The coalition government has rushed more laws through Parliament in a single term than any government since records began in 2008, according to Parliamentary Library data provided to RNZ.

Normally, when a new law is proposed, it goes to a select committee. That is a small group of MPs who look at the bill in detail, hear from experts and everyday people, and suggest changes. It is the public's main chance to have a say before a bill becomes law.

But the government can use a tool called urgency to skip that step. Urgency lets Parliament pass a bill through all its stages in one go, without sending it to a select committee at all.

The data covers the first 940 days of the current Parliament, to 2 July. Over that period, 17.4 percent of all bills passed into law went through all stages at once under urgency, skipping the select committee and public feedback entirely. The equivalent figure for the previous Labour government over the same 940-day window was 15.5 percent.

The total number of laws passed has stayed about the same, at just under 200 per term, for several Parliaments now. What has changed is how they are passed. The share of laws being pushed through without public scrutiny has grown.

Former Labour Prime Minister and Attorney-General Sir Geoffrey Palmer said the coalition government's use of urgency was not about coping with large amounts of legislation but about avoiding select committee scrutiny. He said urgency had been "normalised by degrees" until it became a tool of convenience rather than necessity. He pointed to overworked and under-resourced select committees as a related issue, citing the hundreds of thousands of public submissions received for the Treaty Principles Bill as evidence of a system under strain.

Chris Finlayson, Attorney-General in the John Key government, said the data pointed to a need for Parliament to consider extending House sitting hours, given the complexity and volume of legislation before it.

Shadow Leader of the House Kieran McAnulty said National criticised Labour's use of urgency during the pandemic but then quickly surpassed those figures once in government. The previous Labour government passed several laws under urgency, including the bill enabling the Covid-19 traffic light system and workforce vaccination mandates.

The urgency figures arrive in a Parliament already showing other signs of pressure. The 2025 sitting year included 87 sitting days, and RNZ reported a record 295,670 written questions during that year. The most recent budget urgency motion, in May 2026, included seven policy bills, three of which were passed through all stages, along with one budget-related tax bill.

Transparency International New Zealand argued in a June 2026 blog post that more than half of the current Parliament's bills are being processed under urgency and called for a clear set of rules about when urgency can be used. Victoria University of Wellington's report "What's the Hurry?" documented urgency trends across multiple Parliaments, and the 2023 edition of New Zealand Parliamentary Practice noted that approximately 30 percent of Government bills had historically been passed under urgency with shortened select committee scrutiny.

Parliament's own official guide to the legislative process states that when a bill is passed under urgency it is done so without the benefit of a select committee. The 2023 Review of Standing Orders recommended follow-up reports on bills passed under urgency, to check whether the committee's recommendations were properly put into effect.

The Fast-track Approvals Bill, which drew thousands of submissions in opposition, prompted street protests, and attracted claims of constitutional overreach, is among the legislation that has drawn public attention to how much power the government has over the parliamentary timetable.

What this means in practice is that the numbers point to a lasting shift rather than a one-off. Total bills passed into law have held steady near 200 per term for several Parliaments. What has changed is the pathway: more of those bills never see a select committee. The 2 percentage-point gap between the coalition and Labour's urgency rates over the same 940-day window is modest on its own, but the overall trend since 2008 is upward. The 2023 Standing Orders review's recommendation for follow-up reports on urgency bills has yet to be tested against a Parliament using urgency this often. Whether that mechanism, or the extended sitting hours Finlayson proposes, gains traction will depend on whether the parties now in government are willing to limit a tool they have used more than any government before them.