Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
MPs may well be cranky after debates under urgency continued until about 1.40am this morning - resuming again at 9am.
The House continues a packed agenda as the government tries to clear through legislation before the end of the year.
When Parliament is under urgency, sittings usually conclude at midnight.
But when amendments are being voted on in the Committee of the Whole House stage of a bill, the session cannot stop until the amendments have been dealt with.
The opposition putting forward more than 200 amendments on the Electoral Amendment Act - which makes several changes to election rules - was therefore what kept MPs going into the early hours.
Labour's Greg O'Connor was in the Speaker's chair and patiently kept things running.
"No doubt to the great disappointment of the house, the time has come for me to leave the chair. The house will resume at 9am tomorrow," he said.
Labour's acting Justice spokesperson Vanushi Walters said she had heard the opposition put up about 190 amendments on the bill, which were all voted down by the government.
"We voted on part one last night - that took us almost to 2am - and then we continued the debate this morning for an additional two hours so in total we were scrutinizing the bill under Committee of the Whole for seven hours and 40 minutes.
She said it was "quite extraordinary, but then these are extraordinary changes that this government is making" because the changes would disenfranchise thousands, and affect hundreds of thousands of people.
"We're feeling very determined on our side. I mean, the government is passing atrocious or attempting to pass atrocious legislation, and we're determined to scrutinize that at every opportunity."
The remaining pieces of legislation on Friday also includes pushing a climate targets bill through all stages - a process that will take significant time - as well as changes to overseas investment national interest tests, and a re-committal of the committee stage of a bill adding two extra judges.
If not all dealt with, sittings will continue on Saturday - potentially until midnight - or whenever voting on amendments concludes.
Urgent sittings this week have seen the government extend RMA consents, backtrack on controversial changes to the fast-track regime, and pass changes to the rules for pig farming.
Procedural clash over Crimes Amendment
On Wednesday, the government put changes to the Crimes Act through a first reading.
It would add stronger penalties for "coward" punches, attacking first responders, human trafficking, and retail crime, but provisions giving retailers the power to hand out shoplifting fines were included in a separate amendment paper.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith had to request the select committee also consider the paper adding those details - kicking off a further 40 minutes of debate.
"They have rushed this through to the extent where they haven't even fully included what they intended to put in the bill. It is extraordinary," Labour's Kieran McAnulty argued.
"The minister should be embarrassed. Why on earth didn't he do his job in the first place and make sure that the things he wanted to propose were included in the bill?"
A spokesperson for Goldsmith noted the amendment paper was introduced the same day the bill was, and said the infringement regime could not be handled at the same time because it was not closely related enough.
"The Crimes Amendment Bill could not have been an omnibus bill because, per standing order 267, it is required that there is 'an interrelated topic that can be regarded as implementing a single broad policy'.
"The Office of the Clerk was firm in that 'strengthening consequences for crime' was not specific enough and that there is no single broad policy, in their view, across these proposals."
The Clerk had suggested the amendment paper was the simplest way to add the amendments without having to pass a whole separate bill.
However, Labour's Vanushi Walters said that was exactly what should have been done.
"The bill as it is, it contains a very wide mix of different provisions some of which are non-controversial, some of which are extremely controversial - and so we would say that the minister should have put each of them in separate bills.
"I don't think it's appropriate law making and it shouldn't be something that New Zealanders accept either. Let's remember that one of the provisions in this bill is about increasing the scope of citizens arrest powers ... people ought to have a say on these issues. Separately to thinking about what our trafficking laws are."
She said the 40-minute debate was "absolutely" a valuable use of Parliament's time, because bills were expected to be introduced to the House alongside the Attorney-General's assessment of whether it was consistent with the Bill of Rights.
"Where amendments papers are added later in the game which are clearly outside the scope of a bill, it can be problematic to good process - so it is absolutely a good use of scrutiny time."
Goldsmith, however, pointed to the electoral amendments and argued the opposition was taking things too far.
"It's standard practice for the opposition to try to slow things down, but the number of amendments and hours spent voting has, in my view, been excessive," he said.
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