Shirley Ken: Address to Her Excellency the Governor-General 
Shirley Ken: Address to Her Excellency the Governor-General 
[Volume:617;Page:13202] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 This is a special sitting of the House of Representatives to celebrate our Parliament’s proud history. I would like to acknowledge former colleagues who are here and recognise former Speakers who were here earlier in the debate: Kerry Burke Robin Gray and Doug Kidd. I have been reprimanded by all three of them. I would also like to acknowledge Charles Littlejohn who was here earlier. He was a long-serving Clerk of the Parliament prior to Dave McGee. 
It is a time for reflection and a time to cherish parliamentary representative democracy. We know that that is a very tenuous state. We know that it is precious scarce and very vulnerable. New Zealand is one of very very few nation States that managed to retain parliamentary democracy throughout the 20th century. If we look at the States of Europe Latin America and most of Asia and more recently if we look at states like Fiji we can see that parliamentary democracy cannot be taken for granted; it must be worked at and renewed. 
We have had 150 years of our Parliament. That is not a great length of time in the greater scheme of things. It is perhaps the time of merely six or seven generations. The Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt our Speaker has been here for 38 years—that is for 25 percent of the entire duration of the New Zealand Parliament. 
 My good friend and colleague Richard Prebble has 26 years of distinguished parliamentary service. He is still going strong and still making a tremendous contribution and as we heard today he has the greatest number of references in the  
Hansard 
 of this Parliament of any member ever. That is a tremendous contribution. [ 
Interruption 
] The printers certainly thought so he interjects. 
Bill English advises that very few of his class of 1990 remain in Parliament. I first came here in the class of 1984 as a reasonably eager young chap. When I look around I see there are not many left of the class of ’84. We do suffer attrition here. We do not have a retention problem; it is more one of attrition. 
People have been reflecting and appropriately so but I would like to look ahead. I think we have learnt from our history but I ask where we will be when we next celebrate a memorial time. I figure it will be our 200th celebration on 24 May 2054 and that is actually not far away when we think about it. 
We have to ask ourselves some fundamental questions. Will New Zealand still be an independent sovereign State—State nationhood is quite a recent concept in the scheme of things—or will our representatives be going off to the capital of the “Federated States of Austra-nesia”? Who knows? I am not advocating that but who knows what we will have in 50 years’ time. 
Those early members of Parliament came to Auckland by coastal steamer. It took over 3 months to go around the country collect them all up and bring them to Auckland. Bob Tizard who is sitting up the front there first came to Parliament in 1957. He sat down with me and told me how he used to catch the overnight train to Parliament; MPs of his day did not fly up. 
Bob Tizard did not have a cellphone in 1957 that is for sure. I actually got my first cellphone after 6 years in Parliament and it was a brick—a huge thing. It was very heavy it half filled my briefcase and I can assure members it did not have many functions. Some would say I have not developed much past my brick but our modern cellphones have certainly transformed the lives of members of Parliament. 
Assuming we do retain our separate sovereignty I question whether the capital will still be in Wellington. We cannot assume that. Mayor Banks in his fifteenth term of office as Mayor of Auckland might capture the capital back after a devastating earthquake flattens Wellington in 2020. That is conceivable. We do not wish that but it is possible. It would certainly change things dramatically. 
Will MMP remain? I certainly hope so. I think our Parliament is more representative—and that is what we are. This is a House of Representatives. It is not a board of directors it is not a panel of experts; it is a House of Representatives.