Room 13 Parliament: Debate on Reduction Of Plastic Packaging

Debate on Reduction Of Plastic Packaging

On the 2^nd of April, Room 13 was dramatically into a parliament debating chamber. It experienced an intense debate between the government side ( Youth, Pumped and Merrangitans parties ) and the opposition ( #, Brighter Future and Cookie jar parties ). The bill being discussed was the reduction of plastic packaging, and whether this should be put in place. The government fully supported the idea but the opposition thought otherwise.

The procession began as Izzy the Sergeant of Arms led James the Speaker and Kieran the Clerk into the Debate Chamber ( also known as room 13). The Speaker began by saying a prayer and calling the Clerk to state the rules. After that it was a political warzone as both sides constantly bombarded each other with powerful statements. Leading the Government was the P.M Ella K and her party explained how animals are dying because of us and our plastic packaging as well as there being so much plastic being thrown around that plastic islands were being formed out at sea. Leading the opposition was George and his party explained how would be much so inconvenient as the country would have to resort to 60’s style paper bag lunchboxes. During the debate, Speaker James felt many violated the rules and asked many to exit the building to secure order. Although at the end around half the class had had to leave.

In the end the Clerk counted the votes and passed them to the Speaker. The Speaker declared the Bill not to be passed as the votes against had outweighed those for reduction of plastic packaging.  

By Kieran

NZ Government by M Hill

NZ Government & Parliament

Our Parliamentary and Government learning over the last 2 weeks has been intriguing as we learnt about how the House of Representatives works, and how Bills are passed and made into Law (e.g. NZ Nuclear Free Zone).  We learnt that the “House” has 120 seats, and 2 “sides” (for and against). We also found that the House of Representatives has a Speaker (David Carter). Our class also had the chance to create our own parties and policies and had a few debates over many of our policies. Many of the students  strongly debated their opinions and we enjoyed many laughs about the comments made.

These are all the Parties names created:

Ø  The Hashtag Party

Ø  Brighter Future

Ø  Youth Party

Ø  The Meraingatangs

Ø  Pumped

Ø  The Cookie Jar

New Zealand Government: What about the Room 13 Government?

This the children in Room 13 have been writing various policies of what they would want to do if they were in government. Some of the children needed to learn that you can not bribe people to vote for you and also, you can not give too much away as this is tax payers money. The children were creative and delivered their policies to the class. Here is one groups policies and I will post more in the next few days.

Our Governor General and House of Representatives - Information Webs