Colin Espiner reports that Labour is planning to filibuster on the ETS, claiming that it is
planning hundreds of amendments to try to flood the debate and slow down progress.Hardly. As I understand it, there are about 15 Labour SOP's, mostly small (I've covered those released up until yesterday here). The amendments in those SOPs (at least the ones online so far) are substantive attempts to amend the bill - for example, by removing the 50% transitional discount or putting a cap on allocation - rather than the random changes to numbers, dates, purposes and the bill's title traditionally seen in a filibuster. Which makes me wonder: did Espiner bother to read those amendments? Or is he defining filibuster down to mean any attempt by the opposition to amend government legislation?
