"Political circus continues as media fails to report on the passing on govt’s draconian legislation. I cannot even find a news report to tell me the status of this Bill, being passed under urgency, with no public consultation, no media oversight in a Parliament so dominated by the Labour Party that there is no effective opposition."
Voices for Freedom, via Telegram
🆘 Government passes legislation in less than 24 hours to seriously curb the freedoms of New Zealanders without conventional parliamentary scrutiny. https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2021/0101/latest/whole.html
🆘 Traditionally (although not since Covid) legislation would pass through the House over the course of weeks or months, with public submissions on a bill and redrafting of portions being taken into account.
🆘 Opposition MPs, legal experts, and the Human Rights Commission all condemn the move as poor lawmaking.
🆘 Covid-19 Response Minister Hipkins says “in an ideal world” Parliament would fully scrutinise the legislation.
🆘 National Party’s Covid-19 response spokesman, MP Chris Bishop says the traffic light system and the bill behind it were developed “on the fly” and amounted to a shoddy “massive Government overreach”.
🆘 Dr Dean Knight, a Victoria University law professor, said “It is a constitutional disgrace that the legislation mandating this vaccination regime is being passed urgently this week”.
🆘 Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt said anything less than robust scrutiny of the Government’s Covid-19 legislation was “highly problematic both constitutionally and in terms of the state’s human rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations”.
🆘 The Government should commit to a full select committee inquiry into the law AFTER IT HAD PASSED, Hunt said.
🆘 The Ministry of Justice published its advice to Attorney-General David Parker on whether the Covid-19 legislation was consistent with the Bill of Rights Act, the law which protects the rights of New Zealanders. The advice had been prepared in “an extremely short time frame” with A PRIOR DRAFT of the bill, NOT the final version. However, the ministry’s lawyers had determined the proposed law was consistent with the Bill of Rights.
🆘 Amnesty International said “We are deeply concerned to see limited scrutiny on yet another piece of legislation with significant human rights implications”.
READ AT THE LINK (BILL INCLUDED)
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