
Can parliamentary urgency and public accountability peacefully coexist?
Late-night bill passed under urgency
After a punishing budget week, the last place most MPs wanted to find themselves in the early hours of Saturday morning was still in the debating chamber. But there they were, locked in a drawn-out battle over accommodation subsidies, reports RNZ's Soumya Bhamidipati. After the Social Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill was called around 11.30pm, opposition MPs filed dozens of amendments in a failed attempt to slow the legislation, which tightens the rules on how boarders are counted when calculating the accommodation supplement.
The bill passed under urgency – an increasingly common tactic for the coalition. The government set a record in its first 100 days for the most bills passed under urgency in the MMP era, a pace that's continued with controversial measures like the pay equity law change earlier this month. That, too, bypassed the select committee process, prompting critics to accuse the government of undermining public accountability in the name of speed.
What is urgency – and why is it so easy to use?
Urgency allows parliament to fast-track legislation, sometimes skipping key stages like select committee scrutiny. While often used for budget-related bills or emergencies, there are few formal checks on its application. A minister (usually leader of the House Chris Bishop) simply moves a motion to commence urgency, and the government's MPs pass the motion with a majority vote.
While urgency is extremely useful for the government, it has plenty of downsides. 'Passing legislation more quickly risks the legal equivalent of the old 'marry in haste, repent at leisure maxim,'' writes The Spinoff's Shanti Mathias. 'The public has less chance to be informed about the law, there is reduced transparency, and legislation might simply be less good – imprecise wording or unintended effects can slip through.'
The most contentious use of urgency is passing a bill into law, but that's not its only application. The Regulatory Standards Bill is an example: because of the budget, the House was still sitting under urgency when it passed its first reading on Friday. The controversial bill, which has attracted more than 22,000 submissions, will now be put before the Finance and Expenditure Committee, where there will be a chance for public feedback.
A committee of the people steps in
In response to the pay equity legislation being pushed through without public input, former National MP Dame Marilyn Waring has convened a 'people's select committee' to gather evidence the government did not. The hastily assembled group of former MPs from across the political spectrum will hear public submissions starting on August 11, RNZ's Russell Palmer reports. Waring said the hearings would be an 'evidence-gathering mission' with a 'really sound report' at the end. 'The government says that it wants to progress pay equity claims, the opposition is saying that it will rescind this and again address the legislation. So we're doing them all a good turn.'
While the initiative lacks any formal powers, groups whose pay equity claims were halted by the new law are being invited to share their experiences. Asked to respond, minister Brooke van Velden said there'd be no changes to the law, but 'members of the public, including former MPs, are welcome to hold their own meetings'.
A broader reckoning on accountability
The controversy is feeding into a wider conversation about how parliament functions. As Politik's Richard Harman writes (paywalled), the select committee on David Seymour's four-year term bill has unexpectedly turned into a mini-referendum on parliamentary accountability. While a number of submitters have used the opportunity to call for a reinstatement of a second chamber of the House, others have taken aim at how select committees themselves operate. Among them was Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who said the current system is encouraging 'sloppy lawmaking' driven by overworked MPs and overloaded agendas.
Regardless of whether the bill passes, the process has surfaced 'widespread disillusionment with the failure of select committees to scrutinise legislation,' Harman observed – a feeling only sharpened by the coalition's aggressive use of urgency over the course of its term so far.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Otago Daily Times
2 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Luxon defends voting changes
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. The Prime Minister says the public still have plenty of time to get enrolled to vote despite scrapping same-day enrolment for elections. Last week the government announced legislation to overhaul electoral laws it said had become "unsustainable". The government agreed to close enrolment before advance voting begins, with people needing to enrol or update their details by midnight on the Sunday before advance voting starts on the Monday morning (in other words, 13 days before election day). The legislation sets a requirement of 12 days advance voting at each election, and the changes would mean special vote processing could get underway sooner. On Monday morning, Newsroom reported Attorney-General Judith Collins, had said the proposed law changes clashed with constitutional rights in a report. She indicated 100,000 or more people could be directly or indirectly disenfranchised by rules banning enrolment in the final 13 days before an election. Collins declined an interview with RNZ on the issue. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Collins had a statutory responsibility to review legislation to make sure it was consistent with the bill of rights. "As a government we think enrolment should happen before early voting starts," he said. Luxon pointed to Australia as an example of a country that does not allow enrolment on the same day as voting. "We want everyone to participate but it's just done two weeks before elections day. It's not uncommon, it gives people plenty of time to get enrolled and get sorted. "All we're saying is we want everybody to participate in our democracy... not an unreasonable request." On Election Day 2023 110,000 people enrolled to vote or updated their details.

RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Immigration Minister on overseas born NZers moving to Australia
immigration 13 minutes ago Last week, RNZ reported nearly half of the New Zealanders applying for Australian citizenship weren't born here. Minister of Immigration Erica Stanford spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.


NZ Herald
3 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Labour's Chris Hipkins questions MMP system, seeks balance in power
'But, I differ a bit from the current Government in the sense that while I respect the important constituencies the smaller parties represent, and I also respect that we compete with them for votes too, I don't think under MMP the smaller parties should call all of the shots. 'I still think the bigger parties have a mandate to reflect the view of a much larger section of the electorate, and so I do think under MMP you need to keep proportionality in mind. 'Yes, there should be some concessions and some trade-offs to the other parties to form a government. But that doesn't mean that you should be doing things that you specifically told the electorate before the election that you weren't going to do. 'The Treaty Principles Bill is a good example. The Regulatory Standards Bill. Some of these things that no one knew they were voting for at the last election, and now they're being inflicted on them. I don't think that's the spirit of MMP or democracy,' he said. Talk of introducing a Capital Gains Tax has been the bugbear of successive governments. In the 2010s, Sir John Key ruled out a CGT while the then-Labour leader Phil Goff made it the centrepiece of his party's tax policy. Fast-forward to Dame Jacinda Ardern ruling out ever implementing one while she was Prime Minister. Enter, Hipkins, who carried the message through the 2023 election. Luxon's then the one to 'rule it out' while he's in rule. When it comes to Election 2026, Hipkins said Labour will have a 'different tax policy' to the one they had at the last election. He stopped short of confirming whether that means the reintroduction of a CGT, but did say he'll announce it by the end of the year. 'Because I think it is important, that is a big policy area. People want to know where they stand. 'In New Zealand, I think we've placed far too much emphasis on buying and selling houses amongst ourselves, pushing up the price so that potentially a whole generation of homeowners is being shut out of the housing market,' he said. Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon during a leaders' debate in 2023 and they will already be planning for another battle in 2026. Photo / TVNZ The Labour Party is yet to release any policy announcements for next year's election, but Hipkins said that's for good reason. He wants to make sure they'll be able to deliver on promises made. 'I think one of the valid criticisms of us last time we were in opposition was that we had some really good ideas, but we hadn't worked through the details of exactly how would we do that. Then, when we got into government, we found that some of the things that we'd said we were going to do, very well intentioned, we didn't have a clear plan for how we would do it. 'I think the same thing has happened to this Government. They've made promises with no plan on how they're actually going to do it, and I don't want to be in that position,' he said. In May, Act Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister, David Seymour, referred to Hipkins as 'poo Midas'. It was after NZ First leader Winston Peters 'permanently' ruled out working with Hipkins in any future government coalition. 'This guy's got the opposite of the Midas touch. I think they call him a 'poo Midas',' Seymour said. Hipkins said he's all for a bit of humour in politics, a 'little bit of a sledge' now and then, where it's funny. But the latest jabs from those at the top don't have him laughing. 'They're not very funny, and they're also not very good at it. So, I think they should just stick to actually doing what people ask them to do, you know, New Zealanders wanted them to fix the cost of living crisis,' he said. Listen to the full episode to hear more from Chris Hipkins about the possibility of free dental and whether we should 'tax the rich'. The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016. You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.