Mapp Wayne: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12134] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I turn to clause 2 the commencement provision in particular. In the second reading I alluded to why this was constitutionally inappropriate. The reason is that it is a fundamental principle that the legislature should not act or expend money without parliamentary authority. That was certainly confirmed in the well-known case  
Fitzgerald  
v 
 Muldoon 
 which went through the High Court—which at that stage was the Supreme Court of New Zealand. It is a fundamental constitutional principle deeply entrenched within our system. And of course a former Labour Party Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer made something of a career on constitutional behaviour. His first book was  
Unbridled Power 
. It was a very direct reference to the practice of Governments in New Zealand to act without legislative authority. He co-authored a book with his son some years later called  
Bridled Power 
 and the reason was that he considered that basic constitutional principles were being observed by New Zealand Governments. If only that were true. 
We had the extraordinary spectacle earlier this morning of the senior Government whip making a virtue of breaching constitutional propriety. She was basically saying that the board had already been established or disestablished more accurately so what was our beef? It is as though the means justifies the ends—that as long as the action was done that was all that was required and all that Parliament would be doing was acting as some sort of craven rubber-stamping body. That might be the view of the Government and I heard an interjection that the senior Government whip would vote for Parliament acting as some sort of craven rubber-stamping body. I guess that tells us a great deal about the sort of thinking that resides within the Government—a certain contemptuousness about parliamentary procedure. So the extraordinary spectacle we see today— 
Jill Pettis 
: Is that why that member voted for market rents? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I would like to hear from the Minister rather than the less than knowledgable senior Government whip as to why the Government thinks it is justifiable to pass legislation after the fact. Why could it not simply have waited? After all this is not one of the Government’s more important bills. One would have thought that the proper practice would be to simply leave the entity in existence then pass legislation then disestablish. What would have been the harm in that? But this is a Government that is now starting to get the sin of arrogance. It thinks it can do as it pleases when it pleases contemptuous of public opinion. This bill small though it is is merely a manifestation of that. I now draw back directly to clause 2—because this is what this is all related to—which refers to the implementation date of the bill 1 April 2004. The reality is that we are asked in this Parliament to vote for something retrospective. The Government— 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh goodness! 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Again the senior Government whip says “Oh goodness!” Again she is showing that arrogance that we have come to associate with this Government. I ask the Minister to stand and justify why it is that it is appropriate to pass legislation like this.