VSM legislation may well pass this year after all

Labours filibustering (delaying tactics) on the bill to introduce voluntary membership of students’ associations (VSM) ended tonight. For months Labour has forced Parliament to debate the Royal Society Bill in an attempt to stave off debate on the VSM bill – both of which can only be heard on members day, which is every second Wednesday – and there are only about three members days left in 2011.

The debate on the local bill – the Royal Society Bill – was curtailed tonight as Act’s Heather Roy moved a motion to “report progress” on the Bill. This is a provision of parliaments standing orders that allows debate on a bill to stop for that day ( provide a voting majority agree), to be discussed the following day – effectively shutting down debate on a bill until the next sitting day (which in the case of a members or local bill is on August 17, in two weeks). This meant that the following bill on the Order Paper could be debated -which was the VSM bill. As National voted with Roy and Act, it had the numbers to curtail the filibustering, meaning that National and Act are happy to set aside private and local business to get a bill that will gut students’ associations – thus fostering Act’s ideological interests.

Heather Roy’s VSM bill is still currently at the committee stage, which is the stage between the second and final readings. This means that in two weeks, at the next member’s day, the bill will again be debated but as debate will consist of the final clause, this shouldn’t take too long unless Labour spends an hour debating pointless points of order.

What may happen is that if the Royal Society bill is first up, it may be debated for a short period then Heather Roy may well “report progress” on that to curtail debate, with National’s support. Then the last clause of the VSM legislation will be debated. Once that has been debated, it will be read and and debated briefly a third time, which should take two hours, and voted on. If the last clause of the initial debate finishes on August 17, the third reading, debate and vote will occur on the following members day, on August 31.

Both ACT and National have shown that they are willing to set aside other bills to get this bill through rather than going to the table for good faith negotiations and an enduring compromise with regard to membership of students’ associations. It will be interesting to know whether Heather Roy was aware of the motion to report progress and was waiting until tonight to move the motion as her own form of filibustering.

While Roy has criticised Labour’s filibustering and has incorrectly claimed that money is wasted ( Roy has said it costs $453,000 to run Parliament every sitting hour), it is hollow criticism if she wants to move motions to shut down debate on a bill until another sitting day purely because she don’t like the order of bills as they appear on the Parliament’s Order Paper – but waiting for months of filibustering – criticising every day of it – to make her move.