The 50th Parliament by the numbers

150,000 were consumed by parliamentarians during the last term.

It was a busy parliamentary term that began just before Christmas 2011 and finished last month, which saw 346 new Acts of Parliament, 1409 sitting hours, and close to 150,000 espressos keeping staff on their toes.

And new standing orders around the hours that Parliament can sit has meant that urgency was used a lot less than the previous term - 79 hours, down from 110 hours.

The Office of the Clerk released statistics today on the 50th Parliament, which opened on 21 December 2011 and was dissolved on August 14 this year.

The office said that 146,314 espressos that were downed in the parliamentary precinct over the term - the equivalent of about 218 per day.

Worker's bellies were well serviced at Parliament's cafe Copperfield's, which sold a total of 11,532 omelettes, 14,518 poached eggs, 41,742 buffet lunches and 23,217 sandwiches.

This parliamentary term also saw:

• the introduction of 138 Government bills and 45 Members' bills
• the presentation of 127 petitions
• 2776 parliamentary questions
• 19,839 pages of Hansard transcription

Select committees held 1259 meetings over 2760 hours and considered 1203 items of business, resulting in 1007 reports presented to the House.

The Local Government and Environment Committee clocked up the most meeting hours at 316 hours, followed by the Commerce Committee with 289 and the Social Services Committee with 269.

This included time spent hearing public submissions, and being advised by officials from government agencies and the Parliamentary Counsel Office - New Zealand's law drafting and publishing office.

A total of 346 bills became Acts, including 11 that were members' bills, compared with only two member's bills the previous term.

The previous term sat for 1664 hours.