The decorative cookie tin that helps New Zealand make new laws. The quaintly patterned container might seem like a gag, but the ritual selection of bills from it is a serious affair.

The decorative cookie tin, known in New Zealand as the biscuit tin, which was purchased from a department store in the early 1990s to draw lawmakers' bills from and remains in use, at Parliament ...

The decorative cookie tin, known in New Zealand as the biscuit tin, which was purchased from a department store in the early 1990s to draw lawmakers' bills from and remains in use, at Parliament ...

In New Zealand's Parliament, the fate of legislation rests within a humble biscuit tin. A battered, decorative metal container, bought from a Wellington department store by a Parliament staffer in ...

The decorative cookie tin, known in New Zealand as the biscuit tin, which was purchased from a department store in the early 1990s to draw lawmakers' bills from and remains in use, at Parliament ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ...

The decorative cookie tin, known in New Zealand as the biscuit tin, which was purchased from a department store in the early 1990s to draw lawmakers' bills from and remains in use, at Parliament ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ...

The decorative cookie tin, known in New Zealand as the biscuit tin, which was purchased from a department store in the early 1990s to draw lawmakers' bills from and remains in use, at Parliament ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ...