Standing Orders — Sessional

I move, That the House adopt the following rules as a sessional order:

Remote Participation in Sittings of the House

1 Purpose

The purpose of these rules is to enable the remote participation of members in sittings of the House. Making remote participation available to members is intended to limit the risk of the spread of COVID-19 and to avoid undue health risks for the public, members, and staff.

2 Definitions

For the purposes of these rules, remote participation means attendance at a sitting of the House by digital means without being physically present in the Chamber, and participating remotely has a corresponding meaning.

3 Determination of sitting with members participating remotely

(1) The Business Committee may determine that a sitting of the House will be held with members participating remotely.

(2) A determination under this rule can relate to more than one sitting, and can be made in respect of any member or a class of members (for example, members from a specified area or district, if restrictions apply in that area or district that differ from restrictions that apply in the Wellington area).

4 Remote participation part of House’s proceedings

The remote participation of members in a sitting of the House is part of the House’s proceedings, and those members are treated as present within the Chamber when they are participating remotely.

5 Standing Orders, rules and practices apply

Unless these rules provide otherwise, the Standing Orders and other rules and practices of the House apply to any sitting of the House that is held with members participating remotely, to the extent that they are capable of applying and with any necessary modifications.

6 Business Committee may determine rules

(1) The Business Committee may determine rules regarding the conduct of sittings with members participating remotely.

(2) Rules determined under paragraph (1) have effect despite any Standing Order or rule to the contrary.

7 Attendance of members

A member is recorded as present in the House on a sitting day for the purposes of Standing Order 38(1) if the member participates remotely in that sitting.

8 Delivery and availability of documents at Table

When a sitting is being held with members participating remotely, references in the Standing Orders to the delivery of documents to the Clerk at the Table, or to the making available of documents (such as notices of motion) at the Table, include the communication of those documents by electronic means, as arranged by the Clerk.

9 Voting during sittings held with members participating remotely

When a sitting is being held with members participating remotely,—

despite Standing Order 146, there is no limit on proxy votes that may be cast by a party, and

despite Standing Order 144(5) and (6), a party of five or fewer members may have votes cast on its behalf, including when no member of that party is present within the parliamentary precincts at the time, by the leader or whip of another party, and

for the purposes of Standing Orders 148 and 151, and despite rule 4, members who are participating remotely are not treated as present within the Chamber when a personal vote is being held.

10 Official coverage

Appendix D is modified to the extent necessary to enable the coverage of members participating remotely in a sitting.

This is quite a significant day for the New Zealand Parliament. New Zealand Parliament has always sat in this or a similar debating chamber for the entire time of its existence and members, up until now, have not been able to participate remotely—they’ve either been here or they haven’t. The reality of the global pandemic is we are entering into a phase now where more people will be unable to attend the parliamentary debating chamber, either because they have COVID-19 or because they are isolating because they have been exposed to somebody—a household contact, for example—who has COVID-19. It is quite conceivable that in the next few weeks we will see some, potentially, senior members of Parliament unable to attend and participate in parliamentary proceedings unless we find an alternative way for them to do so.

Other Parliaments and other democracies around the world have also had to grapple with this issue. We’ve seen in Westminster, the home of Parliament, similar arrangements being put in place to allow people to beam in. We’ve seen the Australian Prime Minister participate in their version of question time via TV screen. So other Parliaments and other democracies have had to grapple with these very same issues that we are grappling with here in New Zealand.

It is vitally important at a time like this that our democratic institutions can continue to function. We’ve had a variety of different approaches to that as part of our pandemic response. We have been fortunate that for most of the last two years, our Parliament has been able to sit relatively normally, albeit with some additional public health measures like social distancing and so on. But we now are entering a phase where, with more cases in the community, we can’t necessarily take that for granted.

So the motion that we are passing now creates an enabling framework for MPs to participate remotely in the Parliament’s proceedings. There are safeguards in place, though—the decisions about when and how to initiate these provisions will be made by Parliament’s Business Committee and they will be made using the usual approach of Business Committee decisions, on a near-unanimity basis. So most parties in Parliament will need to agree to members participating remotely in order for that to happen.

The Business Committee will also be able to determine for how long it happens and any conditions that may be imposed on people’s ability to participate remotely. For example, if there was an outbreak that affected a particular area, it could be that only members from that particular area were included. There are a variety of things that the Business Committee will be able to consider. So this is not a sudden abandonment of Parliament’s debating chamber. There will still be aspects of parliamentary proceedings that happen here in the Chamber. It is quite conceivable that, in fact, it is the minority of members who will be participating remotely, while the majority of members are still able to be here in the Chamber. But it is also conceivable that we could have a situation where the minority are in the Chamber and the majority are participating remotely. This allows for that eventuality. If we get to that point, but it would be Parliament’s Business Committee that would make that determination.

As I’ve said before, we would need to get cross-party and cross-Parliament support for any remote sitting to take place. I think that that is important. We will need to feel our way here a little bit. No doubt there will be some teething troubles along the way. There might be the odd frozen Zoom call as we’ve all been used to. I look forward to the first member trying to participate in proceedings with their mute button on—it’s only a matter of time before that happens. But I’m sure that we will be able to make this work and I think it is important that we do make this work.

In making these decisions—and it’s been a long journey, a lot of a lot of debate has gone into these rules—we have been mindful of the fact that members of Parliament are very active travellers. We are very active in the community and, therefore, we are at more risk of coming into contact with COVID-19. I think the last thing that New Zealanders want to see is that potentially quite significant parts of parliamentary procedure are unable to go ahead because people can’t participate. So this allows our Parliament to continue to function in a global pandemic and allows all members of Parliament to still be able to participate. I think that that’s very, very important.

Finally—and this is something that I also raised with the parliamentary Business Committee—I arrived in the New Zealand Parliament at a time when attendance at the House was paramount above all else. I can recall instances where party whips would require people who were quite unwell to come into the parliamentary complex, sometimes to sleep on the couch in their office, in order to make up the numbers. I hope that we are reaching an era where we can be a little bit more sensible about some of those things. Sometimes the best thing for people to do when they are unwell—most of the time, in fact—is for them to stay home and get better rather than exposing others to whatever ailment it is that they have. I think that doesn’t apply just to Parliament; it actually applies right the way across our society. I think a global pandemic has certainly prompted many, many people to rethink their attitudes when it comes to “soldiering on” when they are unwell.

I think that this latest change that we are making in the Parliament should be a welcome one. It is one that I think we will all take care about using, it is one that responds to a global pandemic, it is in keeping with what’s happening internationally, and so I commend this particular resolution to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It just so happens that Mr Hipkins and I did arrive at this place over 13 years ago at the same time, and he looked much, much younger than I did at the time. I must say, given what he’s had to experience over the last couple of years, perhaps he’s weathered a little more quickly but I know that that’s what ministerial office does.

The National Party is pleased to support this motion, and I associate myself with nearly all of the comments that Mr Hipkins made. I’ll come to one point where I have a slightly different perspective on it. But as he says, this has had a relatively long gestation, but I reckon it has landed in a really good place. And, actually, it was necessary, I think, to experience what was possible, what was necessary, and what continued to ensure that a vibrant democracy continues.

As members will recall, we were shut down for several weeks in 2020 and the substitute for that was the Epidemic Response Committee. Now, that to me was no substitute for this place, but it was a pretty good imitation for the time. I know it was looked at very closely around the world, and as Mr Hipkins said, the UK and Australian parliaments moved quite quickly to put in place the opportunities for remote participation—albeit, I note that in Australia they weren’t able to vote, the pairing system still applied, and so that could’ve been quite problematic for smaller parties particularly, but even for the Government. And I expect that there were probably people travelling when it might not have been as safe to do so as was considered comfortable.

Last year, actually, I raised this as an alternative to what looked like an extended suspension of Parliament, and I referred to the UK and Australian experience. The initial response—and this is certainly no reflection on the Clerk—was that actually it was technically difficult, quite costly, and so it kind of went into a little bit of a hiatus for a few months before the Clerk came back and said, “Actually, we’ve had a look again. We think we can do it. We think we’ve got the budget for it so let’s have a look at it.”

Now, the irony of that was that as the months have passed, having raised it, my own colleagues became rather—not so enthusiastic about it, I think we’ll say. And I think there was a context to that, also. Remember that we were in level 4 at the time and there was, again, a move to suspend, which we didn’t support, and I actually think that, even when we were running this place between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. for about four or five weeks with a maximum of about 15 members, it was still better than what was being considered in the alternative as a virtual Parliament, which would have had no more than three people here to satisfy the Standing Orders—the Speaker, a Minister, and perhaps one member of the Opposition. I really hope we don’t get to that point.

Because my strong view is that this place is an in-present place, a tactile place, somewhere where we do have to debate and duke it out. So what we are passing here as a sessional order is the opportunity for remote participation, not the opportunity for a virtual Parliament, and that’s where I differed a little bit in Chris Hipkins’ predictions of the future. This sits alongside the COVID-19Protection Framework criteria that the Speaker of the House has put in place for how we can operate under the various colour systems. Even at red we are able to operate with a maximum of 60 members in this House, and what I envisage is that when this is needed we will still have that and the ability of people, as Mr Hipkins says, sometimes in particular geographical locations able to participate remotely. I hope we don’t get to the point where we have a very small number of people in this House and the majority participating remotely. I think that would be a problem. I certainly am not signalling that we wouldn’t agree to it, because what we don’t know is what we don’t know, and we have, I think, by and large, worked quite nimbly to make sure that democracy still happens.

So I am signalling, though, my own view that we should at least have 60 people in this place—sometimes it would be at most—and the ability to remotely participate from time to time. Those alert members will have noticed that the order we are considering today is different from the one that was on the Order Paper for the last few weeks, in the sense that it did have a number of ways in which it could be invoked—we have reduced that to one. So it used to have a motion in the House, the Speaker in accordance with parts of the motion, and the Business Committee. We have reduced that down to the Business Committee. I appreciate Mr Hipkins’ willingness to look at that and to agree to that.

I’ve been on the Business Committee on and off over the years and I know it works, mostly, in a very collegial manner. We have had our moments, but that near unanimity that is required has nearly never been a significant barrier to doing the right thing, and I’m confident that will be the case in the future. But I would remind both of the larger parties represented in that committee that the greatest beneficiaries of this motion will be, I think, the minor parties, who will be disproportionately affected by members or their loved ones or colleagues being struck down with COVID and therefore their inability to come to Parliament. So in exercising, in effect, a power of veto, Labour and National do need to be very cognisant of the fact that this could affect minor parties. We haven’t seen one party for the last couple of weeks, and I hope that if this was ever invoked, they would take advantage of it, because I think that’s the most important thing, that we all participate on behalf of the people who brought us here and whom we represent.

So with those comments, I’m very pleased to support this. Like my colleague on the other side, I look forward to a—well, a fairly bumpy start, I expect. There’ll be some teething issues when the TV screen gets up, but I think it will work and it will be a really good addition to the tool box that we have.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will keep this call pretty short. I feel as if I’ve been howling into the hot wind of the Business Committee for far too many months on this topic to want to take up more time than is necessary speaking on this motion. So just let me say, finally—finally—we are catching up and putting the measures in place for us to be able to model responsible workplace practices for the rest of the country; for us finally to have a measure in place to be able to stand with everybody else in the country, consistently, who are making and have consistently been making hard calls and adapting their work practices; and for us to be able to recognise that, you know, we’re not special in that sense. We can actually do our job remotely like most other people have had to—and as we do, I believe, quite well in our select committees. Also, we have the measures to be able to keep those other people in this workplace safe, and recognising, as has been mentioned, that as members of Parliament we are potential vectors for the disease. We live in places right across the country and we are out in our communities, and that makes us a potential risk to others for picking up the disease and passing it on to other people. So our presence of coming together in this place needs to be very well considered, and it is a basic first step for the Greens to use the technology to reduce the risk when we can.

I would just say that we’ve seen the UK do this, and Australia in part, as well. I do sense I have a different view from the speaker of the Opposition around the sense of what it takes to be a vibrant Parliament. My prediction is that if we are using these measures, we may see a more on-point and a possibly more civilised question time. While I am not, by any measure, advocating at all for Parliament to go online permanently—kanohi ki te kanohi is important—however, I don’t think we should overplay the vibrancy of this place, because it’s often just bad behaviour and I suspect we may learn some lessons from having some people Zooming into this process that may, I hope, inspire us all to behave better when we all come back together. So, on that note, the Greens are relieved to finally see this motion passed today.

I rise on behalf of ACT to support the motion for remote participation in these sittings. We need the flexibility in Parliament with the uncertainty of the rules in the future. The fact that we’re even contemplating it is, I think, indicative of a pretty poor COVID response. Remote participation should be seen as a last resort. Like other things, it should have been seen as a last resort for the rest of New Zealand, but those people aren’t in such a privileged position that we are.

ACT believe MPs should be in Wellington, holding the Government to account. Our democracy depends on it. While the Government buries its head in the sand, there is an increasing belief amongst New Zealanders that our democracy is under threat. We’re supporting this because the Government rules will at some stage impact upon us as well, and we need a contingency plan for what to do if MPs get COVID or are a close contact.

There are similar concerns for all businesses that must keep operating, who are gobsmacked at the stroll-out of the rapid antigen tests dividing New Zealanders, again, into deciding who’s critical and who isn’t. If staff can’t pay their bills because businesses close, then I believe they are critical.

Like other businesses, Government isolation rules make future weeks and months in Parliament uncertain, but at least we can keep operating. Imagine having stock that has to be thrown out, or being responsible for staff who can’t pay their bills for their families. Businesses who have been forced to do exactly what we’re talking about have had to get loans—often from friends and family, because the banks aren’t as friendly as they used to be—or they’ve just gone under.

My challenge to all MPs is that if you do go into remote participation, you stop getting paid. How do you pay your mortgage, your rent, or whatever? Use your savings, because that’s exactly what tens of thousands of New Zealanders have had to do, and I just wonder how long the rules would last if that was the case. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Motion agreed to.

Order adopted.