Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to Part 3. This is the debate on clauses 30 to 39, “Tenancy Tribunal and administrative matters”, and Schedules 1 and 2. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. My question relates to clause 31(3). This touches on the jurisdiction of the tribunal. I note that there are two other parts to that which other members may wish to explore, but I’m keen to understand the rationale for this.

It specifically states that the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to determine a dispute so far as it raises a question as to whether, in respect of a tenant who gives notice accompanied by qualifying evidence under section 56B—now, this relates to family violence. I had hoped to be able to ask questions about that in the previous part, but I also note that there are quite detailed provisions in Schedule 2, so we’ll get into it then.

Now, look, I’ve been very critical of the Government’s approach in Part 2, and I was very disappointed with the Minister’s answers, and said as much, but we had a very constructive conversation in Part 1, and I hope the Minister takes these questions in that vein. It is a very serious issue and I’m taking it as such.

I would just like the Minister to explain why these disputes are outside the jurisdiction of the tribunal. I get that there are provisions outlined in this bill in other parts—and I’m not traversing that, just purely for context—that outline the process by which a tenant is to provide qualifying evidence to this. My concern with this is what happens in a scenario where a tenant provides qualifying evidence and that is disputed by the landlord. That is a dispute, and what this is saying is that the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to determine that.

There may be a reasonable explanation to this, and if there is, that’s all good, but if there isn’t, I think that is an oversight, because what we’re talking about here is the ability for people who have been a victim of family violence or their dependent has been a victim of family violence to have special provisions available to them.

We fully support that; absolutely. In fact, we think that there were grounds for it to be stronger, but nevertheless, we support it, so we’re not disputing that, but I’m concerned that with those special provisions available to people in those horrific circumstances, if a landlord declines or dismisses the evidence that’s provided, where does that leave them? The landlord could say, in that scenario, “No, you don’t qualify.” or “I don’t accept the evidence.” or whatever. That becomes a dispute, and the tribunal is there to address that dispute. But, if it’s not in the jurisdiction, where do they go?

Now, we mustn’t forget the circumstances that bring this about. Like I say, there may be a reasonable explanation, and if there is, fine, but I would like the Minister to take this seriously—it’s a question in good faith—and not just cover it in high level, but actually answer it for the benefit of the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions also relate to clause 31, on page 15, but they’re a bit different in nature. It would be helpful if the Minister could give the committee a little bit of context about these provisions here, in the context of the legislation that changes the jurisdiction of the disputes tribunal having been passed after the select committee was able to consider these changes.

Those two things interrelate because the programme of work to improve court timeliness that was begun by the Labour Government—and really helpfully, I think, picked up by this justice Minister—changes the way that lower tribunals intend to deal with lower-order disputes, and that more disputes will be handled by those tribunals. The intention for the piece of legislation about the disputes tribunal is that more small claims will be able to be heard there. In this piece of work, there are none of the same sorts of provisions to essentially allow more sorts of disputes to be heard by the Tenancy Tribunal. I want to know why that is and whether the intention is for some claims to be heard at the disputes tribunal level as it would have in the past—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Sorry to just interrupt the member. I don’t want to have to ask you to say that again, but the Minister was taking advice, and I think they’re important questions. We’ll start your time again so that the Minister can actually—

Hon Tama Potaka: Apologies, apologies.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, no, it’s not a problem, Minister. You need to take your advice. I was just concerned with the level of questioning that it wasn’t being heard, so could the member start again.

ARENA WILLIAMS: Thank you, Madam Chair. And fair enough too. I’ll ask them in a different way so as not to bore my colleagues listening along intently.

One specific question is at page 16, clause 31(2), which creates a new section 7AA. This new 7AA, for instance, Minister, has a limit of $100,000 in instances like these, which is not a new limit. My question is around asking the Minister to compare these provisions with the provisions of the legislation which has recently passed in the House to change the financial jurisdiction of the disputes tribunal. Is it the intention that the Tenancy Tribunal would be able to deal with more sorts of low-level claims like this in a more timely way? I think that’s probably yes. In which case, why isn’t the $100,000 limit higher? That limit, effectively, means that the District Court—the District Court is the court after the Tenancy Tribunal—would have to consider a claim that was above the $100,000 limit. That seems to be going in the opposite direction of the other changes to the tribunals at this level, which have been made by Minister Goldsmith, which are intended to capture more of these lower-order disputes.

The next question is about the change in the disputes tribunal legislation which was intended to allow an order made by a referee in that jurisdiction to require a respondent to pay the cost of the filing fee of a successful applicant. That’s a new change at the disputes tribunal level. Why didn’t the Government consider that change, or changes like it, which essentially allow a referee more tools in the toolkit to award costs and different sorts of costs against a party who is found to be at fault and might, in the opinion of the referee, be using the tribunal vexatiously to pursue a claim against either of the other parties? Is it because, in the housing context, the Government deemed that not to be appropriate? Or was it simply because that piece of work that was happening at the disputes tribunal had not been considered when this piece of legislation was drafted?

I ask the Minister that because that is a useful change at the disputes tribunal level. It means that applicants are less likely—well, they will consider carefully whether the costs that might be awarded against them in all sorts of circumstances—those fees are usually pretty low. They can be between, I think, $59 to $249, but for a tenant, that might be a significant amount of money when looking at the sort of award that might be made against them. In a pet bond context, I think the average award that was awarded in the financial year to the end of June 23 was $400, so we’re talking about a reasonably substantial fee there. Why would we not make a change here where, in the opinion of each individual referee and each individual case, there was an ability for costs to be placed on the party at fault or any of the other sorts of costs that you might anticipate in a housing context?

Ricardo Menéndez March pointed to a number of other costs which are associated with the tenancy dispute. That was in response to the previous Minister in the chair talking about the kinds of situations where you don’t want to get into a tenancy dispute and you don’t want to be in the tribunal in the first place. Though we all agree with that, there will be lots of disputes which come out of this which result in situations, like the ones that Ricardo Menéndez March has spoken about, where people lose their wages, where people lose their time, and where people are not compensated for time off work. Those are all costs which are harder to quantify, but then there are a number of costs which are easy to quantify, like the filing fee, the cost of travel, things that you might in certain situations want to award against a vexatious litigant.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If I refer to clause 31(1) and then to subparagraph (i) and subparagraph (ii), I wanted to, I guess, just get a sense of the implications—and we do have an amendment to address this—of, I guess, a double-dipping when it comes to the pet bond and the general bond.

I think this is quite concerning, because it’s like we have this whole narrative that the Government’s created around the purpose, of how people are going to enable pet bonds to then allow pets to more easily cohabitate with tenants in their property, but the way that this is written, in my view, prevents the ring-fencing. It prevents the ring-fencing, which I think is really, really problematic, because, effectively, what it does is it allows landlords to dip into either bond, the general bond or the pet bond, to try and literally maximise profit when somebody’s exiting a tenancy. I think this is quite problematic because it could end up resulting in landlords trying to find ways in which the amount of money that they want to claim back from the general bond is high enough that it exceeds it, but they know that they can tap into the pet bond to make up for it, and therefore the amount of money that landlords will try to recover will start becoming higher.

We do have an amendment—and I’ll just bring up the numbers so that we can be granular in this regard. It’s Amendment Paper 234 under, I believe, Tamatha Paul’s name that seeks to address this. Basically, what our amendment would do is ring-fence it—basically, not allow the general bond to be dipped into to cover, for example, incidents where a landlord deems that the pet bond exceeds what was put in, and vice versa. I think this is really important, because when we think about low-income workers, people on the benefit, etc., trying to access a tenancy, saving for a bond actually requires multiple weeks of savings for people who are often living week by week. For people on the benefit, accessing assistance for bonds often comes as a debt. We’ve got to remember that, actually, this is not just money that many people will find it hard to access but they’ll have to then eat away from their own weekly incomes to eventually cover.

If we have a situation where landlords are enabled to dip into either type of bond and find, basically, as many excuses as they can to maximise profit, I think they will. The evidence has shown us that, when landlords are given an inch, they will take a mile. Multiple reviews have shown us this. I am concerned that the way in which clause 31(1) and (2) are written undermine, actually, the intent of being able to ring-fence the pet bond and then actually have mechanisms in which we’re just dealing with the issue of pets. If, in my view, landlords want to raise issues in relationship to the recovery of the general bond, that should stay within the limits of the general bond. We shouldn’t be allowing landlords to dip into this otherwise.

I’m keen to understand what the rationale is to allow this, whether the Minister in the chair, Tama Potaka, has any views about Tamatha Paul’s amendment to ensure that, actually, this can be protected, and whether the Minister had any analysis, in fact, around the implications for tenants of potentially being able to access less of their bond as they move out of the tenancy.

Madam Chair, thank you for some time to respond to specific questions raised by various members opposite, in relation to Part 3.

Just to note one of the comments by the member for Manurewa around awards through the tribunal process: if a party is successful, their filing fees can actually be awarded against the unsuccessful party. That’s one pathway for an award that offsets things. The other item that was raised, around the $100,000 threshold, or current level for Residential Tenancies Act disputes, it has been in place for nearly 15 years. It actually was a bit ahead of its time—or ahead of the disputes tribunal, anyway.

There was a comment made by the member opposite, member McAnulty, around the provision around family violence. Actually, it’s quite tragic some of the levels of family violence that are out there, in tenants’ arrangements and other arrangements, but it is not the role of the tribunal to determine whether or not family violence has actually occurred. That’s probably more in the criminal space. The tenant only needs to provide the qualifying evidence that it has occurred, and whether or not it has is a matter for another body.

The commentary about the Amendment Paper that member Ricardo has mentioned—so the ability to use pet bond funds for other matters, in our view, approves efficiency by avoiding situations where the landlord has to issue money—

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is that a fact or an opinion?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Yes, and the member has voiced many of his own opinions today—are owed through other avenues despite there being untouched funds available. A landlord would only be able to access those funds that are set aside on the basis of pet bonds for non-pet-related damage or costs with the agreement of the tenants or by a Tenancy Tribunal order. This provides, of course, a little bit of flexibility for the tenant as well but also encourages the expeditious payment of any costs owing.

Thank you, Madam Chair—a quick question before I move on to clause 35. The question that was put to the Minister by the Hon Kieran McAnulty about family violence: this is an important issue and we don’t mean to ask trivial questions, but just to clarify what the intent was.

With the qualifying evidence that violence has occurred in a situation of a household, it may not be clear to the Tenancy Tribunal whether that meets the wording here that it is family violence. If violence between my boyfriend and I has occurred in the first three weeks of our relationship and living together, I can prove that to the Tenancy Tribunal but I cannot prove that it is family violence. I also can’t prove, if there is violence going on in my household between two flatmates, that it is family violence.

We’re asking the Minister to clarify what sort of violence will mean that the Tenancy Tribunal automatically declines to hear a case and that there is no jurisdiction for the tribunal. There will certainly be cases about this. We are simply trying to draw out here what the intention is when Parliament sets down that family violence is one of the prohibited grounds. Should that be the meaning of family violence in another Act? Should that be up to the referee in each given case to determine?

Now, clause 35: this amends the provision in the current Residential Tenancies Act about facsimiles. It’s useful to update that. The problem here is that it’s not an equivalent. What we are replacing here is any “electronic address”. In the current Residential Tenancies Act, if a tenant is served with documents through their fax, then they will receive that—you can only send a fax if the fax is plugged in and is at the number that it expects to be at. That’s envisioning a situation where, in the household that you’re trying to send a fax to, a printed-out copy of the legal documents will appear in that household. That’s what was intended in the original Act.

What we’ve replaced it with here is any “document transmitted to an electronic address”. What that means is that, if I was to send Minister Potaka a set of documents now via his Signal or via text message, that would suffice for the definition that’s set out at clause 35. It’s pretty unusual. Usually, service of documents in most courts is pretty clearly in a way that the person is deemed to receive it. For superior courts, we’re talking there about legal service, which is a profession in itself and regulated as such, where the person in charge of service is in charge of also being able to give evidence to a court; that they did, in fact, give the documents to the person.

That’s probably not appropriate here, because we do recognise that in situations where pretty low amounts of funds are being contested and that we’re in a situation where people have reached the dispute over many, many days, weeks, months of dispute, there might be real issues with service if we were to require that level of service, but we still need some sort of level here that we think is appropriate. Sending a text message doesn’t seem to be that. It’s certainly not equivalent to the provision which it was replacing, which is a fax.

My question to the Minister is: how can we be sure that we’re not setting the bar so low that people can honestly not reasonably be expected to have read the documents that they are meant to have?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I’ve just come down to the Chamber to make a brief intervention on this really important piece of legislation. Someone’s home is their castle; it is critical that we provide proper process.

In dealing with Part 3 of the bill here, to follow on from my colleague Arena Williams, clause 35 does address the issue of email address and facsimile number and moves us forward into the new world of electronic addresses. It assumes, of course—and it’s an issue for rural New Zealand; I know you will understand this, Madam Chair—that everyone has access to electronic communication instantaneously, every day, and every minute of every day. Actually, the provisions here do work through the timing of the issuing of documents, or the notification, and it moves us into the electronic world, and I think we all accept that physical documents are no longer necessary, but it is important to know that at the other end there is access, and in rural areas in New Zealand, for a number of reasons, often that is erratic.

The question I have of the Minister is: was this considered and was there some flexibility? In reading through, I see no flexibility. Clause 35(4), inserting new section 136(10), says, “In proving service of a document transmitted to an electronic address, it is sufficient to prove that the document was properly transmitted to that address.”, and we know that often—and I certainly do—whether it’s texts or emails, sometimes you think you’ve sent it and for some reason it hasn’t gone. Now, it’s a rare occasion, but it does happen that the server might have gone down. More often than not, if there is a problem in rural areas, it is related to the capacity of the system or something that might have intervened in some way.

In asking questions around this clause 35, it is whether the Minister is prepared to have some flexibility in there to ensure that that wise adjustment—you know, if it’s taking on board some of the realities of the move into the electronic world—also makes provision for the interruption of what is a well-intended serving of notice, and that is the transmission of it. Actually, I think there should be in here some confirmation obligation or some ability to confirm so that, actually, the person receiving it can confirm it, in a way.

I know that there may be some questions, and, say, well, the person doesn’t want to confirm that, but actually there is an ability to confirm the receiving of that and that should be written in here. This just says, “properly transmitted”, and proof of acceptance or opening of that document. That can be done—anyone, now, can actually ask that of a provider. It’s way beyond my technical knowledge, but you can tell whether someone has opened a document. Whether that should be included, or whether the Minister has asked or received advice on that would be something that I’d like to know, and perhaps he could clarify for me.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m hoping to ask the Minister some questions around clause 33, around the decision on the papers bit. Now, I really want to ask: when does the Minister consider it may be appropriate for the tribunal to decide proceedings on the papers, beyond the limitations on new section 91AB(2)? I also wanted to ask the Minister whether he or his officials had statistics on whether there’s differences in outcomes when a Tenancy Tribunal case goes to the papers or whether it actually goes to an actual trial.

I think it’s really important that we make sure that, in allowing the Tenancy Tribunal to hold decisions on papers rather than doing the full thing, we’re not creating barriers for justice, and we’re not exacerbating any existing inequities. It would be a shame, for example, if the Minister’s officials had figures that showed that, for example, Māori and Pasifika were less likely to win cases on papers, and if we’re moving to a system that does rely on decisions on papers, then that may contribute to exacerbating inequities. I’m sure that none of us in the House would want to see that.

I think that is a broader concern that we have that this does give the Tenancy Tribunal too much leniency in deciding whether proceeding on the papers is appropriate. Maybe there should be some sort of component on making sure that the tenants are OK with that, because there is a kind of power differential in this situation. In most cases—not all cases but in many cases—it’s the tenants that will be the underdog in the situation. It’s especially true in my—well, not my electorate; I notice that the Hon Rachel Brooking is here, so I’ll say in the electorate of Dunedin, which I’m based in. I think that’s especially true in the electorate that I’m based in, of Dunedin, where a lot of the cases in the Tenancy Tribunal are from students who are renting for the first time.

I think that’s a really tough experience for people renting for the first time, particularly for young people. I remember when I moved down to Dunedin when I was 16 years old. I was very young, wasn’t old enough to actually legally drink, but I was old enough to be signed on to a lease for some reason. I think that, in the first flat I was actually in, there was a flatmate who set up a meth lab in the flat. I think that just goes to show the kind of situations that young people can get themselves into and the sort of inequities that might arise with tenants that deal with the situation.

We do have a suggestion that might address this power gap a little bit. Our amendment would require the tribunal to consider various factors in deciding if it’s appropriate so that the tribunal can give appropriate weight to the complexity of the case and other factors. That amendment is—do you know what it is off the top of your head?

Ricardo Menéndez March: It’s there.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: It’s there. It’s one of these many amendments that me and my colleagues have—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): It might be Amendment Paper 235, we think.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Yes, great. Thank you for the assistance, Madam Chair. I would hope that the Minister would consider that. I am keen on the statistics that are requested on the decisions.

I just wanted to close my contribution by asking what the rationale is for the change. We know that the Tenancy Tribunal has been—as well as the wider court system—under considerable pressure over the past—well, just over the past decade or so; I think there’s been a lot of things that are. We know that there’s probably going to be more cases going to the Tenancy Tribunal because of the changes that the Government is making. Is the motivation just to make sure that the cases can proceed faster through the Tenancy Tribunal? Is it because of resourcing reasons?

We really want to make sure that this is being done in the right way. Thank you for the opportunity, Madam Chair.

A number of pātai have been asked, and very diligently and professionally, might I add, in relation to a wide gamut of issues in this part. Certainly, the view of the Government, in relation to the qualifying evidence in the family violence issue, is ultimately that the Tenancy Tribunal is not the right body to assess whether or not family violence has occurred.

The mention of the facsimile actually gave me some serious flashbacks to the postal rule in the Law 101 class 30 years ago and the main guy, John Muller, a well-known lawyer, teaching us about that. Certainly, I respect the observations as being very genuine, but it is up to the tenant to advise whether or not the fax machine is a method by which the tenant is happy to be contacted. There are other options, of course, open to that tenant, whether or not that be email or, of course, the well-known snail mail.

There was some mention from one of the members from Dunedin in relation to, I think, whether or not paper is being used as an appropriate method. I have confidence in the expertise of the tribunals and the Tenancy Tribunal, but if a tenant can’t represent himself or herself adequately, this would, I expect, be considered by any tribunal. Parties can also share their views on the hearing format. Of course, the Tenancy Tribunal considering the matters on the papers can help expedite the Tenancy Tribunal decision and also have an implication for the rent payable. The tribunal has guidance available to them as to whether or not they consider hearing a case on papers or having an actual hearing in person. Certainly, the comments by the members are well appreciated.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for an opportunity to talk on this Part 3 debate of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. I just want to go to Schedule 2, which makes amendments to Regulation 9. This relates back to what will be the new section 56B, which is “Withdrawal from tenancy following family violence” and talks about the notice being “accompanied by qualifying evidence”. That’s the key term here: “qualifying evidence”. Then what happens, I think, is that the regulation then specifies what the types of qualifying evidence are. It’s got an (a), (b), (c), and (d) there of qualifying evidence: a “first page of a protection order” at paragraph (b), a “Police safety order” at paragraph (c), a “charging document” at paragraph (d), or “a written statement” at paragraph (a). That all looks, on the face of it, to be very sensible. I’ve got no questions about that.

My only question on this is that at Regulation 9(2) there’s the phrase “all or any”. It says, “The types of qualifying evidence … if notice is given … of the Act, all or any of the following:”. It’s that phrase “all or any” that I’m interested in—why it’s needed to be “all or any”—because that provides some subjectivity and some question whether all of those different paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d) are required, or any—meaning just one. Wouldn’t it be better just to be “any of the following” or “one of the following” or “the relevant of the following”—or something to suggest that it’s the relevant document? Without going through exactly the differences between them, presumably under whatever sort of violence was at issue under paragraphs (b), (c), or (d), there would always be the opportunity for a written statement at (a), so there’s always going to be an option of having at least two of the following. Then does that mean that there will always need to be a written statement, and one of the others, or should it be interpreted that it would be the relevant paragraph (b), (c), or (d) depending on the circumstances?

If the Minister could offer some advice on that, I think that would be helpful for the Hansard at least. Also, if he would consider changing that “all or any” to be more specific, which could just be “any” if you deleted “all or”; if it’s only one of those that is required, then to say “any of the following”. Thank you.

Turning my attention to clause 39, around section 91A and, well, the parts that changed in section 91A—particularly inserting subsections (e) and (f)—I’m really interested in, well, two parts around this.

I have two key sets of questioning. The first one is around the communication by email. I’m really concerned about how this was written, because I think, particularly in subsection (f), where we’re allowing for a landlord to basically take issues to the Tenancy Tribunal two years after a tenancy’s been terminated—to use the email address that the tenant had used to communicate with the landlord, or otherwise apply to the landlord, in writing within the two years before the application—it assumes that people operate like, frankly, older generations, who tend to hold an email for decades, and that is not the case for young people, actually, and young tenants. Many young people actually don’t tend to use the email address they had, perhaps, when they were 18 and carry that email forward into their, for example, 30s. I know that’s the case for myself and many of my other millennial peers, as well as those people younger than me, because a lot of those emails that we create when we’re 18 often, frankly, have quite embarrassing names, because we made them when we were young.

On a more practical level, I do think this actually poses a real question: how will the tribunal be able to determine that, actually, that former tenant had received those communications? One thing is to rely on an older email, and the landlord will say, “Well, that’s the one email I had”—from, say, it could have been eight years after the tenancy had terminated, but it may not be the email that the person uses. That is in the same way people move addresses, they change phone numbers, etc. I don’t think former tenants should be under any obligation to notify their former landlords of changes to their email address. I think this is an incredibly impractical way of putting in place these provisions.

The other one, I think, goes more to the core of clause 39, which is: why is it that we need to give the ability for landlords to pursue issues with the Tenancy Tribunal more than two years after the tenancy had ended? What is the evidential basis that gave rise to this? Again, the Minister has talked a lot about how he wants facts rather than opinions—da, da, da—but, actually, I don’t think we’ve been given robust justification by the Minister so far as to what is the evidential basis that should allow landlords to pursue issues with the Tenancy Tribunal more than two years after the tenancy had ended. I say this because I think (a) we know that the Tenancy Tribunal already isn’t the best way to address issues, but if we start giving landlords the ability to pursue cases in this way, it could (b) clog the system in a way that is deeply unhelpful. In a way, I think it prevents those former tenants from being able to have the evidence freshly available for them to defend themselves.

Then, if I think again of some of our most-at-risk-of-homelessness populations: low-income people, disabled, people in rainbow communities—if we’re talking about people who’ve been transient for several years, it’ll be impossible for those communities to adequately engage with the tribunal process. I just don’t think there has been robust justification to add subsection (f), and I don’t think the way this is written takes into account the real-world implications, particularly for younger generations, around changes of email addresses over the course of one’s life. The way that this is written basically makes it just so easy to assume—both for the landlord but also for the Tenancy Tribunal—that all that is required is to use a potentially really old email.

I want to test the Minister’s understanding of how this will work in practice, how the Tenancy Tribunal will actually assess that the former tenant had actually received the communication, whether they’ll be expecting a reply of some sort, and if they don’t receive a reply, whether they’ll just assume that that wasn’t the correct email address. I’m just worried that this clause 39 will just give way more opportunities for landlords to cause harm and to bring up grievances that are way, way older. I just really need an evidential basis to give myself and the broader public the guarantee that this has been thought of in a careful and constructive way, because the rest of the bill doesn’t seem that way, and at least I want clause 39 to be adequately justified in Part 3.

Just in relation to the matter raised around “all or any”, as you’d expect to interpret it, it does not need to be all. No concerns have been raised along the way in relation to this particular provision; no concerns have been raised by officials.

In relation to the email issue that member Menéndez March has raised, certainly there’s flexibility for tenants to provide multiple contact arrangements. I too have had the experience of having a series of emails where I’ve completely forgotten the passwords and am unable to access those, especially that tama_potaka@yahoo.com—gone, never to be forgotten. Certainly, providing a bit of flexibility to the relevant authorities and/or landlord around contact details is something that we would continue to encourage.

Members, the committee is suspended until after question time today.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Debate interrupted.

House resumed.