What a brazen bunch of hypocrites MPs are.
Labour - unheralded in its 2020 election manifesto - is pushing through changes to Maori ward legislation with unconscionable speed. By the time I was aware of it and looking at the proposed changes, the deadline for submissions had passed.
Slippery Slope has just pointed out to me that in 2011 Grant Robertson was steaming over National pushing through law changes under urgency:
Labour MP Grant Robertson released figures on the use of urgency since 1999 which showed in its first two years National pushed 17 laws through without allowing public submissions - compared to the four or five each term when Labour was in government.
Urgency extends the sitting hours of Parliament, allowing the Government to get more legislation through. It allows a government to easily bypass the select committee process, where the public give views on law changes and MPs iron out problems in the bill...
Mr Robertson said urgency was sometimes warranted, such as with the Christchurch earthquake legislation. However, it was being used excessively and on some controversial bills. One example of National bypassing the select committee process was the law change implementing national standards in schools - a controversial policy which could have benefited from expert submissions.
The Maori ward legislation is nothing if not controversial.
And as if making a defence in today's parliament, then acting Leader of the House Simon Power points out that in regard to bypassing select committees, "the Government had ensured that did not happen for significant constitutional issues, such as the Marine and Coastal Area Act and electoral finance reforms." (my emphasis)
Graham Adams has written a compelling cut- through- the- BS piece here about how "The Minister of Local Government has struggled to make her case for a law change under urgency."
2 comments:
Lindsay there is absolutely no reason for the rush unless ratepayers exercising their limited rights of local Government objections over attempts to create Race based representation over and above the well proven success of many of Maori with race connections succeeding at the Ballot box, and on merit.
One of the reservations I have about the PM is precisely summed up by your title Lindsay...well, she's a career politician and so any admiration I might have for her many qualities, or those of any politician, is tempered by that very fact...who was it who said 'when you give them your hand to shake count your fingers when you get it back!'...or some such. In Mahuta's case it suits her wonderfully well to downright lie about this bill knowing many punters won't even notice. For many it boils down to Treaty 'partnership' bulldust and kowtowing to 'the Maori view'. Excellent piece by Adams.
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