Mallard Trevor: Standing Orders 
Mallard Trevor: Standing Orders 
[Volume:676;Page:21759] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I want to thank the Minister of Police and I apologise to her for interrupting before she got to the substance of the debate on the motion to adopt the amendments to the Standing Orders set out in Part 2 of the report of the Standing Orders Committee on the Review of Standing Orders. I acknowledge the work of the Acting Leader of the House in the Business Committee and also on the Standing Orders Committee. I as did he came relatively late to this process and I acknowledge the work of Mr Speaker as chair of both of those groups. In my opinion Parliament is a better place for the work that has occurred in a constructive way. 
Although it might cause him some embarrassment I also acknowledge Rodney Hide and the work he has done within this. I was surprised at the number of occasions when we agreed as we progressed through the Standing Orders and I think that having someone who has had a period as a poacher and who to a certain extent has turned gamekeeper was useful. It was useful having his view on the importance of Parliament and where the balances lie. People who look carefully at this report will see that it is one that very slightly tips the running of Parliament in favour of the Government but provides some safeguards to that. Those of us who have been involved on both sides of the House think that that is something that could be useful going forward 
I have another preliminary comment to make though because I think there has been a lot of focus here especially around extended sittings—which I will make some more comment on—to help progress Government business. But I am concerned at the growing habit in the House of considering the adjournment weeks as weeks in which select committees do not sit. It was certainly the intention of previous Governments that when there was a 2-week adjournment at least the Wednesday and Thursday of one of those weeks would be taken up for select committee business. It would give the select committees the ability to travel more often to go to where people were and listen to their concerns and in that way to make Parliament more accessible and the select committee process more acceptable to people around the country. I do not subscribe to the group who think that most members of Parliament go on holiday for 2 weeks but I think we do need to get the balance between our electorates and our select committee responsibilities. o In my opinion having select committees sit as often as they do while Parliament is sitting but having members not do select committee duties during adjournment periods is a step backwards and I hope that it can be looked at going forward. 
Going to some of the recommendations there is one that I would regard as the “Hone Harawira amendment” which is a requirement to promote compliance with the proper form of the oath or affirmation. This is an amendment where I think it is fair to say that although we from Labour on balance have gone along with the change—in fact Rick Barker who is a regular member of the committee and I have slightly different opinions on it—it is a change I go along with with some reluctance. What is being required here is absolute compliance with the words of the Act without any addition to them. My opinion has always been that if people want for example to say “Madam Clerk” beforehand or to say “thank you” afterwards that should not result in their oath or affirmation being ruled out of order as they are being sworn in. In the interpretation we have now that will be ruled out of order. I think clearly if people depart from the oath and add words that somehow negate it as we have seen then that is a different issue. 
I think this highlights the need for a focus on the Act itself. There are certainly some people in the House who do not have the same understanding of “heirs and successors according to law.” I have relied pretty heavily on the “according to law” bit of that in the hope that some day it will change. At that stage I will rely on that part to indicate that maybe my loyalty to Her Majesty is something that will not be ongoing for the time when we inevitably have a republic. 
Although I am less comfortable with that change I am probably more comfortable than many of my colleagues with the set of arrangements around the extra hours—the extended sittings—of the House. I have had a role in Government business before. I know that things do not work neatly and that therefore it is too easy for Governments to move to urgency in order to get through business that of itself is not urgent. Urgency has too often been used as a House management tool rather than as a tool to progress urgent business. I think the extended sittings give the right compromise there: select committees cannot sit at the same time as the House except with leave; notice is given; bills are not taken through more than one stage at any one time; and the extended sitting occurs only once a week unless the Business Committee agrees. In my opinion that will give the Government a bit more power but will move it back from using urgency in a way that I consider to have been inappropriate of Governments for just about as long as I can remember. 
I am of the generation who can remember when Parliament did not sit until May. It would always sit the week before the Labour Party conference when Muldoon was Prime Minister and urgency would be taken in order to disrupt the Labour Party conference through the weekend. That was the standard form of doing things. It was vindictive it was vicious and I think it led Geoffrey Palmer to make a number of reforms some of which we are now working on further reforming or refining. 
There is I think quite a lot of extra power going to the Business Committee. Again I reiterate my surprise at how well that committee is working. Frankly Mr Brownlee and especially Mr Power with whom I have worked more often on that committee recently have been open with the committee as to their intentions. The meetings have been slightly better planned maybe than at some stages in the past. You Mr Speaker in the way that you have chaired the committee have also tried to seek consensus although there has been an occasion or two where you have been the only person who has had a particular point of view. It is probably fortunate for the other members of the committee that you do not represent a party on that committee. 
That leads me to another point which is slightly at the edge of this debate. I say Mr Speaker that it is a pity you are not taking a call in this debate. Back in the old days changes to the Standing Orders were made in the Committee stage. There was therefore an opportunity for the Speaker to come into the Committee to take a call. It did not happen in those debates but I can remember occasions when Speakers did that. I think Mr Speaker that you have been actively involved in this and I hope that at the end of this debate you will give your views rather than just putting the question. I know it is slightly harder to do that from the Chair in which you generally sit than from a speaking place in the House. 
The other area that I think is a major victory for Parliament over the executive is the requirement to make debatable in the House instructions to select committees that shorten their consideration of bills to a period shorter than 4 months. I think—much more so in fact with this Government than with previous Governments—there has been a habit of almost automatically shortening up the time for the consideration of bills in select committees. That often stops the public from having a decent go and often forces the debate or the committee hearings into the sitting times of the House as well and I think that that is unhealthy. 
These reviews are always compromises. I do not totally support everything in here but through your chairpersonship Mr Speaker there is nothing in here that any party is fundamentally and absolutely opposed to to its core.