What the M.P.s ŵere saying Opposition threatens to veto bill

Press, 8 September 1980, Page 2

What the M.P.s ŵere saying Opposition threatens to veto bill

Parliamentary reporter Two Christchurch members of Parliament who appear to have inherited the mantle of -Opposition spokesmen on electoral and constitutional matters threw down the gauntlet to the Government last week and demanded more co-operation from the Treasury benches. The challenge was more than an idle boast because a measure to go before the House could be defeated, in spite of the Government’s majority, if the Opposition decides to oppose its passage. The occasion was the introduction of the Electoral Amendment Bill, which Mr G. W. R. Palmer (Labour, Christchurch Central) was quick to point out contains changes which will require a 75 per cent, majority of members. Government members had overlooked an essential ingredient of the existing Electoral Act in that they needed the co-operation of all members of the House to vote for the provisions of the bill, he said.:' • \ “The bill raises very great and important questions relating to the sovereignty of the Parliament,” he .said. “The electoral law of- the country is as close to a written constitution as one can get in New Zealand and the electoral law is part of the fundamental law of the country. Because of that, basic efforts have been made in the Electoral Act to make changes to the electoral law more difficult than it is to make changes to the ordinary law. Mr Palmer said that section 189 of the Electoral Act reserved or entrenched certain provisions against change by a simple majority of members of Parliament.

The reserved provisions could be altered by two means only: by 75 per cent of all members of the House (which, means 69 members) voting for the change or by a majority of votes cast in a poll of electors. The Government has 51 seats. “As far as I know, the Electoral Act is the only law in New Zealand where a simple majority of Parliament cannot change the law by the ordinary legislative processes. At least three of the provisions that are protected from alteration by a simple majority are altered by the bill,” said Mr Palmer. If the Government required a 75 per cent majority of members to introduce' the bill, it would have been in “deep trouble” but such a requirement was unlikely because the bill was not yet technically before the House. • “However, if the Opposition members dppose it on the second reading, in the committee stage, or on the third reading, the Government can kiss the vital provisions of the bill good-bye because' |hey wilL: not ; become law.” The Labour. Party’s opposition to the bill include profor removing party affiliations from the ballot paper, controls on campaign signs, and the delay of the next Maori, option until after the General • Election next year. Mr D. F. Caygill (Lab., St Albans) tackled the Government about the proposed effective date of the bill. As it stands, the bill is intended to come into force on October 1.

Mr Caygill said that that did not give much time for submissions to be called for, received, heard, considered by the select committee, and reported back to the House!

and for the House to go through a further three steps of debate. “It seems inevitable that if the timetable disclosed in the bill is adhered to very little consideration will be given to the submissions,” he said. The issue of the bill’s rapid passage is likely to loom larger in forthcoming debates and the Government is now in the position of having to woo the Opposition for its support. Another Christchurch member, speaking in the Estimates debate on the Department of Statistics vote, was almost prophetic in view of the announcement at the end of the week that the number of registered unemployed had climbed by 3231 to 40,351. Mrs Ann Hercus (Lab., Lyttelton) was critical of the “misleading unemployment statistics” and the delay in producing an accurate labour-force survey. “It is in the Minister’s power 7 (the £in Charge of The department, Mr Templeton) to produce accurate statistics on the real level of unemployment,” she said. “Will the Minister deny that the department could produce the statistics before the election in 1981 if it were given more resources?” Mrs Hercus said that according to recent figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the number of Unemployed in New Zealand had increased 559 per cent between November, 1975, and November, 1979. In the same period the number in Canada had increased 20 per cent and in Australia 35 per cent. In the United States it had decreased 20 per cent.