MPs to spend a long week in the trenches

Parliament's schedule for this week is reminiscent of what a World War I general might describe as a Big Push - throwing everything at the front line for a sustained period to see how much progress exhausted troops can make through sheer doggedness.

The government's plan is a gargantuan session of debate under urgency, from about 4pm on Tuesday until (potentially) midnight Saturday. The debates on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday will run from 9am until midnight, with meal breaks.

The big push includes progressing 23 bills through a combined 36 stages of debate. If the full plan is completed successfully, by Sunday there will have been five first readings (1R) for brand new bills, 12 second readings (2R) for bills returning from Select Committee, nine Committees of the Whole House (CwH) - a time-unlimited consideration of bill detail with amendments proposed, and nine third readings (3R) - final debates. Two bills are being debated partly together and partly separately as associated bills (see below).

Note that while this is all under urgency, no bill is being debated through all stages, therefore none will skip the select committee process.

The full list of bills to be debated is below. The links refer to each bill's information page on the Parliament website. On that page are further links to committee reports, advice and submissions; to video and Hansard reports of any debates so far; and to the actual legislation.

Notes

Some of these bills are contentious (especially early on the list).

This may be the first urgency this parliamentary term where the bills have been ordered with a somewhat tactical mindset. It's taken a surprisingly long time for this to happen.

After Question Time, Speaker Gerry Brownlee reminded Opposition MPs not to abuse their right to offer amendments during the Committee of the whole House (CwH) stage. He argued that the House's time was for debating, not for voting. A party-by-party vote on an amendment takes about one minute to conduct, so votes on many dozens of allowed amendments can add up.

The Speaker also requested that the government's ministers not dump substantive amendments on the CwH without much warning. Doing so reduces the MPs ability to engage in informed debate (and also often rules out tranches of proposed amendments).

It is feasible that these reminders both come from complaints made to the Speaker.

Regarding filibustering by amendment: Parliament's current rules have significantly diminished the use and effectiveness of repetitive, trivial or badly drafted amendments (which during some previous parliaments have arrived by the thousands). However, some current Opposition MPs have proved highly effective at ensuring bills are given their 'fullest possible deliberation' in the CwH (a.k.a. filibustering), without resorting to vast numbers of dross amendments.

This effectiveness must be frustrating for the unnecessarily large numbers of governing-coalition backbench MPs typically rostered to sit through, but barely participate in mind-numbing, snail-paced Committees of the Whole while sitting under urgency. Some previous oppositions have all but surrendered after some prolonged periods of urgency, allowing legislation to fly by.

It is just possible that the typically turgid pace might see some acceleration as progress is achieved through this week's legislation, due to a more tactical ordering of those bills.

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