Parliament's week includes a mix of debate on a key police scrutiny role, annual reviews and two bills about booze, as well as the farewell speech from a familiar face.
This week in Parliament, there's a fruity mix of debate on areas ranging from a key police scrutiny role and annual reviews to two bills about booze, capped by the highly anticipated farewell speech from a familiar face.
It's Member's Week at Parliament, where on Wednesday MPs will debate those Member's Bills lucky enough to have been picked from the Biscuit Tin. The Shadow Leader of the House, National's Michael Woodhouse, spoke to The House about what's interesting this week, beginning with discussion on today's Parliamentary Motion to appoint a new chairperson of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA).
Police scrutiny role
Parliament approved the IPCA appointment unanimously. And while the Business Committee agreed there could be a debate of up to two hours on that motion, the sum total of the five speeches (one from each party) came to little over twenty minutes. But Woodhouse said the IPCA role's importance justified the attention of Parliament.
"This is a really important constitutional convention that while the police are nominally a branch of the Executive they have to be independent. And we've seen very recent examples of where the potential for political interference in the decision-making of police can have quite significant consequences," Woodhouse said.
"The Policing Act has a section in it which prevents not just the Minister but any Member of Parliament attempting to interfere with police conduct. And that's really important, but it also makes this role very important as well, the IPAC chair; it has to be a retired judge, so it's somebody of significant standing in the community but also with a very significant body of knowledge in the legal process."
Annual review debate
The committee stage of the Appropriation (2021/22 Confirmation & Validation) Bill - or in other words the annual review debate - the culmination of the entire budget process for the previous year - commenced today.
"This is a quite long debate. I think it's about 13 or 15 hours long . And the standing select committees have been going through a process of reviewing government departments essentially, and they have to report back to the House by the 31st of March, following which is this debate," Woodhouse explained, adding that the debate was "something of a set piece". …