Urgency

I move, That urgency be accorded the first reading and referral to select committee of the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill.

This is, in a sense, a technical use of urgency. It allows the House to consider this bill without it needing to sit on the Table for the required period of time. If we were not to use urgency to progress this bill, it would not be available for us until after the current parliamentary adjournment. By using urgency to give the bill a first reading, we’ll be able to send it off to a select committee, and during that adjournment period the committee will be able to scrutinise it and report it back to the House in a fairly short turn-around timetable after the adjournment so that it can be progressed through the House. It contains COVID-19 response measures. There is a degree of urgency to it, so we want to get it through, but we do want to allow for the select committee to give it a quick consideration, hence the use of urgency now in order to get it to select committee as quickly as we can.