Mallard lashes Labour on urgency

Trevor Mallard had a bit of a lash at the Government in the adjournment debate over its use of urgency. He noted:

There’s been very nearly 30 hours of urgency and I want to make the point that probably having 28 hours of urgency was unnecessary if proper organisation and planning had occurred.

So the Speaker is saying 90% of the use of urgency was unnecessary if the Government had been more competent and planned ahead.

I want to say that there were only four hours of extended sittings, which, in my view, is a wasted opportunity to give better consideration of bills.

That’s also a damning stat. The Government can automatically take four hours of extended sitting a week, so could do 120 hours. And they only took four. National did masses of extended sittings to progress Treaty bills and other non controversial bills.

The almost total lack of extended sittings (which were meant to replace urgency) again shows how hopeless the Government has been in having a legislative programme. On several occasions they’ve had to filibuster their own bills as they weren’t ready for the next bil!