The last sitting week of the 53rd Parliament has a fairly packed schedule of government business, plus debate on the Standing Orders Committee's regular report, and the Adjournment Debate.
This is the last sitting week of the 53rd Parliament, and fittingly for such a busy term there's a fairly packed schedule of government business for the next few days.
Things will wind up on Thursday with the debate over the adjournment of Parliament, and a look at what changes to Parliament's rules will stem from the regular report of the Standing Orders Committee; but not before the Government first goes into urgency again to progress some bills, and even a last Member's Day of the three-year term.
The House will rise on Thursday to clear the way for the general election which is to be held in just over a month and a half's time. This week is the last of a busy 3-week block in which the House has regularly been taken into urgency as the Government guided a couple of major reform programmes to their final legislative moments, particularly the repeal of the Resource Management Act and its replacement as well as water reform legislation.
"We've still got a range of bills that we want to get either through first reading so that they can head off to Select Committee and that process can begin while politicians are out campaigning, so the work of getting submissions and so on can start - plus a couple of bits of legislation that we want to finish off," the Government's Leader of House, Grant Robertson, explained.
"I'm satisfied with where we've got to. There will still be some bills that ministers had hoped would make more progress that haven't, and that's just the reality of the amount of time we've got. So there will still be bills left on the Order Paper that haven't been finished, but I think we've made pretty good progress."
Voting Age legislation
One of the bills to get a first reading today will be the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. Contrary to what some political figures have claimed, this legislation is not being rushed through by stealth before the general election, and neither is the voting age being considered even about general elections.
"This is a bill about local government elections, and the next local government elections being potentially held with 16-year olds being eligible to vote - just local government not central government elections, not for this election as some people seem to be suggesting," Robertson said…