Leader of the House, Chris Bishop, outlines the week to come in Parliament. A week with 19 maidens and just two bills.
Students are back in the classroom, and are matched by MPs, back in Parliament. But doing what exactly?
The election seems like a long while ago but the 54th Parliament is still very new, and still has the initial set-pieces of any new Parliament to sweep through before it can get knee-deep into legislation. There are two new bills this week however (see below).
Listen to Leader of the House Chris Bishop outlining the week on The House
Unboxing MPs
This new Parliament is still fresh enough that the public hasn't met all the new MPs yet. Hearing from more of the recently elected will be a feature of the week. The plan is for six new National Party MPs on Tuesday (from about 4:15pm):
Rima Nakhle, Cameron Brewer, Dana Kirkpatrick, Carl Bates, Carlos Cheung and Miles Anderson.
Another six fresh National Party MPs get unboxed on Wednesday (from roughly 3:30pm):
Mike Butterick, Catherine Wedd, Tom Rutherford, Grant McCallum, Nancy Lu and David MacLeod.
And on Thursday from 4:15-ish, a combination of four ACT MPs (who TBA), and three new Green MPs:
Tamatha Paul, Kahurangi Carter and Scott Willis.
Different days focus on MPs from different parties for logistical reasons. MPs usually invite family and friends to attend their maiden speeches, and the political parties usually host a function afterwards. Clumping the MPs makes organising the post-match events easier. The functions are also why maiden and valedictory speeches are almost always scheduled in the lead-up to when MPs pause debating for dinner.
Other Business
The week began with a motion in memory of the recently deceased former Governor General, Sir Michael Hardy-Boys; and a Ministerial Statement from Judith Collins on a recently announced Defence deployment to the Red Sea Combined Task Force. You can hear Chris Bishop (link above), explain the recent changes to the way Ministerial Statements are managed with more Q&A, and less speechifying.
With the focus on the Address in Reply Debate (including Tuesday and Wednesday's maiden speeches), there is a paucity of debating time for legislation.
The House will consider two bill this week though. One is scheduled for debate through all stages under urgency. The New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill will be introduced and debated under Urgency on Tuesday evening. …