Wednesday, May 15, 2013



Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day - but sadly a far less interesting one than we've had recently. Having passed Marriage Equality, the House is now turning its attention to the urgent business of banning gang patches from government premises. Its a piece of petty viciousness from a vicious and petty MP representing a vicious and petty government. But that's the modern National Party for you: publicly kicking people in an effort to gain popularity.

Next up is the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill, which makes TradeMe deals legally binding. A worthy bill, but hardly inspiring. After that we have Damien O'Connor's attempt to shut the Fonterra share trading gate after the cow has bolted, which is similarly uninspiring. Finally, if the House moves quickly it will be able to make a star ton the Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill, a stand-up fight over worker's rights. It will fail, of course, but merely putting it up gives fair warning to business that they should expect this sort of legislation when Labour is next in government.

There should be a ballot for one or two bills tomorrow; hopefully we'll get some more interesting ones drawn then.