Four-Year Term of Parliament Bill: why I oppose it
The Bill is a recipe for distrust in parliament – as if there weren't enough distrust already!
This post is a draft of a submission on the Term of Parliament (Enabling 4-year Term) Legislation Amendment Bill, currently before the New Zealand Parliament. Readers can comment before I lodge it, no later than 17 April.
This Bill would create an option to extend a term of Parliament from 3 to 4 years (max.). My comments on it in brief:
If this Bill became law, voters would lose certainty about the maximum term of the subsequent parliament (three or four years) as the matter would be decided after each election.
In election debates and post-election government-formation, questions would arise about the term of parliament, a matter which should go unquestioned. Leading contenders for PM would be grilled in head-to-head election debates about their intentions.
The Bill would codify in statute the party proportionality of select committee memberships (currently governed by Parliament’s Standing Orders), hence creating risk of litigation over these decisions and undermining separation of powers between legislature and courts.
If this Bill becomes an Act, it would then face a referendum, at which the people will “smell a rat” and almost certainly reject it.
The Four-Year Term Bill should be terminated at second reading. Alternatively, it should simply propose changing the term of parliaments to four years with no conditions attached.
If this Parliament is concerned about insufficient checks and balances, then a wider deliberative process about the NZ constitution should be initiated.
Further thoughts:
The Term of Parliament (Enabling 4-year Term) Legislation Amendment Bill has been introduced to the NZ Parliament and referred to the justice select committee.
This arises from a clause in the National/NZ First coalition agreement: “Support to select committee a bill that would enact a binding referendum on a four-year term of parliament.” The Bill that’s now in the House does somewhat more than that, however. It also introduces a trade-off over select committee membership, which should remain under Standing Orders, not law.
The Bill would create an option to extend the maximum term of Parliament from 3 to 4 years at the start of a parliamentary term (i.e., after the election). According to the Bill’s explanatory note:
“The standard maximum term of a Parliament would remain 3 years. The Bill makes extending the term of a Parliament to 4 years contingent on the requirement that the overall membership of the subject select committees is proportional to the party membership in the House of Representatives of the non-executive [opposition] members.”
This “proportionality requirement” (which didn’t appear in the coalition agreement) means that
“the number of select committee memberships held by parties that have no executive members is greater than the memberships held by parties that have executive members.”
An unconvincing argument is made that any extension of the term to four years has to be matched by “improved checks and balances on the Government”, and that this improvement can be achieved simply by stacking members on the subject select committees in favour of opposition parties.
From a parliamentary point of view, it’s unusual to suggest that select committee membership – as governed by parliament’s Standing Orders – could be codified in statute. Shifting any parliamentary procedural rules into legislation would mean that disputes over how this was done could then be fought in the courts.
From the voters’ point of view, this Bill means that, when they cast their votes, they don’t know for sure whether the term of parliament will be 3 or 4 years. That important “detail” will be sorted out after the election. To make it a four-year term, the parties have to arrange to have opposition members holding majorities on select committees, and then pass a “four-year term” resolution in the House, regardless of what voters think.
The government could use its majority to pass the resolution to give itself an extra year in office. Then the prime minister would advise the Governor-General to make a proclamation that the parliamentary term will be four years (max.) this time around.
It’s undemocratic for voters to be made uncertain of the maximum term of parliament when they vote.
When people vote for their representatives, they should know – with certainty – the maximum period of time between this election and the next. This Bill would take away that certainty and hand the matter over, in effect, to the prime minister.
The prime minister’s call would depend on horse-trading by politicians over committee roles – which could spill over into public disagreements and go on for up to three months after a new parliament first meets. And the Bill doesn’t allow for how long it may take to form a new government (and appoint a new prime minister) after an election, nor for adjustments if the composition of a coalition government changes mid-term, as occurred in 1998.
The public perception would be that post-election “deals” may extend a government’s time in office.
The deal would be: the government gets an extra year in office, and, in return, the opposition gets more clout on select committees, along with higher salaries for chairing them.
For example, an ordinary MP gets a base salary of $168,600. This rises to $173,700 for deputy chairpersons of select committees and to $184,700 for chairpersons. Many members of the public will interpret the deal (fairly or not) as bribery.
A PM could choose to forgo the extra year in office, however, in return for greater control over select committees, and then sell that to voters as “accountability”. On the other hand, opposition parties might try to trade in their numbers on select committees in return for policy concessions from the government. The Bill would allow all parties up to three months to debate these matters openly, if not acrimoniously, in the House.
The issue of three or four years in office would become a political debate before and after each election, as if there wasn’t enough to argue over already.
As the matter would be codified in law, there’d be scope for judicial review of a government’s decision-making around the term of parliament or around allocation of select committee roles, which could drag on for years.
This would damage public trust in parliament and in the executive. It would breed public scepticism. It is a recipe for distrust.
As the Bill, in its present form, requires a majority at a referendum in order to come into force, I’d advise New Zealanders to vote against it, if it ever gets that far.
In the past, I’ve been impartial on the question of 3- or 4-year parliaments for New Zealand, as there are good arguments both ways. As this Bill stands at present, however, I have to oppose it.
I plan to make this into a submission on this Bill, and would welcome feedback from readers before I do so. The government is not committed to supporting the Bill beyond second reading.
Should they kill this bill?
Update, 15 April: I’ve lodged this submission. Thanks for the comments.
I agree entirely with your intended submission and with the reasoning accompanying it. What a ridiculous, fucked up way to approach changing the parliamentary term! Seems like something out of Alice Through the Looking Glass. I say kill the bill, and fast.
The Bill includes complexities that are completely unnecessary. Referenda do not work as intended if the question isn't clear and understood equally by everyone.
As you say, there are good arguments for and against a 4-year term, and those arguments can be debated leading up to a referendum. The matter of representation on parliamentary committees should be agreed by Parliament separately.