20/09/2026
"Urgency" isn't for crises — it's their loophole to shut you out. No select committee, no public submissions, no proper debate. Just ram it through.
They used it for:
• ❌ Boot camps & move-on orders — punitive, not preventive
• ❌ Te Tiriti erasure — rewriting our founding agreement
• ❌ Mass surveillance — watching us instead of helping us
• ❌ Pay equity cuts — stole BILLIONS from the lowest-paid women
• ❌ Automated MSD decisions — computers cutting people off in the middle of winter 🥶
"I can't help but put my head in my hands..." — every single one of us feels that. It's not just politics. It's seeing people suffer when it didn't have to be that way.
Last urgency for the term DONE!!!! We managed to stop the government from passing 5 of their bills including an awful anti-immigration bill and delayed 12 stages.
Unfortunately though, it was still an omnibus of cruelty and culture wars this week from bootcamps to move on orders, Te Tiriti erasure to mass surveillance. I can’t help but put my head in my hands when I think about how hard people are doing it and the time we spend on either problems that don’t exist (the treaty bills) or on increasing discrimination and hardship for people who are at rock bottom.
This government has used urgency for matters that are not urgent. They have bypassed your feedback and passed some of the most evil decisions from pay equity which robbed billions from the lowest paid working women in New Zealand, to automated decision making at MSD which has led to thousands of people losing access to their benefits and winter energy payments in the middle of winter.
I look forward to never doing urgency in opposition again 🤗
