Table of Contents
David Seymour
ACT Leader
The Government has wasted more than $4 million dollars of taxpayers’ money this term asking itself questions about things as banal as what reports Grant Robertson’s received.
Yesterday, Leader of the House Chris Hipkins accused ACT of wasting taxpayer’s money by raising questions to tease out how the Regulatory Standards Bill would improve the standard of lawmaking in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Labour has got its backbench MPs to ask Labour Ministers 270 questions this term. That’s around 783 minutes of Parliament time at a cost of $4.287 million.
For Labour to accuse ACT of wasting House time is the worst kind of hypocrisy when there were 28 questions to Finance Minister Grant Robertson about what reports he’s seen on the economy. Those questions alone have cost taxpayers $444,651.
There were 11 questions from a backbencher called Duncan Webb to Grant Robertson on what reports he’s seen on the economy which has cost an estimated $174,684.
Grant Robertson was once even asked, “What reports has he received about questions to him about reports he has received about the state of the New Zealand economy?”
ACT’s Regulatory Standards Bill would require politicians and bureaucrats to ask and answer the right questions before making any law or regulation. It would allow any citizen to seek a court declaration that a law or regulation is inconsistent with good lawmaking.
At present, there is no penalty for poor lawmaking, and New Zealanders pay an enormous price as a result. I hope MPs gained an insight yesterday into the value of this important Bill and will vote for it at First Reading.
Note: calculations are based on the below spreadsheet and assume an Oral Question takes an average of just under 3 minutes. The spreadsheet can be found here.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD
