Procedure on Bills

Public Bills, almost all of which are introduced by the Government, are given three readings. The first reading, on introduction, is formal only and is decided without amendment or debate, though a short debate normally takes place during the introduction procedure, which immediately proceeds first reading. Bills, having been read a first time, are printed and set down for second reading. The second reading debate is used for a discussion of the general principles of the Bill. It is followed by a clause by clause consideration of the Bill in Committee of the Whole House. At this stage amendments are offered and considered.

Standing Orders were amended shortly after the abolition of the Legislative Council to provide that the report from Committee of the Whole, having been presented to the House, be considered on a future day. This was to ensure an additional stage. This amendment has had no effect in practice. Reports have been considered immediately either “by leave” or because “urgency” procedures were in force. Members understandably showed little inclination to traverse again the arguments of the Committee stage.

The third reading of the Bill is not normally the occasion for protracted debate, though whatever transpired in Committee of the Whole and the general principles of the Bill as amended are open to debate at this stage. Standing Orders provide that the third reading be set down for “a future day” after the adoption of the report. Though the same possibilities of making exceptions to this rule exist as for the report itself, the delay is normally observed.

Royal Assent

Bills are finally sent to the Governor-General for the Royal assent and become law immediately or whenever specified in the Bill itself.

Select Committees

To facilitate detailed informal discussion, and so that evidence from experts and interested parties may be heard by the House on legislation which is before it, a number of select committees are appointed regularly each year. Their terms of reference indicate areas of legislative interest corresponding to the various Ministries. There are normally 10 members on each committee and party strength roughly reflects party strength in the House. Bills which are to go to select committee are given only a pro forma second reading before being referred. Committees have power only to report their opinions to the House. They cannot amend, though they can recommend amendments. The House as a whole thus retains its responsibility for approving legislation or rejecting it.

Apart from legislation, select committees deal with petitions, and, from time to time, ad hoc select committees are set up with some specific matter referred to them.

Local and Private Bills

There are special procedures for dealing with local Bills and private Bills. Local Bills are those affecting a particular locality only, normally introduced at the request of a local authority. All such Bills stand referred to a select committee, the Local Bills Committee, after their first reading. The Committee holds hearings at which interested parties appear, and it reports to the House on the merits of the Bill. The Committee's report is often the decisive factor in local government legislation and always carries considerable weight with the Government and the House. Private Bills are those which apply specifically to a person or group of persons. They are initiated, after public notice, by a petition presented to the House by a member. The costs of any Bill, including a fee of £50 payable to the General Assembly Library, have to be met by the promoter. Like all other Bills, private Bills are given three readings, but after second reading they go to an ad hoc committee on the Bill nominated by a committee of selection set up at the beginning of the session. The committee on the Bill may hear counsel and take evidence. It attempts to ensure that the rights of other individuals are not infringed by the proposed legislation. The committee reports to the House and if the report is agreed upon, the Bill is set down for third reading.

Parliament and the Public Service

In its general supervision of and check on the bureaucracy the House makes use principally of questions, petitions, and special financial procedures.

Questions

Standing Orders on questions were changed in June 1962 to bring New Zealand procedure in line with that of the House of Commons. Notices of questions had previously been read in full before being handed to the Clerk. Admissible questions were given written replies which were discussed on an adjournment motion on Wednesday afternoons unless some other business had precedence. The disadvantage of this method was that inadmissible but damaging questions were read in notice form and were heard by radio listeners. Though they were ruled out of order they were effective and there was no reply. The debate on Wednesday was not an efficient device for dealing with evasive replies since Ministers were under no obligation to answer criticism and were sometimes absent from the chamber when a reply of theirs was being discussed. The Wednesday debate was, however, a good opportunity to follow up a question implying criticism of Government policy or actions and it was at a convenient time to attract press notice.

Under the new procedure, notices are submitted in writing and admissible questions appear on a subsequent Order Paper. They are read in full at question time and are answered verbally. Supplementary questions are permitted at Mr Speaker's discretion. There is no Ministerial rota system and there is no limit to the number of questions a member may ask. A new Standing Order gives members an opportunity to follow up critical questions or unsatisfactory Ministerial replies. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, with some exceptions, proceedings are interrupted at 10 p.m. and a Minister moves the adjournment of the House. There ensues a half-hour debate on this motion, in which speeches are limited to five minutes.

Petitions

The power of the House of Commons in England to deal with petitions was assumed by the New Zealand Parliament in the Privileges Act of 1865. It is a by no means rarely used device. There were, for example, 27 petitions presented in the 1960 session. The prayers, many of which were personal, were for relief, redress, compensation, and for the initiation of public legislation. Petitions must be presented by a member and most petitions are heard by the Petitions Committee which then reports to the House. The motion before the House is that the report of the Petitions Committee do lie upon the table and be referred to the Government (with or without a recommendation for favourable consideration). The report is sent by the Clerk of the House to the Government Department concerned. Comments having been added by departmental officers, the file is sent up to the Minister who hands it to a Cabinet sub-committee on petitions. A most favourable recommendation from the Committee does not ensure that action will be taken on the plea of the petitioner nor does an unfavourable report rule out the possibility that the Cabinet subcommittee will take a different view. There have been complaints in the House by Committee members that their recommendations are largely ignored by Government and there have been notable cases in which petitions committees in several Parliaments have recommended favourable consideration without result. Evidently the committees play a secondary role in determining whether action will be taken. It is worth noting that Government Departments, who may appear before a committee to give evidence against a petition, are in a position to offer a rebuttal of the committee's case before the Cabinet subcommittee considers it. There is, however, a sufficient proportion of petitions which is acted upon to give at least partial satisfaction to the petitioner, to make the procedure valuable.

Financial Procedure

The relationship in financial matters between Crown and Parliament in England is preserved in New Zealand. Financial initiative must come from the Crown but all charges on revenue and measures for raising revenue must be authorised by Parliament. Each year departmental estimates of expenditure are considered piecemeal by the whole House of Representatives, sitting as the Committee of Supply, and they are authorised in the form of an Appropriation Act which allocates the money for approved purposes. Another Committee of the Whole House, Ways and Means, considers the Government's proposals to tax and borrow. In its consideration of the estimates the House makes use of a select committee. Until the 1962 changes in Standing Orders this Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, did not actually consider the accounts. It examined the estimates, attempting to assess their adequacy or inadequacy. Though public servants could be called and questioned, the Committee was not able to make a very searching inquiry into expenditure. It did not have the benefit of expert advice from a servant of Parliament. It was chaired by a Government member who could save the Government from embarrassment at times. Its report was short and submitted to the Government, not the House of Representatives. The report was not published. The Committee is now called the Public Expenditure Committee and its order of reference has been changed to include an examination of the accounts and of matters raised in the annual report of the Controller and Auditor-General. It is empowered to adjourn from place to place and form subcommittees. The new Committee, unlike the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, does not have an Opposition chairman but it is likely to avail itself of the services of the Controller and Auditor-General in considering the accounts, and its work should benefit. It is too early to say whether the Committee will be allowed to report to the House of Representatives. The Standing Order is ambiguous on this point, stating that the Committee is to report to the House or the Government, but, in any case, Opposition members of the Committee have the opportunity in Committee of Supply on the estimates to make use of their experience and any information they have gained. Other checks on the bureaucracy provided for in Standing Orders are motions for returns (a demand for statistical information to be made available to the House), consideration of papers (a debate in which papers laid on the Table of the House by order of the House or by statute are examined), and a debate on a motion to discuss a matter of urgent public importance (which might involve maladministration). In the 1962 revision of Standing Orders, special attention was paid to the problems of delegated legislation and its examination became part of the order of reference of the Statutes Revision Committee. The Committee has power to sit during adjournment or recess and its chairman or any five members of the House may refer to it any regulations other than those made by local authorities.

Ombudsman

Representation and Formation of Public Opinion

In the representation and formation of public opinion the major general debates are of principal importance. Special inquiries by select committees also provide a useful forum in which interests and opinions can make themselves heard. The major general debates are the address in reply to the speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament, the debate on the Budget or financial statement, and the various debates on Imprest Supply Bills.

The first two of these give ordinary members an opportunity to air their views freely on any subject they choose from the national interest to the special aspirations of their constituents. Imprest supply debates are more specialised. On such Bills, the British principle of raising grievances before granting supply has been applied by allowing the Opposition to choose the subject for debate.

The substantive motion by the Opposition to censure, challenge, or criticise the Government, commonly employed in other parliaments for the discussion of some controversial aspect of government policy, is used in New Zealand only on very rare occasions.

Resolutions expressing want of confidence are, however, frequently proposed as amendments to the address in reply or as amendments to the motion for the second reading of a Bill.

Broadcasting

With the object of creating an informed public opinion, the proceedings of Parliament are broadcast during normal sitting hours, though broadcasting hours may be extended at the discretion of the Leader of the House. The effects of broadcasting cannot, of course, be completely ascertained. Some disadvantages and advantages are, however, clear. There is a tendency for speeches in the House, particularly at peak listening times, to be addressed as much to the listening audience as to other members. A “hustings”, rather than a debating style, is likely to be adopted. The cut and thrust of debate and its spontaneity are allowed to suffer in order to reserve best radio hours for leading party spokesmen. The effect of broadcasting on the listening audience is more intangible. The few illusions retained by New Zealanders about their Parliament are not, on the whole, those which bring it into esteem. An unsophisticated audience, at work during the day, becomes familiar with only one aspect of parliamentary life and virtually one class of business: debates on orders of the day in the evening. The contempt which familiarity breeds is the price which Parliament has to pay for the equally intangible educational value of broadcasting.

by Reginald James Harrison, B.SC.ECON.(LOND.), B.A. (DE PAUW), PH.D.(OHIO STATE), Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Victoria University of Wellington.

Bibliography

The best and most recent general work on New Zealand government is K. J. Scott, The New Zealand Constitution, Oxford University Press (1962), which contains a full treatment of the constitutional role of Parliament. J. L. Robson (ed.), New Zealand, The Development of its Laws and Constitution, London, Stevens and Sons Ltd. (1954), may also be consulted. The New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1949 (edited by G. H. Scholefield), is an official illustrated history and contains complete rolls of past members of both chambers during the period, with their electorates and dates of election, or dates of appointment, and the parliamentary offices they held. There are lists of Governors and Governors-General, Ministries, electorates and their successive representatives, dates of sessions, and similar details.

L. Lipson, The Politics of Equality, University of Chicago Press (1948), provides an account of the political background. It is somewhat out of date for this purpose, but is still the most recent general work available.

A number of articles in the journal Political Science, published by the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Victoria University of Wellington, deal with aspects of Parliament not fully covered here. The most useful are the following: Dean E. McHenry, “Broadcasting of Parliamentary Debates”, Vol. 7, No. 1; R. N. Kelson, “Voting in the New Zealand House of Representatives”, Vol. 7, No. 2; and Austin Mitchell, “The New Zealand Parliaments of 1935–60”, Vol. 13, No. 1. The last of these contains a biographical analysis of membership of the House during the period indicated. The proceedings of the House are reported verbatim in Hansard, the familiar name for the official New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, issued in bound volumes of convenient size at the end of each session with sessional index, by the Government Printer, Wellington. Other publications of importance are the Journals, the record of the decisions of the House, and the Appendices to the Journals, which contain reports to the House by the committees and other bodies, and various papers and returns.

by Reginald James Harrison, B.SC.ECON.(LOND.), B.A. (DE PAUW), PH.D.(OHIO STATE), Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Victoria University of Wellington.