2-Chamber Parliament 'Established Practice’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30215, 21 August 1963, Page 12

2-Chamber Parliament 'Established Practice’

“In many of the new independent States being established by the United Kingdom Government a two-cham-ber Parliament is accepted as a prime requisite. But only a few New Zealand politicians admit to thinking that it is just as desirable for this country," says an article in the "Liberator,” the journal of the Constitutional Society. The article says: “Last month it was reported that the proposed constitution for Honduras provided for a twochamber Parliament. This is established practice for almost all of the Western world except New Zealand. “Even some Communist States recognise the value of checks and balances. For instance. Jugoslavia has adopted a new constitution which provides for five chambers of Parliament.

"The details are not fully available and it is doubtful if the system is intended to do more than provide a series of specialist bodies on different subjects, but at least it suggests that some serious consideration has been given to making the parliamentary system more efficient.

"The Parliamentary Petitions Committee which heard the society's case for a second chamber and written constitution in 1961 showed remarkably little understanding of the principles on which democratic government had been based. “Repeatedly members of the committee argued with the society’s witnesses that two chambers of Parliament would not make for more efficiency. “They might just as well have contended that absolute Cabinet rule, which is almost what we have at present, or a dictatorship, would be more efficient. “It is not a question of efficiency so much as of safeguards and protections for the people. History is full of examples of tyrannous government which was quite well-intentioned, but disastrous for the people so far as individual liberty was concerned. ‘•This can very easily happen again as it has in many countries in this century. Few people are more vulnerable than New Zealanders.”