MANA in Parliament, 27-29 August 2013

Posted on September 4, 2013 by admin in Mana in Parliament

Government Bills heard under urgency

On Tuesday the government called for Parliament to go into urgency for the week. Sometimes urgency is called to push controversial bills through quickly. Other times, as with this week, it’s called so the government can speed through their policy programme by passing more bills into law. This week six bills were passed into law under urgency, including the:

  • Resource Management Reform Bill – which made changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) to make it easier for property developers to gain consents without having to take the requisite care and protection of the environment into account. MANA opposed the Bill all the way.
  • Bail Amendment Bill – where those with previous convictions will now need to prove they won’t offend on bail in order to get bail. This nonsensical ‘reverse burden of proof’ erodes the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and, as such, breaches the NZ Bill of Rights Act. The Bill continues the government’s get-tough-on-crime approach –an approach which has failed to reduce crime and keep communities safe wherever and whenever it’s been adopted. MANA also opposed this Bill all the way.
  • Patents Bill – the purpose of which was to modernise New Zealand’s patent laws in order to facilitate business growth. While there was undoubtedly a need to update the law in this area, MANA opposed the Bill at all stages in the House. Establishing a Māori advisory committee but without giving that committee the power to make binding recommendations to the Patents Commissioner completely failed to address Māori concerns about protecting mātauranga Māori or indigenous plants and animals from commercial exploitation. Interestingly, Labour, NZ First and the Greens supported the Bill as ‘good enough’ and only MANA and the Māori Party opposed it.

A number of first readings of bills were also heard under urgency, these included the:

  • Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) – the Bill will allow arrest warrants to be issued for persistent loan defaulters and for IRD to get borrower’s contact details from third parties, even if they’ve never defaulted on loan payments. The changes are too harsh so MANA opposed the Bill. Our position remains that the Student Loan Scheme Act should be abolished and for tertiary education to be free as it was prior to neo-liberal reforms of education in the late 1980s.
  • Animal Welfare Amendment Bill – the Bill makes some changes to strengthen the Animal Welfare Act including making it easier to enforce standards, although it could and should be strengthened further. MANA supported the Bill at first reading and will be very interested in what the public has to say in their submissions to the Primary Production select committee.
  • Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill – this Bill will mean that the partners of those committing DPB fraud will also be liable for prosecution and debt recovery by criminalising them too. The Bill will also increase MSD’s surveillance and debt recovery powers. MANA opposed the Bill because MSD already has extensive powers to investigate and recover benefit debt, making the Bill a waste of time. As pointed out in Bryan Bruce’s doco “Mind the Gap” on inequality screened on Thursday on TV3, there is up to 200x as much white collar fraud as benefit fraud and yet much more effort is already put into catching and prosecuting benefit fraud. The Bill normalises beneficiary bashing while keeping the spotlight firmly off the fact that benefit levels have been below the poverty line for the last 22 years – and that the government has done precious little to maintain or create decent paying part-time and/or full-time jobs for parents.

Honouring Māori in Parliament

We’ve been advised that the gallery of portraits of former Māori MPs in Parliament House is to be updated. Many visitors to Parliament have been thrilled to see their tūpuna and whanaunga represented there and it will be great to have this brought up to date.

Advocating on our behalf

Hone continues to be a great advocate in Parliament as the following interchange shows: Hone to a government Minister in the lift, arm over his shoulder – “So what right wing bullshit are you shoving down poor people’s throats today mate?”