Labour MP Tamati Coffey's bill will streamline surrogacy laws. Photo / Andrew Warner.
Labour MP Tamati Coffey's bill will streamline surrogacy laws. Photo / Andrew Warner.
A bill to make surrogacy easier looks set to pass into law, after it was drawn from Parliament's famous biscuit tin on Thursday.
Labour MP Tāmati Coffey's Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill was one of seven bills drawn.
Coffey said the bill would "streamline" the "outdated" surrogacy process.
Currently, hopeful parents must jump through several legal hurdles before having a baby by surrogacy. This would remove some of those hurdles, mainly by using a surrogacy order - an agreement between the two parents and the surrogate.
This order would mean the child's parents would legally become parents at the moment of birth. Currently, parents must wait until after the birth before legally beginning the process of adopting the child.
Coffey had tried to bypass the ballot by using a new rule that allowed bills to skip the ballot if they received the support of a majority of non-executive MPs. Coffey said he fell just three MPs short but he had not yet tapped the National Party for support - and his numbers excluded Labour's bevy of ministers, who are also likely to support the bill.
Fellow Labour MP Louisa Wall - one of Parliament's most successful MPs when it comes to getting members' bills passed - helped Coffey with the drafting.
"Louisa Wall's got the golden touch when it comes to members' bills," Coffey said.
Labour MP Tamati Coffey's bill will streamline surrogacy laws. Photo / Andrew Warner.
Wall herself managed to get another bill drawn.
Her bill would amend two pieces of legislation to make it easier for journalists to protect their sources.
Labour's Rachel Boyack had a bill drawn to force new laws to use plain English.
National's Simeon Brown also had a bill pulled from the ballot.
His Public Finance (Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs) Amendment Bill would try to stop public money flowing to gangs.
Act's Nicole McKee also had a gang-related bill drawn.
She said her bill would "crack down" on gangs and the use of illegal firearms.
National MP Joseph Mooney's bill, also drawn, would " strengthen the protection of Māori land". The bill is designed to stop the fragmentation of tracts of Māori land.
"The legislation is based on the fundamental principles that Māori land endures as taonga tuku iho by virtue of whakapapa, that tikanga Māori is central to matters involving Māori land, and that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is central to the application of laws affecting Māori land.
"Owners will finally be able to set rules making it harder to dispose of Māori land and will be able to design their own governance arrangements. The law will recognise the mana of decision-making sits with the owners, not with the court," Mooney said.
National MP for Southland Joseph Mooney has had a members' bill drawn. Mark Mitchell
Labour MP Duncan Webb's bill will change the way the law defines company directors' duties.
The bill will "make clear that a company director, in acting as the mind and will of the company, can take actions that take into account wider matters other than the financial bottom-line.
"This may include matters such as the principles of te Tiriti, environmental impacts, good corporate ethics, being a good employer, and the interests of the wider community".
It is relatively unusual for so many bills to be drawn at once - seven from a single ballot is a record number to be drawn in recent times.
All non-executive MPs get the opportunity to have a members' bill put into the ballot. As many of these come from opposition MPs, they face many hurdles to becoming law.
One such hurdle is the relatively short amount of time set aside to debate each bill - normally every second Wednesday.
