Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)

New Zealand was one of the first countries to establish an independent team of Hansard reporters,[1] 42 years before the British (Imperial) Parliament.

[2] For 13 years from the establishment of the New Zealand Parliament in Auckland in 1854 newspaper reports were the only record of what MPs said in debates in the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives.

Some members … whose speeches are dreary beyond belief, and almost unintelligible as delivered in the House, [become] flowing oratory in the columns of the newspaper.

While others… are shorn of their fair proportions, and their speeches reduced to mere notes… Members who usually talk to empty benches [appear] as prominent as those who electrify the gallery or are the life of the House.”MP William Fitzherbert brought a motion to the House in 1856 calling for funds to be applied to "secure accurate and authentic reports of the substance and arguments of the speeches".

[5] Then in 1862 James FitzGerald (MP for Christchurch and owner of The Press) introduced a motion calling on the Government to take steps to secure the publication of "full and accurate reports of the debates in this House".

[citation needed] Hansard is published on the New Zealand Parliament website each day the House sits, and later indexed bound volumes are produced.

Hansard Editors follow strict rules on what changes they can make to the words MPs use in the debating chamber.

[26][27] [45] Hansard has been digitized by Google in partnership with the University of California (Santa Cruz et al. libraries), from the first sitting of the House in May 1854 up to July 1987.

4 Volume 146 includes a 61-page appendix: Proceedings of the meetings of both Houses (held 7 June 1909) to discuss the question of representation of NZ at the Imperial Naval Conference.