That is a very positive step.

In my 5 years in Parliament, what I have seen is some amendments called Supplementary Order Papers that were, in fact, larger than the primary legislation they were seeking to amend. I am thinking of the ultra-fast broadband legislation and other ones passed under urgency, such as the so-called Anadarko amendment, which criminalised protest activity at sea. That had huge human rights implications, but because it was passed as a Supplementary Order Paper, there was no section 7 scrutiny and there was no chance for a select committee to investigate it, talk to the experts, and think through those Human Rights Act implications. So it is good that the committee is encouraging select committees to bring a Minister in to analyse and consider that section 7 report.

We are seeing members being granted wider access to select committee papers. As someone from a small party—well, we do not call ourselves a small party anymore; we call ourselves a medium party in the Greens, now—where you have got to sub on to numerous select committees, it can be the bane of an MP’s life trying to get access to committee papers in the select committee portal. This change is incredibly good and will really help those single-member parties or smaller parties.

Lastly, the webcasting of select committees is something proposed by the cross-party internet forum, which I worked on with Clare Curran, Simon O’Connor, and Tracey Martin. It is great that the trial was a success. I understand that more than 7,000 people have tuned in and seen our select committees do their work, and now this is going to be rolled out across the entire range of select committees. It is incredibly positive because what it means is that submitters who want to hear what other submitters are saying do not have to travel all the way to Wellington if they are from out of town. They can follow and engage in the committee at home by computer.

When it comes to questions for written answer, we have made a slight change here. I put up some proposals to actually encourage Ministers to answer them in a timely fashion through a transparency regime where those Ministers’ results and answering times are reported to the Speaker. What we are seeing is a modest change that says an interim reply is not a final reply. Phil Heatley, last night in his valedictory speech, reflected on what I think is the funniest answer I have ever had to a question, which is when I lodged a written question asking where in New Zealand fracking had occurred. He replied: “Underground.” It was a perfect ministerial answer—absolutely accurate, and absolutely useless to the Opposition member asking it. It was a perfect ministerial answer. To his credit—and he did not say it last night—he did answer the question in full the next day, so I would like to acknowledge Phil Heatley for doing that. It was hilarious. What a great answer. For the rules that would have been fine. Even an interim answer saying: “I will answer it later on.” is an answer for the questions for written answer rules, so it is great we are making changes there.

We are going to be reviewing the prayer, which is something I feel very strongly about and want to see progress in the next Parliament on. Something the Greens were the only submitters to push for was an inquiry into the preparedness of Parliament for a natural disaster. It is great that that is going to be commencing next Parliament.

We also had a great number of missed opportunities. I would have preferred to see greater financial scrutiny of Parliament. We saw the Clerk of Parliament offer an estimates week idea, where we could have a week to go through the Government’s books line by line, which I would like to see progress on in the future. There was the proposal of a human rights select committee to do justice to human rights challenges and issues.

I would have liked to see a greater ability for Parliament to send substantive Supplementary Order Papers back to a select committee. Obviously, members can seek leave to do it, but any member can block that. So when you have got Supplementary Order Papers that are larger than the bills they are seeking to amend, and often with no heads-up to Parliament, I think it is important Parliament has greater powers to get them back to select committees in order to hear from the experts, the submitters, and the Government.

I would like to echo Grant Robertson’s call to modernise our petitions. Our Parliament, even if we are the fourth-oldest democracy in the world, has to be able to engage with the people. In 2014 and in other years we are going to see people going more and more online. We need to be where they are.

When it comes to members’ bills, I put up a proposal so that if a member’s bill had the support of half of the House, including non-executive members, it could be put to a first reading vote. What I would like to encourage, as we see in other parliaments around the world, is MPs from across the aisle working together. I proposed also that MPs from different parties could jointly sponsor a members’ bill and, lastly, we proposed having a code of conduct and a lobbying regime.

So we made a lot of good suggestions. A lot of them got adopted. Not all of them did. We will continue to work constructively and positively with other parties to improve our Parliament’s laws. Kia ora.

New Zealand First supports nearly all of the amendments to the Standing Orders that are proposed. We have participated in a collaborative process that has resulted in a number of very worthwhile changes. I wish to refer to only three of them.

The first one was proposed by New Zealand First and was adopted by the Standing Orders Committee, amending Standing Order 34, “Recognition of parties”. We were very concerned at the events that followed the registration of United Future recently. We were especially concerned at the way Standing Order 34 was applied to the situation that United Future was in. We considered the reregistration of that party for parliamentary purposes following its new recognition under Part 4 of the Electoral Act 1993 to be illegal under Standing Order 34.

It was New Zealand First’s understanding that the status of a party for parliamentary purposes is determined at the date of the last election or, where relevant, at the date of a subsequent by-election and at no other time. This is clearly expressed in Standing Order 34(1), which requires, firstly, that the party be then registered under Part 4 of the Electoral Act 1993 and, secondly, that it have a member elected in that party’s interest as at the last general election or subsequent by-election.

It is also clear that following deregistration of a party under Part 4 of the Electoral Act 1993 during a parliamentary term, Standing Order 34(4) applies, and that any member of Parliament who had been one of that party’s recognised members of Parliament as at the last general election or subsequent by-election then becomes an independent member for parliamentary purposes under Standing Order 34(4). With regard to the new recognition of an independent member as the member of a recognised party, Standing Order 34(2) has two components. One component deals with an existing recognised party, and the other with a new party that becomes recognised under Part 4 of the Electoral Act 1993 and has at least six members. It is the situation in paragraph (a) that caused concern, and that was the part applicable to the situation that United Future was in, with only one member at the relevant time.

It is particularly the use and meaning of the word “existing” in paragraph (a) that was the root of the problem. It was New Zealand First’s understanding, based upon the usual rules of interpretation and the scheme and intent of the statute as a whole, that the word “existing” can only mean existing as at the date of the last general election or subsequent by-election, having regard to the content of Standing Order 34(1). Therefore, in the case of United Future, once it had been deregistered and its one member had become an independent member, that member could not subsequently be recognised as a United Future member again even if the party was reregistered. This is because under paragraph (a) the party, having been reregistered with new or additional members, could not be the same party as the one that had been existing as at the last general election or a subsequent by-election. And nor could United Future have been recognised under paragraph (b) as a new party, because it did not have six members.

New Zealand First believes that whether our interpretation is correct or not, it would be very desirable for Standing Order 34 to be amended and clarified in these respects. New Zealand First therefore proposed that Standing Order 34 be amended accordingly. That change, I am pleased to say, will now be made, but it is subject to the prior requirement that the Speaker will have the authority to grant parties temporary recognition for a reasonable period. Thereafter, if a party ceases to be recognised, it can then subsequently be re-recognised only if it meets the criteria for a new party—in particular, it would then need to have at least six MPs.

Another change, but one with which New Zealand First did not agree, concerns the way that bills that are thought to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act are handled and how they are to be dealt with. We believe that the recommendation for reference to just a standing committee is insufficient. We all know that the result of that can be little or no real consideration at all, and that is really not good enough for something as important as the possibility of inconsistency of proposed legislation with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—an incredibly important matter. We felt that reference to the Committee of the whole House and a full debate with the benefit of comprehensive reports would be necessary at least. So this is something of a work in progress for us. We believe that it is something that will need to be followed up at a subsequent time.

The only other change I wish to comment on is the new rules and procedures for members of Parliament’s attendance. The Standing Orders needed to be updated on that, and it needed to be made clear that there would be a sanction for MPs who do not attend regularly. There have been very few who have fallen into this category because party discipline has usually taken care of the issue, but with some MPs becoming independent or being one-person parties, it is wise that these new rules be incorporated. So with those changes, the ones that I have mentioned, and with our approval also of the various other changes—and there are many—New Zealand First will be happy to vote for both of the motions.

I intend to make a reasonably short contribution on the review of the Standing Orders, which would reflect my relatively short period of time on the Standing Orders Committee. I came on to this committee part-way through this process and, therefore, missed many of the submissions, which I felt was a great shame because certainly there were some very important contributions that had been made.

Before I talk in substance to the review, I would just like to make a couple of acknowledgments. First of all, to you, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, for your fine valedictory speech yesterday. All the best for your future and the next journey in your life that you are about to take. Can I also acknowledge Fay Paterson, who is in the Clerk’s chair at present, and congratulate her on her 25 years in this Parliament. I congratulate her, on her final day of this sitting in this Parliament, and wish her well for the next adventure in her life, as well. Thank you, Fay.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: She looks the same.

Yes, well, my learned colleague Trevor Mallard—well, he is not learned—my honourable colleague Trevor Mallard says that she has not changed a bit, and she would probably be alone, in terms of that observation, in this Chamber.

I want to reflect on a couple of the Standing Orders provisions because certainly for me, when I came into this place, I was quite a stranger to parliamentary process, and I can well understand people who may be listening to this debate wondering what on earth the importance of the Standing Orders is. Not only do they guide what occurs in this place but they also have a very practical application. I want to use a couple of examples of some of the things that came before the committee for discussion with this review. I will give some examples of a piece of legislation that I have been intimately involved with to show how the review applies to that.

One of the issues that was raised by submitters that the committee could not find a way forward on—as many other members have already said, this is a committee that acts on consensus. Therefore, by definition the recommendations of the Standing Orders review are often pretty conservative on that basis, because it does require the agreement of all the parties sitting round the table before we can make progress. None the less, we have made some progress, and it is incremental progress that will continue in future parliaments. The issue that came before the committee that I had a close and personal brush with was the issue of financial veto. There were submissions from members of the public around the idea that if a bill has majority support in Parliament, a Government should be able to put a financial veto on such a bill.

💬 Louise Upston: Who pays the bills?

Well, it was an issue that was raised.

💬 Louise Upston: Who has to manage the Budget?

Pardon?

💬 Louise Upston: Who has to manage the Budget? The Government of the day.

Well, that is exactly the issue that I am just about to raise, actually, Mrs Upston. The members opposite are very, very nervous about discussion of the financial veto, and I understand that. I get that. What submitters said was that they had an issue to raise around democracy and how that actually played out. Some submitters, I understand, raised the prospect of—because the bill, of course, was the bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. People said: “Well, look, actually, yes, you do have a Government that has a mandate to run the books and to make decisions on what the finances are spent on.”, but on this occasion, one of the votes in favour of the bill was from a party that was voting to give the Government supply and confidence, a party that actually gave the mandate to the Government of the day to make decisions about the priorities in which it spent its Budget. So that was a really interesting dilemma—a very interesting dilemma, I think—that that bill posed, because here were some of the votes that gave the Government the right to set its Budget actually voting for some of that money to be spent on a measure that the Government opposed. I think that that caused a really interesting dilemma, which I do not know that this Parliament has ever seen before.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Oh, rubbish!

Well, Mrs Tolley says: “Oh, rubbish!”, but I am not sure that there has been a situation where a vote that has actually been used in the main for supply and confidence has been used to vote for another measure that a financial veto was going to be used on. So it was a very interesting issue.

I think that during the course of this debate we have been trying to focus on issues of democracy, issues of how we improve democracy, and issues of how we continue in the future. It has not been a controversial debate, but I noticed that the minute we discussed the issue of the financial veto, the Government benches became quite hostile to the idea of us actually having something to say in debating this in this context. However, it is right and it is proper to do so. It was raised through the select committee and it was an issue that the committee gave some consideration to. Where we landed I think was also right and proper. Where we landed is that it is the right of a Government to make determinations in this area and that Governments should use that veto infrequently. In fact, the report says that the use of this procedure has been relatively restrained, and I think that probably is correct. But it was also correct for the committee to consider that issue and wonder whether we had that in exactly the right place. We did come to the conclusion that it is, for now, but I think it is something that, as MMP continues to test the processes of this Parliament, we will continue to think about.

The other issue that had a direct bearing on the procedure of that bill through this House was the new provision—now codified through the review of the Standing Orders that we are debating here today—for a Speaker to grant compassionate leave. That was a relatively new policy that was brought in and it is now being codified under this review of the Standing Orders. I welcome that because I think it has worked well. One of the times that we got to test that, literally on its feet, was during the second reading of the bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. When we had a bill that was passing through its second reading by one vote, every single one of those votes was important, but because of the Standing Orders in this Parliament we had a situation where one of the parties that was supporting the bill had a member of its caucus leave the precinct, and that therefore meant it could not vote legitimately at its full strength. How ironic it was that we were debating extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks and the reason that the member of Parliament had legitimately needed to leave the parliamentary precinct was to attend the birth of his first grandchild. It is that sort of irony, which actually happens quite regularly in this parliamentary debating chamber, that makes it a very, very interesting place to be operating in.

Of course, what we tested on the floor of the debating chamber right there and then was the ability of the Speaker to grant compassionate leave on those grounds. It was something that had not been tested before. It was tested that night, and I am pleased to report that it was tested successfully. Compassionate leave was granted by the Speaker and that member’s vote was therefore able to be counted in the vote. How it got cast is a different matter entirely, and I will not go into that because the members opposite are already getting tetchy enough at the mere mention of the paid parental leave bill, which always does cause them quite a bit of angst.

In conclusion, I hope that people listening can see the practical application of the issues that were debated by the Standing Orders Committee. I hope that they will be able to see how it makes a real difference to the way the debating chamber operates and how laws are made in this country for the good of its people. There are areas where we can always make more progress, but it is a start, and as we always do in each Parliament, we will continue to refine and improve the processes. Thank you.

Motions agreed to.