Three silly bills

Some members bills are very good. But none of them got drawn from the ballot today.

No Right Turn reports:

A ballot for three Members bills was held today and the following bills were drawn:

• Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill (Meka Whaitiri)

• New Zealand International Convention Centre Act 2013 Repeal Bill (Tracey Martin)

• Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill (Fletcher Tabuteau)

These are all rather silly backwards looking bills.

The first one complains that the Environment Protection Authority is not required to protect the environment. This flies in the face of the reality that the EPA has declined almost all the major off shore projects before it on environmental grounds. This is a bill to fix a problem that does not exist.

NZ First want to have a second vote on a law that has already been passed. Considering that we have avoided any injection of taxpayer funds into the convention centre, their timing is pretty bad for them.

And the third bill is the most stupid. It would, if retrospective, force NZ to withdraw from basically every international trade agreement we have ever signed, pull out of the WTO, and never take part in any future trade deals. And NZ First claims to be pro-exporters!

I predict all three bills will fail to get past first reading.