NACT prefer to have a filibuster

The ongoing filibuster is highlighting the intransigent nature of the NACT government. NACT ministers are getting annoyed by having to remain at the house to push through their legislation. However there is a perfectly reasonable offer on the table – but they’d prefer to have the filibuster maintained rather than get the holes fixed in the legislation.

As Trevor Mallard points out at Red Alert:-

The Labour/green team has developed hundreds of amendments and about a dozen extra parts.  We can keep drafting them. We are probably able to keep the bill going well into next week.

We have one objective – to get the bill off to a select committee even for three or four weeks, including about a week of hearings in Auckland. the times are negotiable.

Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party are prepared to pull our amendments and new parts out if the NACTs agree to send the bill to a committee.

Gerry Brownlee has turned down down the offer but it remains open.

Shows what NACT think is important – being idiots. They’d prefer to ‘win’ rather than have a workable government. Says everything you need to know about the super-city legislation. To date I haven’t heard a single defense from NACT of the purposes of this bill. Probably because they haven’t thought about it – after all where are the costings?

Hopefully Labour and the Greens will use this tactic on all future misuse of urgency by the government to bypass the select committee process. I wish they’d used it before.