New Zealand's coalition government has rushed more laws through Parliament in a single term than any other government since records began in 2008, according to data from the Parliamentary Library. RNZ

Normally, a new law goes through several steps before it is passed. One of the most important is the select committee stage, where a small group of MPs looks at the proposed law in detail and invites the public to send in their views. But under a process called urgency, the government can skip that step and push a bill through all its stages at once.

The data, provided to RNZ and covering the first 940 days of the current Parliament through to 2 July, showed 17.4 percent of all bills sent for Royal Assent — the point where a bill officially becomes law — passed through all stages at once, skipping the select committee stage entirely. Over the same 940-day period, the previous Labour government passed 15.5 percent of its bills without select committee scrutiny. RNZ

The total number of laws being passed has not changed much. Parliamentary Library data showed that figure has held steady at just under 200 per term for several terms. What has changed is how those laws are processed: the number of bill stages progressed under urgency has jumped sharply under the coalition. RNZ

Former Labour Prime Minister and Attorney-General Sir Geoffrey Palmer said the coalition's use of urgency was not about dealing with a heavy workload but about avoiding select committee scrutiny. The government has rejected that characterisation. RNZ

Palmer has been raising this concern for some time. In a December 2025 interview with RNZ's Nine to Noon programme, he said the government was increasingly using urgency to skip parliamentary stages. RNZ

He said urgency had been normalised 'by degrees' until it became a tool of convenience rather than necessity. RNZ He has also previously warned, on behalf of the Law Society, that rushed legislation often goes wrong. RNZ

In a June 2026 report for Transparency International New Zealand titled 'Time to Raise the Bar: The Case for a Positive Test for Urgency in New Zealand', Palmer argued that Parliament's rulebook should include clear rules about when urgency is justified. Transparency International NZ

Palmer also pointed to the strain on select committees, saying they were overworked and under-resourced. He cited the hundreds of thousands of submissions received on the Treaty Principles Bill as evidence of the pressure they face. RNZ

The rules around urgency are well established. According to the New Zealand Parliament's fact sheet, a Minister can move an urgency motion for specific business, particularly bills, without giving advance notice. New Zealand Parliament Parliament's guide to the legislative process states that when a bill is passed under urgency without a select committee, the only real chance for MPs to examine it is during the committee of the whole House stage, where all MPs can suggest changes. New Zealand Parliament

Recent House records show the practice in action. On Thursday, 28 May 2026, the House agreed to urgency for business including the first reading of the Appropriation (2025/26 Supplementary Estimates) bill. New Zealand Parliament Two days earlier, on Tuesday, 26 May, the House agreed to extend its sitting from 9.00 am until 1.00 pm the following day. New Zealand Parliament On 30 June, the House accorded urgency to the remaining stages of the Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill. New Zealand Parliament

Shadow Leader of the House Kieran McAnulty, from Labour, said National had criticised Labour's use of urgency during the pandemic but then quickly surpassed those figures once in government. He said Labour rarely used urgency to move through more than a couple of stages of a bill at once, and noted that concern about the high use of urgency has come up in submissions to Parliament's Standing Orders Committee, which reviews the rules of the House. RNZ

Chris Finlayson, who was Attorney-General in the John Key government, said the data suggested Parliament should consider extending its sitting hours given the complexity and volume of legislation. RNZ

The broader context is about whether Parliament can handle its workload through the normal process. Urgency is meant to be a tool for dealing with specific business without notice. But when the total number of laws being passed stays the same while the share of bills skipping select committee scrutiny rises sharply, the question Palmer, McAnulty and Finlayson are raising from different angles is whether the House has enough time and discipline to handle its work the usual way. The Standing Orders Committee is the natural place for any changes to urgency rules. Victoria University of Wellington has tracked the use of urgency across multiple parliaments, providing a baseline to measure the current spike against. Victoria University of Wellington

What is not yet settled is whether the rules will be changed to introduce a clear test for when urgency is justified, as Palmer wants, or whether the current system — where the government of the day decides on its own — will continue. The government's rejection of Palmer's criticism suggests no reform is coming soon from the executive, leaving the matter to the Standing Orders Committee's ongoing review.