Urgency

I move, That urgency be accorded:

the passing through all stages of the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill

the first reading and referral to select committee of the Holidays (Increasing Sick Leave) Amendment Bill

the passing through all stages of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill

and the introduction and passing through all stages of the Taxation (Income Tax Rate and Other Amendments) Bill.

Just taking each of those bills briefly in turn: the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Bill, it’s the Government’s desire to have that passed before the summer holiday period when there are a number of festivals where we want that activity to be able to take place.

The Government has made a commitment to increase the amount of sick leave that is available. We want to get that bill to a select committee prior to Christmas, hence including it in the urgency motion.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill is a very simple bill. It creates my job as Minister for COVID-19 Response—one of my other jobs as Minister for COVID-19 Response. But particularly important, it allows us to step down alert levels faster, which is important as we go into the longer summer adjournment, should we need to use that.

And then finally, the Taxation (Income Tax Rate and Other Amendments) Bill implements the Government’s tax policy that we campaigned on. In order for those tax rates to be in place at the time we committed to putting them in place we need to pass that bill before Christmas.