Delaying Tactics
Good on Tariana Turia for walking out on Labour’s childish filibuster. She also strongly opposes the bill, but clearly knows that there is a strong line between making a protest and wasting government time. Labour thoroughly crossed this line yesterday.
Their are only two rational reasons to filibuster. The first is to protest a bill when there is no other effective means of protesting it’s passage. This is normally the province of small parties who wish to make their point clear. The filibustering is usually short, usually enough to delay rather than obstruct. The second reason is to try and delay a bill passed the end of parliament. National attempted this with the ETS, knowing that, if they won the election, they would certainly have to completely revise or scrap the bill.
Apparently Labour is simply using the filibuster to protest urgency. They are down on record as supporting the concept of an Auckland Supercity, so they are not really rejecting the bill – just it’s speed through parliament. They could have made their point with a half a dozen amendments (preferably the sensible ones they really wished to debate). Unfortunately they chose to be childish instead.
So why is National using urgency again? My theory is that there are certain laws (90-day probation and this one) that are likely to generate a great deal of political opposition (rather than grass roots opposition like the anti-smacking bill). National strategy for these seems to be to push them through as early and fast as possible so that, by the time of the 2011 elections, the memory of their passage is distant. This tactic will only work if the bills do not have large negative unintended consequences. It is a risky strategy because it could come back to bite them nastily in 2011. It could also be a big win if it works. Sounds very John Key to me.
Of course, if it works well, then National can point to Labour’s filibustering and show them up to be the silly fools they are.
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- Meanwhile back in the real world . . . « Homepaddock — [...] With a hat tip to Macdoctor I see that Tariana Turia walked out of the debating chamber yesterday because ...
May 16 09 12:08 pm
Unlike the silly fools who filibusted the Electoral Finance Bill when it was under urgency without select committee hearings.
May 16 09 12:26 pm
Well it is a total misuse of the Maori language, she was spot on on those grounds, which is why she did it I’m sure.
But for the rest, its just politics as usual, National have done it in the past and no doubt will again in the future
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May 16 09 1:07 pm
Will: Unlike the silly fools who filibusted the Electoral Finance Bill when it was under urgency without select committee hearings.
If I recall correctly, National and Act did propose large numbers of amendments to the EFB. They were mostly reasonable amendments, though some were, indeed, trivial. King accused them of filibustering, but I am not sure she was right. The EFB was so badly formed, it needed multiple amendments.
The EFB was not put through under urgency, although the repeal was.
For the record, I am not arguing against filibustering as a political technique, just pointing out that this obvious overuse is childish and achieves nothing.
May 16 09 2:19 pm
Interesting that one of the reasons Tariana walked out was she was concerned about wasting constituency time. Once more she shows the Maori Party is more concerned about people while Labour is concerned about politics.
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