Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
The bills Parliament considers that are heavily reported by the media are generally the most contentious, the most impactful or the most far-reaching, with special emphasis on the most contentious.
Bills that generate little animosity get little attention. Bills that will have scant impact receive scant love. And bills with a geographical reach that is negligible, get about that much coverage. As a result, it is easy to assume that all the things Parliament does are big and important.
But sometimes Parliament manages the triple-whammy – a bill that everyone agrees on, which has negligible impact, and is also incredibly specific. So let’s break with tradition look at it.
This is especially true of two less common types of law: the unusual ‘local bills’ and the rare, and highly specific ‘private bills’. These bills can be brought to the House for debate by any MP and each has a very specific impact. Local bills have a geographically specific impact, while private bills deal with a specific thing, an organisation, group, trust, charity, church, or even a specific person.
The topics can be so unlikely that they might be accidentally mistaken for a lacklustre political spoof. On Wednesday for example, the House spent more than an hour on third reading speeches for a bill with an encompassing name – the Auckland Harbour Board and Takapuna Borough Council Empowering Act Amendment Bill, but that affected just one single building.
It was not riveting stuff. The MP in charge was National’s Simon Watts, who-whether intended ironically or not-rather grandly announced, “This is a moment we have all been waiting for”.
The bill had an admirable purpose – fixing an issue with the ongoing costs and rental income for a community asset; but why did such a local issue need to be debated and passed by the House?
It was a fault of history. As always, history has a lot to answer for.
Heritage drafting meets modern needs
The background for many modern local and private bills is very similar – fixing problems caused by historic legal drafting.
Local organisations (including local government ones), are sometimes brought into being, empowered, or had constitutions enacted under specific legislation, written and passed by Parliament just for them. That includes many things like clubs, churches, amenities, and charities. Even patches of land or parks. That kind of empowering legislation used to be more common many decades ago, but does still happen.
Unfortunately drafters are not prophetic seers, and the very specific rules and purposes included in these old laws inevitably cause issues over time. Now, when such an organisation wants to act outside its early restrictions they need Parliament to amend the original law.
Let’s consider this week’s example. The 1923 Harbour Board etcetera law in question included stipulations for the use of a waterside property. Community activities like swimming and watersports were allowed but private gain was specifically outlawed. Just three years later, it became the Takapuna Boating Club but has since fallen into disrepair because it isn’t able to raise money, for example from a café, to help cover maintenance costs.
And so a new bill was required to carefully loosen those constraints. As Simon Watts noted during the debate: “It is important that while we preserve the community purpose, we don’t pass a law that ends up being too restrictive in the future, meaning that another North Shore MP in a hundred years from now will have to come back and lament on the old laws that we’re doing right now.”
That may all seem bizarrely specific and trivial, but it is, sadly, not unusual. Many local (and especially private) bills only exist to fix archaic legislation. In doing so they offer MPs a debate that is refreshingly amicable and without the usual layers of import and consequence. With so little at stake Parliament can be almost fun.
Debating everything and very little
This debate had MPs reminiscing about beach days, eulogising Sir Peter Blake and talking of plans to play Mahjong at the club. Simon Watts revealed his caucus referred to the bill as the “Takapuna Ice Cream Bill”. Cameron Brewer suggested the bill’s sponsor would get a weekend ticker tape parade through Takapuna’s shopping thoroughfare.
There were many oddities, but the highlight may have been ACT MP Simon Court enthusing like an awestruck fan over a dreamy possibility. “I would suggest to the member Mr Steve Abel, who spoke before, that on top of mahjong, there might even be a venue where he might be able to play some of his famous songs that he composed when he was a famous New Zealand folk singer.”
In the Speaker’s chair, National’s Barbara Kuriger chortled, “One never knows where one’s endorsements might come from”.
The slightly breathless nature of the debate was helped along by the fact that National Party MPs seemed keen to make it last as long as possible, because they weren’t in favour of some member’s bills due to be debated afterwards. Governing party MPs get very little exercise in extemporising in the House about so very little. For example, Cameron Brewer’s speech seemed to dawdle over every topic he could think of vaguely connected with the locality, including ice cream, cafés, local magazines and long-past America’s Cups. He was not alone in the approach. When he finally concluded, Labour’s Phil Twyford took the next call: “Well, the member Cameron Brewer did well to remain on his feet for nine minutes and 48 seconds, but it came at a terrible human cost. Those of us in the House this afternoon – we’re the living evidence of that.”
*RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcast at RNZ.
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