The House

It was a sad day at Parliament on Thursday, with the news of the sudden death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp. Before adjourning, The House paid tribute to her in a number of speeches. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament's focus this week is debating numerous bills under urgency. Across recent parliaments the use of urgency and extra sittings has become so regular as to be almost normal. But it remains important to know what laws are being debated and agreed – at whatever speed.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The first item of business at Parliament this week was not Question Time, but a Ministerial Statement on the Middle East situation.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

On the Sunday Edition of the House you can hear an interview with Lawrence Xu-Nan about Scrutiny Week and the preparation necessary. You can also listen to a description of a few of the Q&A tactics observed in the scrutiny hearings. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Scrutiny week is partly information-sharing and partly a partisan bear-pit. When Parliament undertakes governance of governments there are always tactics and politics involved. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Foreign Affairs is a portfolio that Winston Peters often receives bi-partisan congratulations on. In an otherwise adversarial scrutiny week, his hearing with the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee had a bastion of amicability and trust.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This week at Parliament is Estimates Scrutiny week, when Ministers face Select Committees to defend their budget plans. We talk with Green MP, Lawrence Xu-Nan, a star scrutiny performer from last time round. As a former academic and one of a number of MPs with a PhD, Xu-Nan has the brutal research experience that is surely useful for digging into something as labyrinthine and esoteric as a budget.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

For electorate M Ps, weekends are generally spent in the community meeting constituents. The House popped into a morning tea Q&A hosted by Matt Doocey. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament and the Courts are different branches of our democracy. On Thursday, during the debate on MP punishments they overlapped.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The Government had three things on its to-do list for the week. It managed... some of them, including the one that allows its own continued survival. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This week the Health Committee heard oral submissions on the Government's Medicines Amendment Bill, which speeds up the approvals process for medication. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament, with an early history saturated in alcohol, has had no in-house bar at all for months. It seems almost no-one even noticed. The new bar, Pint of Order, has now opened and its dinky size may show just how much Parliament has changed.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The House chats with two long serving MPs to get some insight into some of the political strategy behind member’s billsGo to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

After the first few speeches of the Budget Debate, the House knuckled down for a long and jam-packed dose of urgency. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The opening stanzas of a new budget begin in quiet formality, but get loud and political quickly. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The House sits down with Clerk Assistant James Picker to chat through the Budget process and what you can expect to see in the House on the day. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The highly anticipated debate on the report of the privileges committee only lasted for about 25 minutes before it was cut short by a surprise adjournment motion. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Former Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand talks about the role’s interlinked relationship with Parliament and the Executive, and as a guardrail for democracy.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament's Speaker, Gerry Brownlee spoke to MPs on Thursday about the Privileges Committee's unprecedented recommendations for punishing Te Pāti Māori MPs. His response was telling. We decode his comments. Note: A slip of the tongue in this episode causes MP Duncan Webb to be renamed Duncan Green. Apologies. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The commitments that public organisations are subject to under treaty settlements are being treated like transactions, not relationships, says Auditor-General John Ryan, who briefed the Māori Affairs Committee on the issue this week. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Last week the Government announced that they wouldn't be introducing a new independent redress system for survivors of abuse in state care. This week they had the task of defending that position from a barrage of Opposition criticism during an urgent debate. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This Sunday edition of the House is a compilation of the week's reporting, including: coverage of the Government's surprise Equal Pay Amendment Bill, and the farewell of retiring Labour journeyman David Parker. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

After two decades in Parliament, Labour's David Parker is leaving politics. The House looks at some of the highlights of his valedictory statement made on Wednesday this week. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The Equal Pay Amendment Bill wasn't in the Government's initially released plan for Parliament's week. It was included at the eleventh hour. It's late arrival, it's urgent passing, and its intent all caused anger in the House.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Returning from three weeks on recess, MPs' first business was a motion in honour of a pope. Speeches were a little more honest, and a little more heartfelt than typical. Especially one of them. And it may have included Parliament's first Hail Mary that wasn't a political desperation move. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament’s select committees are well known. But the public never gets to watch the Cabinet committees, which all policies go through before reaching Parliament. Louis Collins chats with the Deputy Leader of the House, National Party MP Louise Upston, to understand what happens in the sub-committees which are Cabinet's workhorses. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Other nations are experiencing the erosion of democratic norms – even authoritarianism. Is our constitution strong enough to withstand it?Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Peter Boshier says the public can rest assured that there is an enduring institution fighting for fairness and accountability. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This Sunday edition of the House is a compilation of the week's reporting, including: a Question Time naughtiness scavenger hunt, the Annual Review debate on Health, and the very unusual death of a Government bill — the Treaty bill. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Members' bills die ugly deaths regularly, but I can find no record in recent history of a government bill sent into the House to suffer the indignity of a negative vote. It was either unusually masochistic or the outcome of poor political judgement. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Despite this years' budget only a month away, the Government still have t's to cross i's to dot in regard to spending from previous years. The annual review debate is the final stage in that very long process. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Arguments, inferences, imputations, epithets, ironical expressions, or expressions of opinion. It's not a lost verse from The Sound of Music's 'My Favourite Things'. It's a partial list of things Question Time questions cannot include. There are also some must-haves; and separate requirements for answers. The House goes on a scavenger hunt, to find examples inside one Question Time.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament’s Privileges Committee has been a major source of news over the last few weeks. What is privilege, and how does the committee typically work? ...and because this is a Sunday episode of the House, it also includes a replay of Wednesday's episode on leniency towards MPs 'schoolyard stupidity' during Question Time. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament has voted to allow the Justice Committee to continue processing submissions on the Treaty principles bill, even after the committee's work on the bill is finished. This will allow them to be collected along with the submissions that were considered by the committee as part of its report. We chat with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, David Wilson for background on the parliamentary rules and processes behind this move. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Nearly 25 years after the “corngate” saga of the early 2000s, the debate on Genetic Modification is back in New Zealand’s political consciousness thanks to the Gene Technology Bill, which is currently going through the select committee process. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Gerry Brownlee was a teacher when ‘the cane’ ruled the classroom. As Parliament’s Speaker, he is reluctant to reach beyond threats and pleas.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

After a select committee process that presented MPs with lots of constitutional questions, the Parliament Bill is back in the House.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The House chats with two MPs from the Parliament Bill Committee about some interesting suggestions from submitters - namely a Parliamentary Budget Office.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament spent much of this week debating bills under urgency. The Government can get more done in the House that way, but there is a trade-off in committees. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

MPs were welcomed back to this three week sitting block by more urgency, and a boisterous question time. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Parliament’s recent inquiry and debate on climate change adaptation asked small questions, looked short term and inched towards reactive solutions. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This Week, Parliament had the debate on the Budget Policy Statement, which gave us a few hints as to what we can expect come Budget Day on 22 May.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The Prime Minister’s much repeated claim that he “saved school lunches” because Labour "failed to fund them" is nonsense, and relies on us not understanding how budgets actually work. We analyse the claim, the reality, and the budget approach that allows the misinterpretation.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The first dose of Parliamentary urgency was dished out this week, to address a law that has fallen behind common practice.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This week, MPs got their first chance to debate on a new bill that would extend the three year parliamentary term to four years. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This week's legislative agenda began with the first reading of a bill that enables congestion charging in our cities. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Before MPs got down to debating legislation this week, they spent time debating the resignation last week of National Party minister, Andrew Bayly. Responses ranged from nothing-to-see-here to what-aren't-they-telling-us.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Political voices have become very familiar since the beginning of radio, but they haven’t always sounded the same. Listen to 14 former Prime Ministers (and one Speaker) from 1912 to 1990. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

While they didn't turn up in an Aston Martin, the heads of New Zealand's spy agencies, the GCSB and the NZSIS came to Parliament this week to give MPs, media, and the public a rare glimpse into New Zealand's intelligence community. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Some debates at Parliament are a bit monochromatic, but not many. In most policy areas the best descriptor is 'it’s complicated'. The problem will be complicated, any worthwhile solutions, complicated; the politics lying between the problem and a solution... complicated. And few things are more complicated than a topic debated this week – criminal justice sentencing. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details