Labour loses confidence in the Speaker

Although ferry news has dominated politics this week there was another event that also deserves intense attention.

This week saw the committee stages of the Fast-Track Approvals Bill.

The bill has been contentious from the start. It is hard to imagine a more obnoxiously corrupt and damaging piece of legislation. Giving private entities extraordinary abilities to obtain fast track approvals for projects that may have been declined in the past without proper public oversight is just wrong.

The bill has been through a full select committee process and the select committee has reported back to Parliament with suggested amendments.

This was clearly not good enough for Chris Bishop who at the committee stage introduced a supplementary order paper with a number of changes to the bill.

The prospects of these changes being scrutinised properly are exceedingly poor.

This is the bill that creates a list of projects that get a gold-plated guilt-edge consent process which will almost inevitably result in success. But we have only recently discovered what projects these are. The list was not available to the public when the bill was before the select committee.

And you would think that this far down the track the bill would at least technically be in good shape.

But this did not stop Bishop from making a number of changes.

Some of them are relatively minor. The Minister can now determine that a project is a priority and needs to be progressed urgently. But others are contentious.

As an example appeal rights have been further restricted. The ability for any person who has an interest in the decision appealed against that is greater than that of the general public to appeal has been removed. To have standing now you either have to be the applicant, a relevant local authority, the Attorney General or any person or group that were invited to and provided comment on the application. And if you want to apply for and have standing to apply for Judicial Review of a decision you better be fast. The time limits are very short. You only have 20 working days from the date of decision to get your paperwork filed.

I wanted to better understand the reason and effect for the changes so I dutifully clicked on the link in the SOP to the supplementary report. The result was a broken link. How very Kafkaesque.

But this week the SOP ran into procedural difficulties.

Deputy Speaker Barbara Kuriger ruled, based on advice, that the addition of the listed projects in schedule 2 of the Bill were out of order being in the nature of private legislation.

From Hansard:

Many of the projects are listed under authorised persons in a private capacity. The effect of being listed appears to be of benefit to the specified persons, which would differ from other persons who apply for fast-track approval. Provisions that are for the particular interest or benefit of a person or persons are classified as private legislation by Standing Order 257(1)(d). As a result, the Minister’s amendment to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 238 may not be debated and no question will be put on it.”

This was rather momentous. A fast track bill without any listed projects in it would be but a pale imitation of what the Government wanted to achieve.

This could have blown a really large hole in the bill.

Brownlee was recalled and overruled Kuriger’s earlier decision.

This was subject to comment by Law Professor Eddie Clark. From Radio New Zealand:

Victoria University’s Eddie Clark said Brownlee’s ruling relied on the fact the benefit to the named individuals was not guaranteed, it just put them ahead in the process.

“You’re not guaranteed your consent, and because it is a process benefit rather than a substantive one … he thought it was okay.”

He said it showed the pitfalls of rushed lawmaking.

“It’s very poor law making. This government has had a lot more urgency than previous governments … I think we’re seeing one of the effects of that, which is that you don’t necessarily think all this stuff through when you’re rushing it and they’ve got very close here to having a problem where this whole amendment was ruled out.

“We did have a select committee process. It was a somewhat constrained one, but we had a select committee process, and this functionally undermines it.

“They made recommendations for changes, and that was the chance of public input, input from officials, from a multi partisan select committee. And instead we’re getting … an extensive amendment.”

He said it was concerning the amendments had been put forward with no notice to the opposition, to journalists and academics.

“It just reduces the amount of scrutiny what quite a significant bill ends up getting.”

Labour has declared no confidence in Brownlee as speaker. From Radio New Zealand:

The Labour Party says it has lost confidence in the Speaker of the House.

Gerry Brownlee took the rare step of disagreeing with the clerk and the assistant speaker on Tuesday night

He ruled there was no private benefit in an amendment paper that listed projects under the Fast-Track Bill.

Labour’s shadow leader of the House Kieran McAnulty said the decision was “unprecedented”.

“He failed to reference a single previous ruling and in making his decision has potentially unilaterally changed the rules of Parliament.”

McAnulty said it raised serious constitutional questions about the passing of a government bill that provided for private benefit.

“This amendment provides a list of 149 individuals and companies that will benefit from this change. There is a clear process for Private Bills that has not been followed in this case.

It is fitting that such an extraordinary travesty of a bill should test Brownlee’s commitment to due process and respect for the rule of law.

But Brownlee has been found wanting.