This bill amends the Constitution Act 1986 to improve the resilience of the mechanisms that provide for the continuity of executive government and the transition of power following an election.
This bill has been accorded urgency in the House. First detected 11 July 2026, 9:20am UTC.
The avenues that remain: petitions to Parliament (including seeking amendment or repeal); consultation on the regulations that often follow an Act, which do carry public submission windows; and the member in charge or your electorate MP on implementation problems — post-passage corrections ride in later amendment bills.
| Stage | Sitting day | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Second reading | 30 Jun 2026 | The Constitution Amendment Bill was read a second time. source · debate & vote (Hansard) |
| Committee of the whole House | 30 Jun 2026 | The committee stage of the Constitution Amendment Bill was completed. source · debate & vote (Hansard) |
| Third reading | 30 Jun 2026 | The Constitution Amendment Bill was read a third time. source · debate & vote (Hansard) |
Dates are sitting days as recorded by the Office of the Clerk; a sitting extended under urgency continues under its original day. Readings are decided by party vote: each party casts its members’ votes en bloc (proxies included), so the whole House needn’t be present and individual attendance isn’t recorded — the party-by-party tally for each reading is in that day’s Hansard, linked per stage above.
Members who took a call in this bill’s debates, from our Hansard corpus. Under urgency several bills are often debated together (a “cognate” debate), so speakers may be addressing the group of bills.
AI-assisted analysis · every claim links to primary source ·
corrections
Published 12 Jul 2026, 7:23pm UTC (separate from, and later than, the alert timestamp above)
· model: claude-opus-4-8
In short: A Minister or Executive Council member who vacates their seat at a general election may continue in office until the close of the day after the Electoral Commission declares the elected list candidates, replacing the fixed 28-day rule.
“may continue to hold office as a member of the Executive Council or as a Minister of the Crown until the close of the day after the day on which the Electoral Commission declares, in accordance with section 193(5)(a) of the Act, the elected list candidates.”
“a Parliamentary Under-Secretary may continue to hold office during the period beginning when they cease to be a member of Parliament and ending on the close of the day after the day on which the Electoral Commission declares, in accordance with section 193(5)(a) of the Electoral Act 1993, the elected list candidates.”
“A Parliamentary Under-Secretary holds office at the pleasure of the Governor- General, but must vacate office when they cease to be while they are a member of Parliament.”
Taken under urgency; the compressed timetable limited scrutiny even where a committee stage existed.
Method: the model reads the bill as published (claude-opus-4-8); every claim above carries a verbatim span of that text, checked mechanically — claims that fail the check are dropped, not softened. Text analysed from an archived copy of the official text. Full methodology →
Deterministic — no AI involved
Every amendment instruction in the bill, executed mechanically against the archived text of the Act it changes. Struck text is removed, highlighted text is added. 3 operations resolved.
In-place amendments are anchor-verified: the instruction’s own quoted text must occur in the archived provision, which proves the archive is current enough for that operation. Whole-provision replacements show the provision as archived on the date given — later amendments by other Acts, if any, would not appear. Rows marked AI-read had unusually-phrased instructions translated into a standard operation by a model; the translation is checked word-for-word against the instruction, and the change is still applied and verified mechanically. Full methodology →
A motion to accord urgency to the following business was agreed to: - the remaining stages of: - the Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill; - the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill; - the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill; - the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill; and - the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill; - the first reading and referral to a select committee of: - the Building Amendment Bill; and - the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill; - the second reading of: - the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill; - the Crimes Amendment Bill; - the Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill; - the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill; and - the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill; - the first reading and referral to a select committee of: - the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill; and - the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill; - the second reading of: - the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill; and - the Emergency Management Bill (No 2); - the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2); - the discharge and re-committal to a select committee of the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill; and - the remaining stages of: - the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill; - the Mental Health Bill; - the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill; and - the Constitution Amendment Bill.
