Woodhouse Michael; Rurawhe AdrianHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I move That the words in the motion 14 October 2021" be deleted and replaced with "14 November 2021".It's not hyperbole to say that when democracy dies it dies slowly. It doesn't generally die by revolution; it dies by the thousands of little cuts into people's freedoms and the ability to have their say on the place's and Parliament's actions and laws. This is an outrageous motion and one which must be strongly rejected by this House. I hear the Minister talking about how reluctant he is to use this power—how reluctant he is and how reasonable and rare it is. Well frankly the words don't stack up with the reality. We have seen this on far too many occasions. Now I understand COVID provides a very very difficult backdrop for policy makers and lawmakers to be able to respond nimbly when the occasion warrants it. All parties in this House have supported urgent legislation in order to give what I think are situational extraordinary powers necessary and appropriate but limited in their scope. But to suggest that this Government has used them reasonably and rarely I think really stretches belief.We have a bill in front of us which is 43 pages long and is going to amend something like 17 pieces of legislation—Hon Simon Bridges: 17?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —17 Mr Bridges—and we're going to give the public of New Zealand who are affected by this 16 days fewer days than the number of Acts we're actually amending. The Minister says "Oh well we're going to give ourselves the power to sit when the House is sitting." The House won't be sitting; it's school holidays. Now that's no reason for the Finance and Expenditure Committee not to meet but he's giving himself powers he doesn't need and that's actually I think consistent with the theme of this Government.Now let's go into some of the significant amendments that I think warrant a much much longer consideration. I am absolutely amazed at the degree to which the Government is prepared to inject itself into the private property rights and contracting obligations through Schedule 5. I think a number of speakers—Mr Seymour others; Julie Anne Genter for goodness' sake has revealed what an interventionist socialist party she represents because this is without doubt a significant incursion into the private contracting rights of individuals. It's true: COVID has created an enormous amount of tension. My party has advocated for increases in rental supports for commercial rental lessees and lessors who are facing difficulty through these times. That's a better way to deal with this and I expect submitters to actually come and tell the Finance and Expenditure Committee just that. But I think we need to hear from legal scholars from constitutional lawyers from property lawyers from property owners lessees lessors. And we're going to do that in 16 days and actually pretend that the committee is able to give itself an ability to say "We listened carefully we reacted."? I find that incongruous and completely implausible in the extreme. It pays lip service to the select committee process to the parliamentary process and to democracy itself.And let's talk about democracy because there's a little thing in here called a local election and there're going to be many of them next year right across the country unless the Government doesn't want them. The Government has given itself the power to amend that notwithstanding—actually my understanding is that the Electoral Commission already has similar powers basic powers to suspend elections in an emergency. So I think there are some serious questions about the question of legislative overreach in the amendments to the Local Electoral Act 2001. It's not just one; they could do a few: "One or more further orders may be made under this section". Councils voters lobby groups will want to come and tell the Finance and Expenditure Committee what it thinks about those changes.As some colleagues have said there are some sensible necessary appropriate—albeit incredibly late—changes rendering this effectively retrospective legislation. Well if it was that retrospective one begs the question as to why it's taken the Government so long to bring this bill to the House and why it thinks it's appropriate for it to give itself and its officials and the Cabinet weeks months at least to prepare this and then give submitters 16 days and then to look the public in the eye and say that is consistent with good parliamentary process good democratic process. I frankly think that will massively fail any sort of test of consultation and of communication. I don't know how long—I would like to hear from a member on the other side if they can explain how long it's taken them to prepare this legislation because frankly if it took less than six months let's give the public the same respect. Let's give the public the same amount of time that they would need to give a considered response to what the Government believes is a considered bill.The Government has thousands of public servants dedicated to building a policy picture and framework that's informed this bill amending 17 separate pieces of legislation and the small industry groups the Property Council the people who support open democracy—there'll be any number of groups. Tenants' lobby groups support—what are they called?—the tenants' union I think. There's a number—in fact Ricardo Menéndez March may have been an employee of one of them. They won't have very much in the way of resources to be able to respond to these changes in a manner that gets them ready to make an intelligent articulate submission effectively by next week because that's when they'll have to hear them. If there's more than a handful of submissions what will the Finance and Expenditure Committee do? It will take them as read and not hear oral submissions or it will make those oral submissions so short as to render them effectively redundant. That's the lip service that we're paying to a process that is changing 17 pieces of legislation.Nobody who believes in good parliamentary process could possibly support that motion and so the sensible thing I think and the only thing that we can do is to give them a little more time. My motion has added another month on to the period for consideration.Hon Simon Bridges: That's more than reasonable. Should really be longer.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It's still not long enough—that's right Mr Bridges. I agree it should be longer but we're trying to find sensible solutions to a situation the Government has found itself in not of COVID's making but of its own making. We came out of lockdowns last year and not a single member of Government went "Gee maybe it could happen again." No they wanted to call themselves best in class leaders in the world front of the queue. They were too busy giving themselves plaudits and congratulations and pats on the back to actually go "What if this happens again? Have we got the legislative framework we need to be able to respond without that level of urgency?" Nobody asked that question. Well I'm asking it now and I think we should take at least 6½ weeks to be able to do that. That is why I have tabled this motion. It's the least we can do. It will at least give my colleagues who are actually pretty jaundiced about this bill—and we are supporting it on a very very fine basis. Unlikely if we're not going to get some decent answers to the questions that we have to continue to be able to support it and we're not going to be able to get those answers if we give just 16 days for the select committee to come back and tell this House what they found. This is an appalling process and it can't be supported.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the amendment be agreed to."