Friday, February 12, 2010



Brownlee steals a Member's Day

Parliament resumed this week, which means I have stuff to blog about again. One of the things I'm particularly looking forward to blogging about are Member's Days, since that's where a lot of the interesting legislative action is. These happen every second sitting Wednesday, so I was looking forward to one next week.

Unfortunately, it won't be happening. The reason why is contained in Brownlee's business statement this week:

When the House resumes on Tuesday 16 February, it is the Governments intention to make progress on the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement and other Bills on the order paper. It is anticipated that the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement will conclude on Wednesday 17 February.
I was wondering why the House suspended debate on the PM's statement on Wednesday and went on to normal business, and now I know: it overrides all other business on the Order paper, and so delaying it until Wednesday effectively eats Member's Day. Its just another example of how this government is abusing the Parliamentary process...