A
ballot for three member's bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn:
- Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill (Chris Baillie)
- Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill (Golriz Ghahraman)
- Increased Penalties for Breach of Biosecurity Bill (Jacqui Dean)
Ghahraman's bill is an important one, which implements numerous changes, including lowering the voting age and the MMP threshold and ending the role of big money in elections. The government has currently kicked many of these issues to a "review", so this will force them to actually take a position on them. Sadly, with labour, we can probably expect that position to be a self-serving support of the
status quo, combined with a self-serving attempt to nobble the opposition.
There were 65 bills in the ballot today - not a record, but a very healthy turnout. And hopefully now Parliament is doing first readings again, we'll see some more ballots soon.