Urgency

I move, That urgency be accorded the passing through all stages of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2); the first reading, referral, and instruction to select committee of the Fuel Industry Bill; the second reading of the Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill; the committee stage of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill, the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill, and the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill; and the first reading and referral to select committee of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill.

By way of reasoning, the reasons for the urgency with the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2)—the need to progress that under urgency—were well canvassed during question time today and will be familiar to members of the House. With regard to the Fuel Industry Bill, progressing this under urgency through its first reading and sending it to a select committee will give the select committee additional time than if we waited until Thursday, when it would be above the line and therefore available for first reading through the normal processes of the House. The balance of the legislation that I have put in the urgency motion simply progresses one additional stage of those bills to help compensate for the lost time that Parliament was not sitting during the COVID-19 lockdown.

If the urgency for the first two bills is completed before 10 o’clock tonight, it is the Government’s intention to end urgency and to move the extended sitting that we have already notified the Business Committee of. What I did not want to see happen, though, was urgency to run into early tomorrow morning and then finish and thereby lose those additional hours, which is why the other bills have been included in the urgency motion.