Parker David: Governor-General Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Parker David: Governor-General Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14783] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 On this occasion I agree with the Government and with Trevor Mallard as to process. The bill that we will consider today does not deal with the way in which the Governor-General is appointed. There is considerable merit in what Keith Locke has put forward in terms of ideas about how the process for the appointment of the Governor-General could be improved but that matter is not for this bill. Indeed it is also fair to say to Mr Locke that similar submissions were made in respect of the bill when it was before the Government Administration Committee on which I was serving. The clerk of the committee provided advice to the committee that amendments to that effect were beyond the scope of the bill because the bill does not deal with methods of appointment. 
I would like to further describe my concerns about process. I am not a process junky but I recognise that some of the long-established processes we have in this Parliament are to protect against substantial changes being made that might not be properly thought through. I am not accusing Mr Locke of not properly thinking this matter through; I am actually taking the point of principle. 
There are various ways in which our select committees are meant to act as a check on what happens in this Parliament. This is all the more important in New Zealand because we have a unicameral Parliament. If Parliament gets it wrong there is no higher House through which legislation passes; no higher House can check on legislation and turn things back if we make mistakes. That is why in New Zealand we are very very reliant on the scrutiny of proposed legislation in the select committee process. 
There are a number of ways in which that scrutiny can be usurped to the detriment of New Zealanders and one of them is a select committee putting into legislation amendments that are beyond the scope of a bill. We oppose that because people do not have an opportunity to submit on them. If an amendment is not within the scope of the original bill then interested New Zealanders who might have a view in favour or against the sort of thing that Keith Locke is now proposing do not have the chance to submit upon it and to tell the committee—and through the committee this Parliament—what the pluses and minuses of the proposal are. 
As Annette King said earlier—and it is the next issue I was going to mention—if we agree to this I say Mr Locke then how are we to resist inappropriate attempts by the Government to do similar things in respect of its legislative agenda when it wants to tack bits on to legislation that has gone to a select committee and then come back to the House or indeed to do so at the select committee? We would disagree with that as an Opposition. 
There already are in my opinion too many things being done to undermine the effectiveness of some of these processes. The open government we have in New Zealand— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Yes talk about the electoral finance legislation. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Well the electoral finance legislation is probably quite a good case in point because that went through a full select committee process. There was no truncated process there. 
The rule of the Government now seems to be to use its numbers to change a reference to a select committee by truncating the period for the select committee process and truncating the period for public submissions at the select committee. The Government did so for the super-city legislation—a phrase that I do not like; I will refer to it as the Auckland city reorganisation legislation—and it has done so for other legislation. The Government has used urgency inappropriately. It has used urgency repeatedly and inappropriately to effectively push legislation through different stages in a very truncated period of time. That stops the fourth estate stops the Opposition and stops interest groups from getting up opposition to policy that could be opposed over a longer period of time to proper effect so as to protect New Zealanders against inappropriate change. Another example is the Official Information Act. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I advise the member of Speaker’s ruling 80/3: “This is a procedural motion … it is a narrow debate. The only matter under debate is whether the committee should have the power to examine and adopt this Supplementary Order Paper.” That is the only matter for debate. What may or may not have gone on before could be very interesting but it is proscribed for this debate. I invite the House to remember that it is a narrow debate about whether the select committee should have the power to consider this Supplementary Order Paper. 
Keith Locke 
: I seek leave to table a submission to the select committee presented by Lewis Holden and Dean Knight specifically proposing— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to the member that the kawa of this House is that those sorts of things should be done at the end of a member’s speech. The Hon David Parker is speaking. I have pulled him up on a matter of order. I want the Hon David Parker to be given the opportunity to complete his speech and when he is finished the member is welcome to seek leave at that point. It is just a courtesy to the member who is speaking. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Indeed Mr Locke is correct that a similar submission was made to the select committee and that is the reference I was making earlier to the advice we had in relation to just that suggestion that it was beyond the scope of the bill. The instances that I was talking to were why we should take care not to agree in this procedural motion to take a step that effectively undermines the protections we normally have in this House against inappropriate process. 
I was giving instances of that and the only other ones I would give are in respect of how the Official Information Act can be ignored and indeed how minority reports can be blocked by the Government. All these sorts of things are encouraged if we vote for this motion because this motion suggests that we should put aside the normal processes ignore what is normally within the scope of the bill and ignore our parliamentary traditions which go to open government the Official Information Act select committee length periods minority reports and agreeing only to things that are within the scope of the bill. 
I think there is considerable merit in the idea that we should move to a more transparent process for the appointment of the Governor-General. The Governor-General ought to be appointed with the support of this House rather than just with the support of the Government. Indeed I think that Governments through the years have tried to make appointments that are appealing to both sides of the House. I have no problem with the substance behind the motion—because that would just be a case of writing down a process that would ensure that there is some cross-party agreement as to the future appointment of Governors-General. But in terms of the process point we in the Labour Party are going to support the proper process here. We feel that the Government currently is taking advantage of us at select committees and we do not want to give it cause to be able to do so by agreeing to an inappropriate process motion here. 
So the position of the Labour Party is that we oppose this motion. These procedural motions appear on the face of it to be rather dry things where we think: “Well there’s not much harm in that.” But when we think through the underlying issues here we see there are important matters of principle and precedent. I have mentioned the principles but the precedent effect would be of concern to the Labour Party and I would suggest to the Greens also. 
As Trevor Mallard has said the Greens often take the process point and often appropriately I have to say. During the two terms of the Labour Government when I have been here the Greens often stopped us from using short-cut processes because they controlled whether we could get a majority for those short-cut processes. The Greens stopped us doing that. At times it was a bit frustrating for us when we were in Government but actually I look back and I compare that with what happens now under the National Government and I think the Greens were right. 
These processes ought to be protected because the way in which we consider legislation in this House has been built up through precedents for over 100 years and those precedents are borne of experience as we try to protect New Zealand against inappropriate lawmaking. Inappropriate lawmaking can be caused by hasty lawmaking or by agreeing to matters that are essentially beyond the scope of a bill—and this is beyond the scope of the bill. It would serve the political ambition of the Greens and their reasoned position as to why they want to change the way in which the Governor-General is appointed but it would not be appropriate to do that in a bill that has not been subject to wide public submissions on that issue. 
Mr Locke is correct that two of the submitters I think raised the point at the select committee but they were ruled out as being beyond scope by the clerk of the committee. The clerk was correct to rule them out of scope; I did not think there was any doubt about that. The fact that those two people submitted does not mean to say that the people who read the bill when it was publicly advertised thought: “I don’t need to put anything in my submission about how you appoint the Governor-General because that is not what this bill is about.” Most of the people who submitted or who might have submitted had it proposed to change the way in which the Governor-General is appointed are ignorant of the fact that this bill could be used to do so. That in is itself means that it should not be done this way. 
This is an important constitutional point. The Governor-General is the Queen’s representative in New Zealand. How the Governor-General is appointed is a matter of important constitutional note. If we are going to change that we should do it directly through legislation on that topic.