An exciting and historic week in the House after Prime Minister, John Key, announces his intention to resign after eight years. Speaker grants an urgent debate on the announcement on Tuesday and speculation on his successor dominates Wednesday’s General Debate and Question Times. Debate on Members Bills on Wednesday sees two from Government MPs survive their first reading debates and being referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee and three from Opposition MPs all being denied a first reading by the same margin – the sixty-three of National, the Maori Party, United Future and ACT defeating the fifty-seven of Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First. The five vacancies created on the members order paper were filled by five more members bills drawn in the ballot the next day. On the government’s ticket, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill and the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill were read a third time. Then, resuming in extended time at nine ay em on Wednesday, although in Parliamentary time still in Tuesday, the House passed the Rangitane o Manawatu Claims Settlement Bill and the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. After Question Time on Thursday, the House took a break from dealing with the aftershocks of John Key’s imminent departure and returned to the Government’s legislation in response to the massive seven-point-eight magnitude quake on November the fourteenth, The adjournment on Thursday at just after five pee em came at the end of the third and final reading of the Hurunui/Kaikoura Earthquakes Recovery Bill, the third measure in the Government’s response to the Kaikoura Earthquake.
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