Points of Order — 50th Parliament—StatisticsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePoints of Order — 50th Parliament—Statistics[Sitting date: 31 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19791. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Thursday 31 July 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Points of Order50th Parliament—StatisticsHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Normally at this time there would be a business statement from the Government but given that Parliament is about to conclude its business for the session I thought it might be useful to give the House one or two statistics in an effort for the House to congratulate itself on the hard work it has done over the last 3 years. This Parliament has seen a total of 236 bills introduced including 45 members’ bills five local bills and four private bills. As a tribute to the Opposition there have been some 38297 questions for written answer produced over this term. Although I said that that was a tribute it does make me wonder what those members were doing in the afternoons. But there were also 2813 questions for oral answer. Those questions were answered extremely well and competently by all Government Ministers to the satisfaction of the Opposition.Most important though there has over a number of years been quite a growing degree of dissatisfaction about the use of urgency. If this term has been typified it is by the much-reduced use of urgency. Over the whole term there has been about 127 hours of urgency where in fact often the clock did not go past the normal rising time. But importantly the extended hours provision which was part of the Standing Orders for the first time this time round—and I make this statement so that people understand it it is when the whole House agrees that extra hours can be taken largely for bills that are seeing agreement from all sides of the House in most cases—Hon Trevor Mallard: Not the whole House.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well not the whole House. No you cannot hope for everything. But what we have seen is 110 hours and 44 minutes of those extended hours sessions. I think that quite frankly the whole House should be quite proud of the way that has developed. It has been an interesting 3 years and as we head forward I am sure that in about 2 or 3 months’ time there will be more business statements of legislative substance for the House of the day to consider. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):I want to thank the Leader of the House for those statistics and thank him for his leadership of the Business Committee with you Mr Speaker in terms of making sure that things run relatively smoothly in the House. I just wanted to ask one question. He mentioned a figure of 33000 written questions. Could he give the figures for people other than Trevor Mallard’s questions as well please and also whether any of those questions have received an answer at all?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):Well the member sort of outs us a bit here because the actual total number was 38297. So he mentions 33000. Perhaps that balance is what everyone else was doing.Mr SPEAKER: I thank both members for their contribution and for giving me 3½ hours to further consider my remarks at the close of the adjournment debate.