Ms Brooking has oscillated between outrage, anger, despair and disgust during the course of the past few days as the government took urgency to pass two Bills which she was deeply affronted by: the Equal Pay Amendment Bill and the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill.
Before the House went into recess three weeks ago, no indication was given by the government that it intended to go into urgency, nor that it intended to rush through two such controversial pieces of legislation. Given the circumstances, the Opposition did rather well to keep argument on both law changes going for a couple of sitting days.
Depending on which side of the House you sat on, the Equal Pay Amendment Bill was either an exercise in providing a better framework for assessing whether there was ‘‘a sex-based undervaluation in remuneration in female-dominated occupations’’, or a horrible and unfair piece of legislation. We know Ms Brooking is in camp B given those are her words, not mine.
‘‘We are going to take every opportunity to try and amend this terrible legislation that we think is a disgrace,’’ she added for good measure.
Through Tuesday and Wednesday Ms Brooking took seven calls on the Bill (Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary and Dunedin Green list MP Francisco Hernandez were also often on their feet) teasing out the minutae of the Bill as only she can.
‘‘Where the current legislation, back at 13F, has things that are included for consideration, and that happens at subsection (3) - it uses ‘‘including’’ - at subsections (1) and (2), it has to be everything; there are and’s included,’’ she said in part 2 of the committee stage, before going on to quite the discussion about the difference between ‘‘view’’ and ‘‘views’’ - any port in a filibuster storm.
The Opposition was not just posturing here: they had a legitimate point to make, Whether you agree with the law change or not, whether you believe it was a cynical attempt to balance the government’s books by deferring a contingent liability or not, it was a terrible use of urgency to pass the Bill in a matter of hours.
Given the decades of struggle it has taken for the concept of pay equity to gain purchase, profound changes to the way the system of achieving it operates warranted full discussion from affected parties rather than this week’s rush job. As a lawyer, Ms Brooking was understandably vexed by the entire process.
Having fought in vain for 48 hours, Ms Brooking was back for more almost immediately, as the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill hoved into view.
The Opposition had slightly more of an inclination that this one was coming, it being well publicised that the government had not been best pleased at a recent High Court decision that it was unlawful for the Department of Conservation to authorise the killing of wildlife unless there was a direct link between killing and protecting wildlife.
Permissions had been given in the past for consented construction works, such as the Mt Messenger road in Taranaki, which occasioned this lawsuit. The government, fearful that its infrastructure building programme could be interfered with, has moved to reverse the court’s findings.
Having sat in the family station wagon many a time as a child as it scaled Mt Messenger Southern Say has some sympathy with those who want the road built, but the wider point that Ms Brooking and others were making against the Bill - that its clawback on protections for wildlife could be far-reaching and fraught with unintended consequences - was a reasonable one.
This Bill is a stopgap before a much-needed overhaul of the antediluvian Wildlife Act, but given that tidy-up is likely many months away it may well be in force for some time, making it all the more important that a decent period of deliberation be taken to passing it.
By lunchtime Thursday Ms Brooking was fed up to the back teeth with it all and let rip in her third-reading speech.
‘‘I have tried over and over again to try and engage with the minister about how it is that the words in his Bill make sense, how it is that they don’t contradict each other ... this Bill is a hot mess. I mean, it just shows the craziness of using urgency for all stages, particularly when the policy problem has only arisen recently, so there’s clearly not been much time to develop that.
‘‘That is why we are opposing this Bill. It is a dreadful process. The government doesn’t know what it’s doing, and shame on them.’’
That is as may be, but it is now the law.
