From the House by Pesi Fonua

Tonga's Parliament will remain closed until August 3, the House decided, voting unanimously 21-0 to extend parliament's closure for another two weeks from July 13.

The two weeks break is to enable three Standing Committees of the House, (SC on Legislation, SC on Environment and SC on Food) to complete their deliberation and public consultations over four Bills, before they are tabled into Parliament.

The chairpersons for the Standing Committees are:

• Finance and Public Accounts, Mo’ale Finau;
• Water Resources, Losaline Ma’asi,
• Food, Semisi Fakahau. 

There were a few verbal exchanges over claims that the deliberation of committees was taking too long, considering that some of the amendments were just minor changes to the law.

All the members of these Standing Committees are members of parliament, and there were comments that they were just trying to increase their pay packets.

However, Hon. Samiu Vaipulu, a member of the Standing Committee on Legislation pointed out they had not even received their salaries yet.

Originally there were five Bills that were tabled with the Standing Committees for their deliberation.

The five Bills were:

1. Foreign Investment Bill 2020
2. Employment Relations Bill 2020
3. Mental Health Bill 2020
4. Water Bill 2020
5. Food Bill 2020.

At this stage of the Standing Committee deliberations, according to the Speaker, the Mental Health Bill 2020 did not need to be resubmitted to Standing Committee for further deliberation.

After the House voted to close until 3 August, giving Standing Committees time to complete their deliberation over the Bills, the House then had to focus on two urgent bills that were tabled by the Prime Minister, Hon. Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa, Bill No. 9, a Traffic Bill 2020, and No. 10, a Public Roads Bill 2020.

Because the Bills were urgent they did not have to go through the process of being deliberated over by Standing Committees before they were tabled into Parliament.