After a two-month break, Parliament resumed only to soon adjourn for the week as Cyclone Gabrielle complicated plans for the first sitting week in 2023.
Parliament's sitting year has got underway, but only just.
The destructive path of Cyclone Gabrielle across much of the North Island these past couple of days complicated plans for the first sitting week.
Many MPs have been unable to get to Wellington, including Prime Minister Chris Hipkins as he decided to be in Auckland while the brunt of the weather disaster unfolded. So that threw a spanner in the works for the typical schedule of having the Prime Minister's Statement start the yea with its attendant debate featuring speeches from leaders of other parties in Parliament.
By this morning, a National State of Emergency was declared. It's been a fluid situation, requiring hourly review by the government, and for Parliament's purposes it meant more frequent deliberations than usual by Parliament's Business Committee, which comprises the various party whips (or in the Green's case musterers) along with the Leader of the House, his deputy and his opposition equivalent, under the chairmanship of the Speaker.
Less than two hours before the start of Parliament, the Business Committee decided that this Parliament week would be a very short one, due to the cyclone emergency. There'd be enough time to discuss two items. First was a motion to recognise the devastating earthquakes in Syria and Turkey last week. Second was a statement from Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty who signed the national emergency declaration several hours earlier today, with support from the opposition.
"I took this step because the impacts from Cyclone Gabrielle are of such a degree that the civil defence emergency management necessary or desirable is or would likely be beyond the resources of the impacted civil defence emergency management groups," McAnulty explained.
"This event also requires a significant and co-ordinated response by and across central and local government."
Concern over adjournment
Parliament had finally got underway after a two-month break. But after an hour it was off again, adjourned for the week because of the cyclone emergency.
The adjournment drew criticism from the ACT party whose deputy leader Brooke van Velden argued that during a national emergency, MPs need to be sitting in Parliament to hold the Government to account.
"But rather confusingly they've opted to forgo democracy in parliament. And the ACT Party believes we need to be extremely clear: when the Government in an emergency takes on extra powers we should be here to hold those powers to account," she said…