In it for the long haul
If you like Parliament you well and truly had a treat last week, as the House sat until midnight Saturday under urgency to consider the wide range of legislation the government wanted to progress.
Some of the matters considered under extended hours were entirely reasonable — every government needs to push through Budget-relevant law changes as soon as possible. Some matters, not so much . . . worthy though the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill may be, did it really need to go through the House at 11pm on Saturday?
Much earlier in the day the House considered the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill, legislation which, arguably, could also have waited for another day.
The Bill introduces an annual review of what beneficiaries receive to make sure everything is above board, and partially automates the process.
If nothing else, the advent of the Bill revitalised an opposition bench which had every reason to be jaded as the House entered its third day of urgency. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori all believe this law change is "beneficiary bashing" and were happy to keep on roaring so, despite spirited remonstrations from National Southland MP Joseph Mooney — who had quite the row, as well as a possible lunch date, with Labour's Willie Jackson — to the contrary.
"It introduces a requirement that the Ministry of Social Development must review a client's eligibility and rate of a specified benefit at least once every 52 weeks. That is to make sure that they are getting the right amount of assistance that they are entitled to," Mr Mooney said.
"It's a very simple Bill. It's quite amazing to hear the lack of quality of contributions from the Opposition. This also introduces a little bit of automated decision making, and, honestly, if that's the quality of debate we get from the Opposition, maybe there should be some more automated decision-making from the other side of the House as well."
Mr Mooney was back for more during the second reading debate, accusing the Greens Ricardo Menendez March of rambling and uttering "a complete load of nonsense".
"This government is going to bring in structured literacy, which will hopefully help people like the Opposition actually get some reading comprehension and actually read the Bills and understand what they're about, because they don't," he said, before going on to accuse the members opposite of being Luddites.
That did not sit well with the next speaker, Labour Dunedin MP Rachel Brooking, who found Mr Mooney's speech to be "curious".
"The member will be very happy to know that I spent considerable time reading this Bill . . . If it is simply about reviews, why is it here in Budget urgency? Might that be because the regulatory impact statement (RIS), on page 12, says that the cost of the IT for this will be $5.339 million and the FTE costs associated with that is $7.559m.
"Is it also because in that RIS it talks about the expected $238.302m in benefits or related expenses savings over five years? This is about money."
For good measure the eagle-eyed Ms Brooking went on to explore the depths of section 363 of the Bill, which she said introduced the sanctions regime.
Of course, this was something which government MPs could have been denying had been created had they been making any more substantive contribution to the debate than simply saying: "I commend this Bill to the House," and sitting straight back down again when their time came to speak.
That was not it from the South though, as Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary wanted to explore "a really problematic piece of lawmaking."
"It just seems crazy that 332,000 reviews would be done each year, and the RIS says very openly, on page 12, that would cost — it adds up to about $13 million, and there's no way they could make this happen with the current staff and that's why they need the technology," Ms Leary said.
"Instead, they are looking at bringing in this very dodgy technology which is dehumanising and which doesn't have appeal rights."
Rather like being stuck in the House on a Saturday rather than being at home in one's own house. I can see for miles and miles
Of the many National MPs who made videos or social media posts complaining at media coverage of what Finance Minister Nicola Willis wore on Budget day, no-one beat the effort from Waitaki National MP Miles Anderson.
Mr Anderson proudly showed off a tie which his daughter had bought him, which was festooned with pictures of the wearer's head. He mentioned it in the House later too, saying that the Bill he was voting for, like his tie, was splendid.
mike.houlahan@odt.co.nz
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Otago Daily Times
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