But, rarely, it considers a law which applies to only a single person.
One of those occasions came this week when the House heard the first reading of the Annie Oxborough Birth Parents Registration Bill.
So, you may ask, what did Ms Oxborough do to merit such individual attention? Absolutely nothing, other than being born in 1971, at which point she was named Lisa Clarke.
Young Lisa was removed from her young and unwed parents and put up for adoption, whereupon she became Angela Joy Marshall, and in 1976 her name was changed again, to Ann Joy Marshall, by deed poll by her adoptive parents (who have since died). Oxborough enters the picture through Annie’s 1990 marriage.
With all this confusion about identity it was not surprising that Ms Oxborough wanted to know about her birth parents, who she eventually tracked down and formed a relationship with.
Having got to know them, Ms Oxborough wanted to change her birth certificate to reflect who she is - which is where Parliament comes into the picture.
Back when the closed adoption process was instituted, strong legal protections were put in place to prevent adoptees from knowing their birth parents, for what at the time were thought to be good reasons.
Time has moved on, and adoptive parents, birth parents and adopted children are now much more accepting of people’s desire to know about themselves and their past.
A fine example of this aired on TVNZ One just this week, an I Am documentary about a southern family still dealing with the implications of a closed adoption from the 1960s.
But the law has not yet moved on in one vital respect. The Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 does not contain provision for Ms Oxborough - or Paige Harris before her, who brought a similar Bill to the House last year - to change their parentage on their birth certificates to represent their actual lineage.
Ms Harris had to find an MP to bring a Private Bill - a seldom-used provision to change the law as it affects an individual or single entity - to change her birth certificate, and National MP Kaipara ki Mahurangi, Chris Penk, is championing Ms Oxborough’s case.
He, and most other MPs who spoke on the Bill, rightly called for a law change to save Parliament from doing this for every single person who wants a birth certificate changed . . . and as I Am suggested, that might be many thousands of people.
One MP with more than a passing interest in this subject is Dunedin Labour MP David Clark, who had a very personal reason for his "Aye" vote.
Dr Clark told the House his mother, Faye, had been adopted, "at a time when these things were done discreetly and secretly".
Faye Clark, now a GP and hence also Dr Clark, has told her son that knowing she was adopted had left her feeling "at sea or without an anchor" and with a sense of dislocation.
After her adoptive mother had died, Faye Clark’s adoptive father shared enough information with her about the adoption that was enough for her to embark on a good deal of detective work - "I can remember travelling as a child around the South Island with my parents . . . to find that connection" - before her birth mother was found.
The future MP came to know and develop a connection with his new grandmother and her husband.
"I actually have had the privilege then, only recently, two years ago, on the 13th of this month - so in three days' time, two years ago - of burying my mother's birth mother and, as I'm a Presbyterian minister, conducting the funeral service," Dr Clark said.
"And I, prior to that, conducted the funeral for her subsequent husband."
Through a distant and at the time distressing connecting, two different families now have a bond which has strengthened both, but which might not have happened without a law being relaxed many years ago.
This was one of the many reasons why, with some pleasure, Dr Clark cast his affirmative vote.
"It is, for one person, incredibly important. It may not seem to the wider picture that we're solving the bigger picture, but, actually, for this one person, this will be incredibly important.
"It's also symbolically important for others in similar situations - to let them know there are avenues for properly being identified according to your history, your family, and your connections."
Another day, another job
Dunedin Labour list MP Rachel Brooking just keeps accumulating new roles.
Earlier this week she was confirmed as Minister of Food Safety, a promotion occasioned by Meka Whaitiri’s resignation.
Ms Brooking was a backbencher a few weeks ago, and at this rate who knows where she might end up by year’s end?