The Government's new ferry deal announcement is expected today and Winston Peters announces greyhound racing industry will wind down over the next 20 months. Video / NZ Herald
Late on Tuesday, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop put forward an amendment paper for the legislation to introduce the list of 149 projects that may be eligible for streamlined approval.
Deputy Speaker Barbara Kuriger, taking on advice from the Clerk, ruled it was out of order. She said it had the nature of private legislation – which will normally go through its own process.
“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.”
This led National to ask for Brownlee to be recalled to “further adjudicate on this matter”.
Brownlee, who said he had thought long about the matter, said it was “undesirable” for Parliament to legislate for the benefit of specific private persons, and where done so, it was done “carefully”.
”We would not want to permit a situation where members and Ministers could simply propose bills and amendments to benefit particular private interests without proper scrutiny under the House’s rules. The issue here centres on what it means for a provision or amendment to be private legislation.”
He said there were three tests to apply when considering if something was private legislation.
While speaking about those tests, he noted there was “virtually no bill passed in this House that doesn’t have some private benefit, or at least have it claimed to be part of its legislative arrangements”.
Ultimately, he said the amendment would fail one of the tests. That being the question of whether it had the effect of giving rise “to a particular benefit or interest to a person or body”. That meant he believed the amendment could be put forward.
The House went on debating the bill and the amendments.
Speaker Gerry Brownlee during Question Time. Photo / Mark Mitchell
But Labour has taken issue with the decision, with its shadow Leader of the House Kieran McAnulty saying on Wednesday afternoon it was unprecedented for the Speaker to overrule the advice of the Clerk and presiding officer of the House.
“He failed to reference a single previous ruling and in making his decision has potentially unilaterally changed the rules of Parliament,” McAnulty said.
“It has raised serious constitutional questions about the passing of a Government bill that provides 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.”
That led Labour to “lose confidence in his ability to oversee a functioning, democratic Parliament”, McAnulty said. The Labour MP said Brownlee should reconsider his ruling and “the potential consequences it will have on this Parliament”.
When discussing the matter in Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, Brownlee reiterated he had spent a lengthy amount of time considering the matter.
”I heard the advice, obviously, from the clerks and spent some time looking through the book that talks about parliamentary practice in New Zealand.”
“That’s a book that draws on a previous publication by a previous Clerk, and has been updated by our current Clerk. In that, there’s an interesting statement… it essentially says that there will always be some degree of private gain or benefit from Government bills.”
He said the amendment complied with a number of other different points listed.
”The next point which was relevant was the three tests that have to be applied for a bill to be considered a private bill as opposed to a Government bill. And I made it very clear that I thought it failed on the third part of that test.”
McAnulty suggested Brownlee’s ruling hadn’t been guided by previous Speaker rulings, to which the Speaker said, “what did they do on day one?”
McAnulty replied: “Well, I don’t know what they were up to 100 years ago in Westminster.”
Brownlee said things had moved on since then, when people may need to petition Parliament for a divorce.
”The other thing is that if you look at the recent bills that have been passed that are of a private nature, there is a very specific benefit for any of the individuals who are seeking that preferment. And I think this is just another step in Parliament itself claiming it’s right to legislate, which I think is important.”
When McAnulty told Brownlee he didn’t have the confidence of the whole House, Brownlee said there was a proper mechanism to signal that. For example, that can be done through a motion of no confidence.
One previous occurrence of a no confidence motion was when National lost confidence in Trevor Mallard over his handling of the occupation of Parliament in 2022.
