Monday, February 13, 2006



Seeking a spy in Parliament

A while ago, when discussing the importance of private member's bills in the current Parliament, I said that I was going to write to the Clerk in an effort to get more information on what was in the ballot made available on the web. Unfortunately, MPs don't have to make their bills available before they are drawn, and these bills are often rewritten before being drawn, so the Clerk's office is unable to provide the sort of information I'm after. However, they're currently working on a new website which will see almost all Parliamentary information published online, and they're looking at publishing the appropriate pages from the Parliamentary Bulletin on the web. This is great in the long-term, but in the meantime I'll just have to resort to alternative methods.

As I understand it, a complete list of what is in the ballot is emailed to MPs and their secretaries around 11am on the day the ballot is held. It would be nice if someone in Parliament would forward me a copy (remove the obvious munge). I'm interested in seeing what people are putting up for consideration this month, and I'd hate to have to wait the few extra days to get the hardcopy...

Update: rewritten the first paragraph after receiving further information from the Clerk's office.

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