Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former Prime Minister, Minister of the Crown, and constitutional expert, has expressed his significant concern about how the excessive use of Parliamentary urgency in New Zealand is undermining our democracy. It comes as we approach the end of a year in which its usage has reached an all time high.
And so have the resulting concerns.
Parliamentary Urgency is used to pass legislation quickly through the three reading stages. It is generally used to bypass the submissions and select committee phases that happen between the First and Second Readings of a Bill of Parliament. The rationale for use of it varies from one Bill to the next – it might be to close a dangerous loophole in existing legislation; to ensure that the Parliament agenda is completed before it rises for the summer holidays – in 2025 that is 18 December; to ensure legal continuity after any existing legislation with a sunset clause (expiry date).
Or – more sinisterly – to avoid having public scrutiny of questionable legislation. The legislation might be badly written. It might have clauses whose legality are questionable. It might be legislation promoting something that New Zealanders are generally steadfastly against. Or, it could be keeping promises that should not have been made to donors.
This year there have been several Bills written, which are now either Acts of Parliament, or the Parliament phase – i.e., having been drawn from the biscuit tin, they are somewhere between the First Reading and Third Reading.
I can recall a number of times across the last several Governments, including the the Government of former Prime Ministers, John Key, Jacinda Ardern and now Christopher Luxon, when urgency has been used under questionable circumstances. In the case of Mr Key, whose Government used it more times in its first two years than his predecessor Helen Clark did in her nine years, it was the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013. In the case of former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, it was legislation passed in May 2020, which concerned COVID 19 and was sufficiently grave that even Amnesty International voiced significant concerns.
Since this Government took office, the usage of it has skyrocketed, as has the complete ignorance of what was said at the submissions and select committee stages – despite overwhelming opposition to the Regulatory Standards Act when it was at select committee stage, the Government passed it into law. It is part of a bigger, lobbyist driven assault on our democratic foundations, enabled by the Atlas Network, which is a network of lobbyist organisations such as Taxpayers Union, Hobsons Pledge, Free Speech Union and New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (previously known as the Business Roundtable).
In 2010, a study by Victoria University Centre for Public Law, examined the usage of Parliamentary Urgency between 1987 and 2010. From the study, several recommendations were made, some of which were eventually adopted. It found, interestingly enough, that one of the reasons given by Members of Parliament was that there were not enough sitting hours available in Parliament to get through all the legislation that they were set to debate.
Just because a law has been passed with a majority of the House, does not mean it is a good law – or even one that needs to exist. The Governor General has indicated that sometimes legislation is passed through Parliament despite being inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act, 1990 or other legislation considered to be part of our constitutional framework. This includes the Human Rights Act, Electoral Act (both 1993) and the Constitution Act, 1986.
I do not claim to know how Parliamentary sitting time is set, but it seems that most of the time they have scheduled sitting sessions from 2PM-10PM Tuesday to Thursday. I would argue that as Parliament on Thursday often only sits until 6PM, either extend it to 10PM that day or have a Monday afternoon session from 2PM.
Leftist Kiwi Writes 