Every government uses urgency. It is a legitimate parliamentary tool for genuine emergencies, time-sensitive fiscal measures, and simple repeals of a predecessor’s mistakes. What is not normal is turning urgency into the default setting for substantive new policy, then telling business owners the speed is a feature.
The current coalition has now pushed 28 bills through Parliament without any select committee stage in its first two years. That is not a cherry-picked opposition talking point. It comes from Kiwiblog’s David Farrar, who calls the number “way too many” and argues the benchmark should be fewer than five per year. A Victoria University study found the average across full three-year terms from 1987 to 2010 was 10 bills bypassing committee entirely. This government blew past that figure in 93 days.
David Seymour has boasted that Parliament has passed more legislation in two years than any MMP Parliament managed in a full term. Christopher Luxon’s response to the record pace was “Isn’t it great?”. It is great, if every bill is well-drafted, internally consistent, and produces stable rules businesses can price into their decisions. The evidence says otherwise.
When speed becomes a compliance nightmare
Three examples show what rushed lawmaking looks like from the receiving end.
The Social Security Amendment Bill covering ACC weekly income calculations was introduced on 18 February 2026 and passed under urgency two weeks later. Submitters had 2.5 days to file written submissions. The select committee produced its final report in eight days. Of 855 unique submissions, exactly two supported the bill. University of Auckland analysis concluded it was a rushed answer to the wrong problem, reframing an earnings-related compensation scheme as a welfare-style joint income test. Employers, HR advisers, and payroll teams had days to understand a material change to how ACC compensation interacts with benefit entitlements before it took effect on April 1.
The $2.9 billion mortgage interest deductibility restoration was added to a taxation bill after public submissions had already closed. No landlord, renter, tax adviser, or property investor could submit on drafting. The policy may be sound. Nobody outside Parliament got to check.
The Fast-Track Approvals Amendment Bill, governing how major infrastructure and development projects get consented, received 2,158 submissions with roughly 95% opposed. The New Zealand Law Society warned the bill “contains a number of concerning and potentially unworkable proposals” and that the rapid timeline had limited key stakeholders’ ability to evaluate its provisions. The Law Society is not prone to hyperbole. When it says a consenting framework is “unworkable,” developers and infrastructure companies should pay attention.
The machinery is breaking under the load
The volume is not just a political problem. It is degrading Parliament’s operational capacity. RNZ reports that Parliament’s secretariat is under strain, officials’ advice quality has reportedly degraded from processing too many legislative plans simultaneously, and select committees are restricting the scope of their reports. Public submissions have exploded from 95,000 two parliaments ago to over 600,000 in this one, meaning New Zealanders are trying to engage at record levels precisely as the process is being compressed.
Sir Geoffrey Palmer, former Prime Minister, described the Fast-Track amendment as “ministerial dictatorship”, asking: “What is the hurry? Legislation is law-making. You want to get it right.”
The mandate argument has a hole in it
Leader of the House Chris Bishop defends the pace by pointing to the government’s mandate and claiming many bills are campaign commitments or simple repeals. By May 2025 he was asserting only six bills outside Budget legislation had avoided select committee scrutiny, a figure Newsroom’s count put at 17.
The mandate defence works for repeals. It collapses for new policy. The ACC amendment, the Fast-Track changes, and the mortgage deductibility reform are all substantive new law, not reversals. Mandates authorise direction, not sloppy execution.
Victoria University Professor of Public Law Dean Knight puts it plainly: “A good, robust, well-paced process improves the quality of the output and protects against errors.” His sharpest line: “They know it, and yet they persist.”
The Law Society’s submission on Fast-Track captured what this means for business in three words: clarity, predictability, and stability. Those are the qualities businesses price into investment decisions, hiring plans, and compliance budgets. When law is rushed, those qualities are the first casualties. Speed is only pro-business when the law that comes out the other end actually works.
Sources
- RNZ: Fast and loose? Coalition’s urgency makes for riskier lawmaking
- Newsroom: Govt sets record for laws passed under urgency in first 100 days (2024-03-08)
- Kiwiblog: Urgency Stats Part 2 (2026-03)
- Point of Order: Urgency Stats Part 2 (2026-03-17)
- Newsroom: ACC change a rushed answer to the wrong problem (2026-03-12)
- RNZ: Parliament’s year in numbers
- RNZ: Parliament’s workload squeezing out committees
- Newsroom: Govt smashes record for laws passed without select committee scrutiny (2025-01-28)
- Newsroom: Govt on record-breaking urgency streak amid flurry of Budget laws (2025-05-29)
- RNZ: Too many laws passing without proper scrutiny, Geoffrey Palmer says
- NZ Law Society: Submission on Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill