Urgency

I’m not a fan of urgency being used to pass laws, wihout a select committee stage. However a freshly elected Government which explicitly campaigned on certain law changes is in a better position to justify its use to implement the promises they were elected on. So hopefully this will be the only use of urgency to bypass select committees, except for the normal budget measures. Urgency to extend sitting hours is a different issue.

However there will be a price to pay for using urgency to bypass select committees. Select committees do not just allow the public to have a say on a proposed law – they often lead to significant improvements in the law, closing down unintended loopholes. Hence by deciding to use urgency to pass some of their manifesto commitments, National does run the risk that some of those laws may need amending sooner rather than later.

I suspect they will only use urgency for the relatively simple law changes, to try and minimise this problem, but it will be interesting to see what bills are included in the urgency motion.

One of them looks to be the 90 day probation bill. As the Maori Party voted against it last time, I doubt they’ll be supporting the urgency motion for it – but generally they are not expected to do so.