Latest news with #Wildlife(Authorisations)AmendmentBill
Otago Daily Times
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Govt says do be hasty
You may have had a bad week but it's probably nothing compared with the week Dunedin Labour MP Rachel Brooking has had. Ms Brooking has oscillated between outrage, anger, despair and disgust during the course of the past few days as the government took urgency to pass two Bills which she was deeply affronted by: the Equal Pay Amendment Bill and the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill. Ms Brooking's dudgeon was in equal parts: she took extreme exception to both the content of the Bills, and the manner in which each was passed in all stages by the government, under urgency. Before the House went into recess three weeks ago, no indication was given by the government that it intended to go into urgency, nor that it intended to rush through two such controversial pieces of legislation. Given the circumstances, the Opposition did rather well to keep argument on both law changes going for a couple of sitting days. Depending on which side of the House you sat on, the Equal Pay Amendment Bill was either an exercise in providing a better framework for assessing whether there was ''a sex-based undervaluation in remuneration in female-dominated occupations'', or a horrible and unfair piece of legislation. We know Ms Brooking is in camp B given those are her words, not mine. ''We are going to take every opportunity to try and amend this terrible legislation that we think is a disgrace,'' she added for good measure. Through Tuesday and Wednesday Ms Brooking took seven calls on the Bill (Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary and Dunedin Green list MP Francisco Hernandez were also often on their feet) teasing out the minutae of the Bill as only she can. ''Where the current legislation, back at 13F, has things that are included for consideration, and that happens at subsection (3) - it uses ''including'' - at subsections (1) and (2), it has to be everything; there are and's included,'' she said in part 2 of the committee stage, before going on to quite the discussion about the difference between ''view'' and ''views'' - any port in a filibuster storm. The Opposition was not just posturing here: they had a legitimate point to make, Whether you agree with the law change or not, whether you believe it was a cynical attempt to balance the government's books by deferring a contingent liability or not, it was a terrible use of urgency to pass the Bill in a matter of hours. Given the decades of struggle it has taken for the concept of pay equity to gain purchase, profound changes to the way the system of achieving it operates warranted full discussion from affected parties rather than this week's rush job. As a lawyer, Ms Brooking was understandably vexed by the entire process. Having fought in vain for 48 hours, Ms Brooking was back for more almost immediately, as the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill hoved into view. The Opposition had slightly more of an inclination that this one was coming, it being well publicised that the government had not been best pleased at a recent High Court decision that it was unlawful for the Department of Conservation to authorise the killing of wildlife unless there was a direct link between killing and protecting wildlife. Permissions had been given in the past for consented construction works, such as the Mt Messenger road in Taranaki, which occasioned this lawsuit. The government, fearful that its infrastructure building programme could be interfered with, has moved to reverse the court's findings. Having sat in the family station wagon many a time as a child as it scaled Mt Messenger Southern Say has some sympathy with those who want the road built, but the wider point that Ms Brooking and others were making against the Bill - that its clawback on protections for wildlife could be far-reaching and fraught with unintended consequences - was a reasonable one. This Bill is a stopgap before a much-needed overhaul of the antediluvian Wildlife Act, but given that tidy-up is likely many months away it may well be in force for some time, making it all the more important that a decent period of deliberation be taken to passing it. By lunchtime Thursday Ms Brooking was fed up to the back teeth with it all and let rip in her third-reading speech. ''I have tried over and over again to try and engage with the minister about how it is that the words in his Bill make sense, how it is that they don't contradict each other ... this Bill is a hot mess. I mean, it just shows the craziness of using urgency for all stages, particularly when the policy problem has only arisen recently, so there's clearly not been much time to develop that. ''That is why we are opposing this Bill. It is a dreadful process. The government doesn't know what it's doing, and shame on them.'' That is as may be, but it is now the law.
The Spinoff
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Echo Chamber: Winston Peters still wants to know what a woman is
Wednesday's question time saw our MPs discuss women, wildlife and… what was that? Something about NZ Music Month? Only 3.2% of The Spinoff's readership supports us financially. We need to grow that to 4% this year to keep creating the work you love. Please sign up to be a member today. Sitting under urgency this week in light of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, parliament has had its mind stuck on a particularly large set of voters: women – their work, their protections in the workplace, how much they're worth, how they've compared themselves to men. But, how could the opposition possibly accuse the government of undermining women if there is no legal definition for these beings? Much to think about. So – given everything – it made sense for National backbencher Nancy Lu to be the first to speak during Wednesday's question time and ask some cosy questions intended for her fellow female colleague, Nicola Willis. But the finance minister was nowhere to be seen – until she walked into the chamber halfway through her cabinet colleague Paul Goldsmith speaking for her, saying something about 'fiscal discipline'. Willis ran-walked to her desk, while everyone around her roared with laughter – half the chamber with her, the other half at her. Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who often has the energy of a school kid desperate to remind the teacher there was homework due, shot to his feet to raise a point of order. Mr Speaker, he began, we seem to be in a perilous position – I have never seen in my 17 years in this House a minister speaking on behalf of another minister who has now shown up. So now what? No, there's no need for this, the minister is now in the House and is thus able to answer her own questions, Hipkins was told. 'We could go on for a long time,' Brownlee remarked. Hipkins is the kind of man to take that as an invitation, rather than a warning, but instead he gave in. Willis took over. But when Lu asked what it might take for the government to achieve its fiscal strategy, the opposition benches beat the minister to it. 'Showing up on time!' Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni cried. 'Taking off women!' With Christopher Luxon out of town, Winston Peters played acting prime minister and assured Hipkins that, 'with the usual caveats', he did 'most certainly' stand by the government's actions. He also most certainly didn't accept Hipkins' assertion that changes to the pay equity process would be a balancing of the books at the expense of women workers, especially when the opposition leader should be more concerned about 'what a woman is'. 'Is his definition of a woman someone who gets paid less than a man?' Hipkins pressed. Still in the process of being passed under urgency this week is the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill, which would retrospectively authorise the 'incidental killing of wildlife that inevitably occurs during the carrying out of otherwise lawful activities' (as is the official line). The bill comes on the back of a recent High Court ruling that the Department of Conservation had acted unlawfully in allowing Waka Kotahi to kill protected species while building a Taranaki highway. An attempted sleight of hand on Peters by the Greens co-leader Marama Davidson, questioning how long the government had given the public to submit on the bill, had caught out the wrong person. That was a question better suited for the select committee, not the prime minister, Brownlee told her. 'There isn't one,' Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick reminded the speaker. 'It's under urgency.' But Peters was willing to answer anyway: 'Long enough for us to come up with some very sound, practical and workable legislation.' And anyway, Peters declared, Davidson's concerns about the Department of Conservation now having to meet these new expectations would be softened if she just asked everyone around the country to put their hands up and volunteer for the agency, and they definitely wouldn't mind not being paid for it. The suggestion had Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi in stitches, the two barely holding themselves together as they convulsed with laughter behind their desks. Would they just be women volunteers, Waititi suggested. Nearly 45 minutes of question time had passed before the workplace relations minister Brooke van Velden, who made it her task to update the pay equity scheme ahead of the budget, was questioned in the House. Labour's Jan Tinetti wondered if the minister agreed with NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan that the act's amendments and the process of passing them under urgency were 'deeply wrong?' No, van Velden said, she didn't care for Coughlan's reckons – she had another well-respected journalist on her side: Mike Hosking. Just the mention of his name sent the opposition benches spiralling with laughter, and the speaker asked van Velden to hold off on quoting the Newstalk ZB host until 'the excitement settles down'. Hosking had praised Kristine Bartlett – a 'hero' and 'very likeable woman' – whose activism transformed the Equal Pay Act into what it was. But then the feelings-obsessed Labour Party leapt all over it, and now mechanics were being compared to rest home workers, and someone ought to do something, he reckoned. 'That's why Brooke van Velden has announced pay equity is going to be, quite rightly, tipped up and sorted out,' van Velden finished. At the end of the session, Brownlee gave Goldsmith an opportunity to shout out one of his own portfolios, one oft championed by the government already: arts and culture (and heritage). Goldsmith seemed surprised anyone had even noticed the pin on his lapel – it's NZ Music Month, he replied, and that is the badge I am wearing. 'I thought you could say something more than that!' Brownlee scoffed. Meanwhile, Swarbrick threw her hands up in the air in disbelief of the minister's ignorance. Her hands flailed above her head, ran through her hair and dragged down her face as Brownlee offered Goldsmith two more chances to let parliament know that there was in fact an NZ Music Month event happening in the building within a matter of hours, and members were welcome to attend. It must have been a frustrating session to be the Greens co-leader – alongside union members and environmentalists, musicians make up the other third of Swarbrick's voter base.
