The other 51 MPs are selected from the party lists. Parliament's decisions affect all New Zealanders. Have your say and influence the laws passed by Parliament. You can get involved by voting in elections, contacting an MP, making a submission or petitioning Parliament. I wonder whether members would bear with me so I can advise them of its thoughts on how the Committee on this bill might progress tonight. First, the Business Committee was hopeful that we might get to the stage of starting to vote tonight, in which case the Committee needs to understand that, provided there is no closure motion, we can pause at 9.
So nobody needs to fear that we will be here until midnight, if we commence the voting close to 10 p. That is the first point. The second point is that some discussion took place, and the member in charge of the bill, with the assistance of the Clerks and one or two members, such as Stephen Franks, has put around a schedule of the voting procedure. The Business Committee recommended that be done.
That recommendation has been followed, its purpose being to get some sequence in the voting; otherwise we would be putting the question on all the Supplementary Order Papers, then going back and voting on the bill, and that did not make any sense. So there is still an opportunity for members who are interested to comment on it, if they want to, between now and when we vote.
I have had a glance through the sequence and it is common sense. It will follow an order, and some groupings have been done.
Finally, there was a suggestion that part of the problem we are having with the debate, given that we have 5-minute speaking slots, is that after members have spoken for 5 minutes, someone else takes the call, and then a member who has previously spoken and who does not feel that he or she has made a big enough contribution, wants to make a further call and seeks another 5 minutes. So progress is not being made, and it was suggested that it might be useful if members were able to take more than one 5-minute call so they could make their contribution without feeling bound to get up and make another speech.
