Labour writes to PM with plea to pass modern slavery laws before election

The Labour MP backing modern slavery legislation has written to the prime minister to try to get the law passed before the election.She has also written to the business committee, which decides the order of business at Parliament and is meeting today.Newsroom has reported a group of charities has banded together to urge Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to push the legislation through Parliament before it rises for the election this week.Luxon, who in 2022 said modern slavery was the issue he would march in the street over, on Monday said "we won't get time to do it", but committed to returning it to the order paper if National was re-elected to government."Frankly, we've had so much filibustering going on through things that have been discussed in depth and in detail in select committees. So that's on the opposition parties too, as to whether we could or couldn't get to it."The prime minister's office referred RNZ's questions to Leader of the House Louise Upston, who said the bill had been reported back to the House by the select committee "at a time when there were not enough Members' Days left to pass its remaining stages"."As Leader of the House, I don't have the unilateral ability to create more Members' days or allow Members Bills to be progressed further up the order paper. That is only something the Business Committee can do. The Business Committee was asked to do that, but did not achieve the required 'near-unanimity'."I will note that it is exceedingly likely that the Bill will be reinstated in the new Parliament and pass its remaining stages in early 2027. The National Party will still support the Bill in the 55th Parliament."Labour's Camilla Belich has been championing the bill, working across the aisle with National's Greg Fleming to get a member's bill through in spite of ACT's opposition.Heading into the party's caucus meeting on Tuesday, she said Luxon's comments "didn't sound particularly positive"."There are many opportunities that this could have been prioritised as part of the legislative agenda. I do believe that there's some time tomorrow, a couple of hours that could be put aside."It's a matter of having the will to prioritise what's important to you as a government."She said she had written last week to Luxon and the business committee and had not yet heard back.The bill is yet to have its committee stage and second and third readings, but Belich was confident there was time to pass it."I remain open to receiving communication from any member of the National Party, from the leader of the house, from Greg Fleming, who's the co-sponsor of the bill, from the prime minister, from his office, to try and work out a way that we can ensure that this passes this Parliament."The parliament could keep sitting until Thursday, but we haven't suggested that ... I don't know what reason they've decided that we have to rise on Wednesday but we've suggested that there is actually time looking at the order paper this Wednesday tomorrow."Belich said New Zealand was facing pressure to get legislation addressing modern slavery passed."The EU is bringing in provisions to make it even more stringent... there's been comments made by the American president... there is a lot of pressure."That's not why we're doing it. We're doing it because it's the right thing to do, and we should not be accepting modern slavery in our supply chains."RNZ has sought comment from Business Committee chair Gerry Brownlee and the prime minister's office.