Final push for MPs before Xmas

Simon Bridges 'delighted' MPs late at night with his speech during urgency. Photo / APN

MPs probably had better things to do - and some said so.

But party pride was at stake in Parliament this weekend as they sat until midnight on Friday and were due to sit not far short of that last night.

With 11 bills to deal with, some of them far from urgent, sessions didn't need to be that tedious but there was no way Labour would let the Government get away with an egregious insult.

Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee had fired them up on Thursday, when Labour MPs questioned his list of bills and he quipped that they seemed to be shy of "a bit of hard yakka" before going off on their eight-week summer recess.

This caused indignant outrage. Brownlee was accused of pious hypocrisy, bad faith, an utter inability to manage Parliament and a ghastly approach to cross-party co-operation.

He responded by personally delivering to the press gallery the entire record of urgency called by the previous Labour Government.

Labour's next challenge was to keep it going for two days from 9am to midnight, and its MPs started picking apart bills that would otherwise get far less attention.

A tax bill was good for most of Friday and the Government stirred up a row by inserting 70 pages of amendments.

This was "flagrant abuse of the parliamentary process" and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne was accused of arrogance and incompetence.

Banning cigarette displays in shops didn't present much of an opportunity, because everyone agreed it was the right thing.

Beefing up biosecurity laws wasn't a problem for anyone except the Greens, who think free trade agreements are bad news.

An obscure customs and excise item didn't give opposition MPs a lot of scope, but there were rich pickings in one which merges the National Library and Archives New Zealand with the Department of Internal Affairs, and an education bill which Labour had serious problems with.

A last-minute deal cut that short when the Government said it was amending the bill and Parliament was spared coming back under urgency at 9am tomorrow.

Personal abuse was surprisingly limited, given that long hours usually mean short tempers. Tau Henare didn't seem offended when Trevor Mallard called him a chocolate-covered banana, although he did twitter something unflattering about Mallard later. There was no way he would have got away with that in the debating chamber.

MPs IN NO RUSH TO GO HOME FOR HOLIDAYS

AS MPs pushed through bills in urgency this weekend, you'd expect they would want to get out of Parliament and join their families for Christmas holidays.

But no. Just shy of midnight on Friday, Simon Bridges, the National MP for Tauranga, spoke in support of the Government's dry Customs and Excise Amendment Bill. Part five. Second reading.

"One day people will look back at these speeches and they will read this speech and it will read much, much better than it sounds right now," he said.

"And they will remember this bill for all the amazing things it is doing for Customs and the great Customs officials all around the country ..."

A woman MP interjected, "and life!"

"... And life," Bridges echoed, "and the cosmos in general. And this is a very proud moment for this Parliament. I commend this bill to the House."

On the other side of the House, Labour MP Grant Robertson wrote on his Facebook page: "My name is Grant Robertson I am a NZ MP being held against my will at Parliament. Please send food, preferably KK Malaysian Beef Rendang."

- NZPA