Burning at both ends

Press, 21 September 1978, Page 16

Burning at both ends

The extraordinary sitting that Parliament completed yesterday after debating throughout the night does credit to neither the Government nor the Opposition Parliament manages its own business and has its own peculiar ways that do not necessarily make sense to many people outside Parliament House. Procedure, convention, and strategy in the House of Representatives have their uses; but sometimes they are misused and generally the House and its officers have a remedy.

Extended sittings of the House are exceptional: sometimes they are necessary and no-one who wants Parliament to get on with its job would object. Sometimes, however, a long, exhausting sitting appears to be entirely unjustified. The business of the House on such occasions may be of the utmost importance, and deserving of the closest attention of members. On other occasions the House appears to be engaging in a battle of tactics to no obvious or useful purpose.

After a fairly acrimonious night, some of it hardly devoted to the business in hand, the Opposition is claiming that its prolonged questioning on the Supplementary Estimates was a demonstration of its members’ diligence in examining the reasons for the proposed expenditure. The Government view was that normal time was allowed for the discussion on the Estimates and that taking of urgency on the subject was reasonable.

Whichever view one prefers, the question remains: what was the result? The answer is: very little. The Opposition did not set out to oppose the expenditure, merely to question it That was a fair enough aim if the Opposition genuinely believed that the Estimates needed close scrutiny. The House is not

oppressed with business, even though the end of the session is in sight. In theory the Government could allow the Estimates debate to run its course in the normal sitting hours In practice, every Government sets a limit to the debate, simply because it would otherwise be endless and. in many instances, trivial. Many Parliamentary wrangles, or disputes about the timing of debates, are coloured by what is surely a mistaken attachment to the hours in which proceedings are broadcast. The public’s access to Parliament through radio is important; but members undoubtedly over-rate the attention that they capture during the normal broadcasting hours, let alone the hearing they get if the broadcast is extended.

Yet a possible solution to some of Parliament’s problems might be to arrange for the broadcast of all proceedings. This would present technical and administrative problems for the broadcasters; and under the present transmission arrangements at least Wellington radio listeners would have to sacrifice culture for politics. An answer to this is not impossible, though it might entail a new transmitter in Wellington. If it achieved little else, it might ensure that Parliament does not add to the exhaustion of its members and staff, or to the wonderment of the public, by spending time in debate on whether the House should be on the air Better than that, given the permanence of the illusion that the country is glued to its radios to hear its representatives, members might be less tempted to draw unfavourable attention to themselves by arguing through the night when even the most ardent Parliamentary listeners are likely to fall asleep. As things stand, of course, it seems that hardly anyone thought that the Estimates debate was worth the candle.