Prebble Richard: Address to Her Excellency the Governor-General 
Prebble Richard: Address to Her Excellency the Governor-General 
[Volume:617;Page:13187] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 It is indeed fitting that we mark the 150th anniversary of our Parliament. It is a significant milestone for we the parliamentarians and for the people whom we represent. It is made more so by the fact that while we are a young country we are one of the world’s oldest Parliaments which I think is an indication that parliamentary democracy is actually very fragile and is something that we all have to work to preserve. 
In human history 150 years is two lifetimes. Indeed when I was first elected Sir Keith Holyoake was a member of this House and this Parliament was only 78 years old when he was first elected. I myself have served almost 20 percent of the length of time our Parliament has been in existence. When I arrived in 1975 there were just three women MPs and six Maori members of Parliament and no other ethnic group was represented. We were a Parliament of white middle-aged males—a tribe to which I am very proud to belong but which is not the majority then or now. Now thanks to MMP we have over 30 women MPs—depending how one counts—at least 18 Maori three Pacific Islanders two Asians and the rest of us. We are now truly a House of Representatives. 
In the days of first-past-the-post elections the two parties held many ritualistic debates. 
 What was most interesting though was what we did not debate. If the two parties did not want to discuss an issue no matter how important it might be it simply was not discussed on the floor of this House. In my first 15 years we held only two debates—or possibly only one—on foreign affairs. Now thanks to MMP and the presence of third parties no issue of importance to the electorate is ignored and if there is a viewpoint out there in the community there is now some party in Parliament to represent it. 
We have made much progress. When I was first elected legislation often did not go to any select committee. Select committees did not examine departmental estimates. One of the committees I was appointed to 29 years ago met once to elect the chairman. When I made a submission to the Standing Orders Committee that committees ought to be reorganised along the basis that they are now it was rejected as totally impractical. Then in 1985 that submission was implemented. I believe that our select committee process which enables the public to make submissions on legislation is the best in the Commonwealth. Yet despite those reforms and apparent progress there is no doubt that the power of our Parliament is in decline. There are a number of threats and one of those threats is the power of unelected judges to make judge-made law but that is a subject for another day. A bigger threat to Parliament and democracy comes from the unfettered power of Prime Ministers to turn back-benchers—the guardians of parliamentary democracy—into Ministers. 
We all know that a country of 4 million people does not need 28 Ministers. Thanks in part to privatisation which I could take credit for if one likes we have reduced the size of Government yet the number of Ministers continues to grow. Prime Ministers create Ministers in order to dominate first their own party caucuses and then this House. It is a power play to dominate this House and it has been very successful. There are so many Ministers that any MP of any ability who manages to survive three Parliaments is certain to be made a Minister. To increase their power Prime Ministers have waved the prospect of office before MPs. The result is that the executive has slowly stripped the rights of members and hobbled their ability to represent rigorously the people we are elected to argue on behalf of. 
Parliament is not the Government. We have just three roles—to legislate; to be a check on the executive; and to be a final forum for grievances by the petition process. The most important function is to be a check on the executive. Yet over time the paramount role of our Parliament has been frustrated and rendered largely ineffective. Through successive changes to the Standing Orders we have allowed the executive to take away our principled right which is our right to speak in this Chamber by imposing savage time limits on speaking and a guillotine on most debates. Back-benchers have virtually lost the right to speak in this House. I calculate that 20 of the current back-benchers will speak in Parliament this year for fewer than 30 minutes. Over 40 members of Parliament will not give a speech of more than 5 minutes duration this year. I defy anyone to give a proper analysis of let us say the Resource Management Act in just 5 minutes. It cannot be done. 
When I was first a member of Parliament as a back-bencher I was guaranteed every year the right to make one 30-minute speech and another 20-minute speech on the topic of my choice. I can recall one evening actually giving three 20-minute speeches. It is not in the Standing Orders— 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: That’s why we changed it. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Maybe so. I understand I have the dubious honour of having the most words in our  
Hansard 
 in the last 150 years. I remind the House that the world’s most powerful Parliament the United States Senate still has unlimited speaking time. We as members of Parliament should be very reluctant to give up our right as members of Parliament to speak in this House on a topic of our choice. This House can only regain its role to be a real check on the executive by limiting the number of MPs who can be Ministers. We all know that a Cabinet of 12 would be more than enough. The first wartime Cabinet in the Second World War—perhaps the biggest challenge this House has had to face—comprised only eight Ministers. A Cabinet of 12 Ministers would have to rely on persuasion rather than the hammer of collective Cabinet responsibility to get its programme passed by this House. Twenty-eight Ministers with seven Maori affairs Ministers is not just a huge waste of taxpayers’ resources; it is a threat to parliamentary democracy. If we want to have a strong Parliament that will last another 150 years then we MPs must restrict our own ambitions and place a limit on the size of the executive. It is Parliament’s back-benchers who are the watchdogs of parliamentary democracy. If the present trend continues we will cease to be watchdogs and find ourselves merely lapdogs. That would be a tragedy for Parliament and the people who place their trust in us who see us as their last protection from the unfettered power of an untrammelled executive when we have no written constitution. We are the watchdogs. We must limit the size of the executive. We must strengthen the power of the back bench. Indeed I believe in that so much I am proposing to move there and by doing so we will be able to ensure that this Parliament has a strong role for the next 150 years.