The Vote On The Term Of Parliament

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31498, 12 October 1967, Page 12

The Vote On The Term Of Parliament

Before the referendum on the term of future Parliaments public interest in the choice between three and four years seemed to be very slight compared with the intense interest in hotel bar hours. Had the poll on the Parliamentary term been held independently it is unlikely that as many as 70 per cent of electors would have voted. Even in conjunction with the bar hours poll the vote was remarkable. The final voting figures show that more valid votes were cast in the poll on the term of Parliament than were cast in the poll on bar hours. If informal votes in both polls are taken into account the response to the hours question was very slightly larger than the number of votes on the Parliamentary issue. Either way the difference was insignificant: the greater number pf valid votes on the term of Parliament might be explained by some electors’ spoiling their papers on bar hours because neither proposition on hours pleased them. Although the vote on the constitutional question was decisive, some doubts about its value as an expression of the will of an informed electorate remain Many voters seem to have the mistaken impression that a vote for a longer term would have extended the life of the present Parliament. Newspaper articles, radio and television reports, and statements by the Government did not dispose of this misapprehension. Any attempt by a Government to extend its own life is apt to be resisted: and if

there was any widespread misapprehension about the effect of a vote for a four-year term, that would certainly have had a marked effect on the poll. Unfortunate as this may have been, the referendum was not without value. The large vote showed that citizens are interested in the term of Parliament It is significant that a majority of the electors who cast their votes overseas strongly favoured-a four-year term. Perhaps distance softened the harshness of the present political and economic scene in New Zealand. Perhaps familiarity with the steadier political climate produced by the longed-lived Parliaments of other countries guided their pattern of voting. Here is solid encouragement for the reformers of our

Parliamentary practice. Further acquaintance with practices abroad will just as surely induce a change in public opinion on the Parliamentary term as it has influenced public thinking on the licensing laws.