Govt faces law backlog in spite of new system

Press, 2 November 1985, Page 18

Govt faces law backlog in spite of new system

By

PATRICIA HERBERT,

in Wellington

To the Chief Government Whip, Dr Michael Cullen, falls the task of squashing Labour’s ambitious legislative programme into the constraints of Parliamentary procedure. Coupled with this, he has to supervise the adjustment to new Standing Orders which, while they have done much to streamline the process, have failed to deliver real efficiency. With 21 sitting days left before Christmas — and seven of them reserved for private members’ business — Dr Cullen has only 14 days at his disposal and at least 16 bills in the pipeline. Little of that legislation has to pass this year and much of it is non-controversial, but there are some significant exceptions. Dr Cullen says it is important that the Goods and Services Tax law is in place before the House rises on December 19 and that it would be “nice” if rape law reform, the Treaty of Waitangi amendment, the repeal of the National Development Act, the Commerce Bill, and the Hospital Amendment Bill were also through. Then there is the Fair Trading Bill and the anti-nuclear bill, both of which are to be introduced this year. If the squeeze is on, Dr Cullen says Parliament could meet for a couple of weeks early next February then “close shop” before the formal opening of the new session by the Queen on February 26. Meanwhile, he expects some

midnight sittings under the new urgency rules. Standing Orders were reformed this year in a package which included the three weeks on-one week off roster, the reduction in the number of sitting days each week from four to three, and the cutting of the estimates debate from 16 days to 13; but the changes might have been more far-reach-ing and a lot was left unchanged, notably in the Address-in-Reply and Budget debates.

The amount of time devoted to these set pieces creates a bottleneck for the legislative work of the Government and is largely responsible for the present back-log. Dr Cullen would have preferred a more radical reform. “Speaking personally, I think it is a total waste of time having 13 days on estimates,” he says. “Very little is gained from public scrutiny of the Government’s financial programme and very little is Sained in terms of publicity for the ipposition. “I was surprised they held out so strongly for such a long debate. It is not a good platform for an Opposition. It is mucky, brutal, noisy — everything in the Hobbesian State of Nature except short." He would also “heavily truncate” the committee stages of legislation in the House. He says this has largely lost its purpose now that bills are automatically referred to a select committee where the job can be done far better and in a more rational

atmosphere. He says -.that the Opposition argued vehemently that its ability to delay was one of the few weapons it had and that it should be allowed to use it. He thinks the argument misses the point. The duty of an Opposition is to be seen to fight a measure it disapproves for as long as possible and it matters not whether that time has a five-hour limit or a 25-hour limit, he says. While these factors have contributed largely to the log jam, there are others. The first is that a new Government tends to generate more legislation and inevitably puts a strain on the system. The second is that everyone is still adjusting to the new regime. “You can’t exit from a pattern that has been there for years to a new one within the space of a few months,” Dr Cullen says. “I think it will take another couple of years before the whole legislative timetable has adjusted to the new Parliamentary timetable. “We have built up a practice of bills being drafted in the early part of the year, being introduced and then being crammed through before the end of the year with some flopping over. "Partly because of the shortage of Parliamentary counsel staff, it will be a long time before we get a much more even flow over the whole three-year term. It should be seen as a continuous process," says Dr Cullen.: