Mr Peters unhappy with M.P.s’ hours

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 7

Mr Peters unhappy with M.P.s’ hours

PA Tauranga The parliamentary year should be split into two sessions to allow more time for legislation to be properly drafted, says the member of Parliament for Tauranga, Mr Winston Peters.

The change also would give members of Parliament more time in their electorates, he said today. Parliament broke for the summer recess last Friday after sitting for 157 days or nearly 1060 hours, the longest session on record.

Mr Peters envisaged one session could be held during summer and autumn and the other from late winter into spring. He said the system of sitting for three weeks then having one week off, introduced by the Government this year, had not worked. “It was designed to give members of Parliament more time in their electorates,” he said. “But the moment a break is announced the time is then taken up with select committee and caucus committee work.”

Mr Peters said the changes were also meant to have brought about time for more considered deliberation of legislation.

But the number of bills carried over had still led to a backlog of work and an end-of-year rush to push through legislation, he said. “The new system was fine in theory but has not worked out in practice. At the moment the system is not giving members of Parliament a fair go with their constituents.”

Mr Peters said he was able to see people in his electorate three Mondays out of four and at weekends.

“But taken up with this are visits to various places and speeches,” he said.

The electorate also suffered because of the work members of Parliament had to put into select committees and caucus committees.

Mr Peters said sittings in the House of Representatives took up three days of the week. Committee meetings took up the rest of the time.