THE PRESS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1982. Preparing for Parliament

Press, 26 February 1982, Page 14

THE PRESS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1982. Preparing for Parliament

The opening of Parliament is less than six weeks away. The three political parties are having to consider their tactics in what will be the country’s most closely divided House for more than 20 years. After providing a Speaker, the Government will have a majority of one over the combined seats of Labour and Social Credit. After Parliament opens, even this majority could vanish. The Labour Party has filed an electoral petition to contest the result in the Taupo seat, held by National with a majority of 14. Challenges to the results in the Hunua and Kapiti electorates after the 1978 General Election were not settled until May, 1979.

The Prime Minister has not spelt out his intentions for the sitting of Parliament, but he has said that after the Address in Reply debate he expects bills to be introduced to the House in early May. The House would adjourn some time in May to give select committees time to examine legislative proposals. Parliament might not resume until a short time before the presentation of the Budget, perhaps in late June. If the result at Taupo is reversed, the Government would go into the debate on the Budget with no majority in Parliament that would guarantee the passage of its proposals.

The voting of the two Social Credit members of Parliament will be crucial in deciding whether the Government can continue to govern, and whether an early election is necessary. With the votes of 21 per cent of the electorate behind them in November, the Social Creditors believe they must take great care about the manner in which they exercise what the party's leader, Mr Beetham, calls a “balance of responsibility.’’ Judging by the attitude expressed so far by Social Credit, the league is not likely to support an Opposition motion of “No Confidence” in the Government unless the Social Creditors believe a principle important to them is at stake. The league’s members are not likely to vote against supplying the means for the Government’s financial proposals, unless these are especially abhorrent. Regardless ’of • whether the National Party retains the Taupo seat, the Government will be walking through a minefield for the next three years. Social Credit’s two members of Parliament can be expected, to vote against legislation that they oppose as a matter of policy; they can do no less in fairness to their supporters and the Labour Party may be tempted to force such decisions if it sees the chance of another election and wants to fight one. Labour, if only out of a sense of insurance, will observe the normal procedure for granting pairs for absent Government members; this means that it will stop one of its members from voting in the House if a Government member is absent legitimately, in the Opposition’s view, from .a division. Even so, it will only need, one dr two Government members to get off to a slow start in the scurry to the voting lobbies when the division bells ring, for the Government to find it has been defeated on a particular question.

That need not mean an early General Election, unless a confidence vote, or a vote on supply, is in question. A series of defeats, however minor, would put the Government in an embarrassing position. The National Party,' and the electorate, would be reminded that this Government

rules without the majority support of electors. An early election might turn out to be embarrassing to all the parties. Before the Budget has been announced, with its associated changes in ''taxation, the Government would be forced to fight an election on financial policies which it could not make public. An election after the Budget has been presented would be a test of the speed and direction of change in the tax system, probably the most pressing issue facing the country and certainly the issue on which many electors have the strongest opinions. An election this year would catch all the parties ill prepared. Party coffers are depleted after the recent election. Social Credit has still to work out how to appeal to a wider group in the electorate than those who are disgruntled with the performance of both the other parties. The Labour Party, groping its way towards the political centre, has still to show that it has shaken off, in the eyes of the community, its unwelcome connections with the more extreme wing of the industrial labour movement. The National Party, which could take little comfort from its support last November, has yet to offer any significant policy initiative that would be likely to produce a comfortable majority in an election.

Opposition members of Parliament have a better-than-usual prospect of being listened to in an evenly balanced Parliament. Their numbers will surely deter . the Government from taking especially unpopular decisions. The prospect of an inconveniently early election might deter the Opposition from forcing an election, even if it could, unless some quite exceptional issue appears. The Labour Party’s enthusiasm for an early election might well depend on what happens at the party’s annual conference in May. Given the support, or reticence, of Social Credit, the Government should be able to govern whatever the outcome of the Taupo petition.

The Social Credit League may be seduced in due course into acknowledging that backing the governing party — the National Party in this Parliament — will divert no votes from Labour. The league may also conclude that any disaffected National voters will not thank it for sustaining the Government in office. Sooner or later the league must decide whether it really believes in itself. Pretending for too long that it is obliging a majority of voters by not upsetting the Government would be a difficult game for Social Credit. The simple fact is that the Prime Minister. ■ with the perfectly legitimate explanation that time must be allowed for committees to consider legislation and public submissions, has called everyone’s bluff. By calling Parliament together early, Mr Muldoon has put his own team on its mettle and has challenged the others to do their worst — or best — if they can. At its conference the Labour Party can rearrange itself, if it dares, on what could be the eve of an election. The Social Crediters are left in something of a wilderness, wondering how they can stand for their principles , without being labelled as ineffective' or irresponsible. They have a difficult task.