Kris Faafoi has stopped Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's frankly abysmal "lost luggage (but not really)" members bill eating up hours of Parliament's time. That's great ... but what will I do now for fun?
So, according to this Act Party press release:
Parliament’s time will no longer be consumed debating Matt Doocey’s member’s bill, as a Supplementary Order Paper put forward by ACT Leader David Seymour has passed, adding Mr Doocey’s bill to the broader Statutes Amendment Bill. The infamous ‘lost luggage’ bill was felled by Labour’s Kris Faafoi using the same technique.
Kris Faafoi's SOP is here, while the debate on the issue is here. Somewhat amusingly, it appears that New Zealand First's Mahesh Bindra nearly upset the whole applecart by accidentally objecting to the SOP (which would have led to it being defeated) - he had to quickly withdraw that objection or else become known as the man who made Parliament have to keep debating this nonsense!
Anyway, the upshot of the House (finally) agreeing to it is that rather than Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's frankly abysmal members bill - the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill - having to go through the entire legislative process of three readings plus select committee hearings, it'll fly onto the statute books when the Statute Amendment Bill receives its third reading vote.
From the perspective of good parliamentary lawmaking and the efficient usage of both legislative time and public money, this obviously is a good thing. Korako's Bill was a transparent attempt to clog up the members bill ballot in order to try and prevent politically challenging or embarrassing measures coming before the House. It had no redeeming legislative qualities whatsoever. It was cynical politics at its second worst (behind Murray McCully's claim that the Auditor General's finding that he isn't a criminal makes him a victim who ought to deserve our heartfelt sympathy).
Hooray for that, I guess. But by God was I going to have fun with my submission on this Bill, pointing out that not only did no-one involved in the airport business seem to see the issue as being a problem needing fixing, that airports already could do what Mr Korako claimed his bill would let them do, and that only one airport actually seems to hold the auctions the bill supposedly is meant to make easier to know about (and that airport isn't actually charged any money by the local newspaper for advertising it).
Now Kris Faafoi has taken that fun away from me. Meaning that I say, "boo Kris Faafoi. Boo to you!"