You may have noticed Parliament has been sent into urgency with some regularity of late — so why the rush?
As Te Pāti Māori pointed out this week, urgency has been used in every sitting week this year as the new coalition government pushes through its 100-day plan.
The party's co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer called this "an abuse of government's power".
"Urgency deprives both legislators and the public of adequate time for scrutiny and deliberation on significant legislative measures, such as the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority and abolishment of Smokefree legislation," she said.
A government's use of urgency is often criticised for avoiding parts of the legislative process, but urgency can be used for a few different things in the lawmaking process.
What is urgency and why is it used?
Urgency is a measure that allows politicians to speed up the legislative process or extend Parliament's sitting hours.
Only a government minister can move for urgency — this is usually the Leader of the House, which is currently National MP Chris Bishop. The minister must say why the circumstances call for urgency.
The motion of urgency just needs a simple majority to pass, meaning there is not much an Opposition party can do to stop it.
There are a few reasons for using urgency in Parliament, according to constitutional expert Graeme Edgeler.
He said one of the main benefits of urgency is it opens up more time for the House of Representatives to get a block of work finished.
On sitting days, the House normally sits from 2pm until 10pm with a dinner break. If the House goes into urgency, the House will usually sit until midnight and then start again at 9am the following day and just keep going until the work the Government says is urgent is completed.
Sometimes this is used if the Government simply has a lot of new bills they want to get to the select committee stage. Governments also often move urgency following their Budget to progress laws relating to that.
Other times, urgency is used to circumvent parts of the lawmaking process, which Edgeler said is "much more concerning".
Multi-stage urgency
Lawmaking in New Zealand usually involves several stages.
A bill will have a first reading in Parliament where members decide if it should continue to the select committee stage.
The select committee stage usually involves detailed examination and submissions from the public.
The bill then goes to a second reading in Parliament where there is further debate and any other potential amendments before it goes through the Committee of the Whole House and a third and final reading.
Normally each of those stages must take place on different days.
But under multi-stage urgency, a government can get through all those stages in one sitting.
"When you're doing the multiple stages one after the other, you don't have the opportunity for feedback; you don't have the opportunity to think 'did we make a mistake here?'" Edgeler said.
"[The Government] is going to start and finish something that would normally take at least four different days in the House all in one sitting. And so that's the much more concerning type of urgency."
Does urgency hurt democracy?
Edgeler thinks criticism of multi-stage urgency is valid, depending on the type of bill that is being pushed through.
He said using urgency for bills that are disestablishing something is not as concerning as bills that are imposing new obligations on people.
The use of urgency so far during this Parliamentary term has focused on repealing certain pieces of legislation.
"These are the things [they] promised to do before the election and now [they're] doing them; the policy decision has been made," Edgeler said.
"You can argue potentially about the details, but some of the simple [bills] like this government organisation isn't going to exist anymore or this cold medication is going to go from this schedule to this schedule... that is a very simple law," he said.
"It might be a good idea or a bad idea but the detail you would hope is something that is relatively easy to get right."
Edgeler said if multi-stage urgency is used for something new, that is a different matter.
"If you're creating something new — new powers, a wholly new organisation — you'll need to work out what powers does this organisation need to have," he said.
He also said there is value in select committee hearings.
"The point of a select committee hearing... generally isn't to say, 'let's not pass this bill at all'. The value of a select committee hearing is, 'have we got this right, are there things we've forgotten about, are there changes that should be made?'
"I think any process which gets rid of [the] select committee [stage], we should try to avoid where possible, but it is a lot more concerning where it's something new being created rather than something old being got rid of."
SHARE ME