by Gareth Hughes
This week the Speaker revealed he has been receiving numerous emails about “absolutely disgraceful” behaviour in the House.
From the Hansard:
[uproar]
‘…Order! Now look, order. I apologise to Dr Russel Norman but the noise will…Order!…The house will settle down, this is absolutely disgraceful.
Members of the public watching this will email me this afternoon about how disgusted they are by some of the behaviour – it’s happened too often this week, I’ve had too many such communications this week, and I don’t like that reaction from the public.’
I think it is fantastic people are contacting him and making comment about the level of debate and of MPs behaviour in their Parliament.
I think MPs do themselves no favours with their behaviour in the House.
I support robust debate but often debates get bogged down into petty point scoring, name-calling and rude behaviour. Question Time becomes dominated by pointless points of order which seem more to boost some members’ egos than improving parliamentary process. I believe is one of the reasons why voters are turning away in droves from engaging is the lack of respect for other members and for intelligent debate in the House. The sad thing is that it has gone on for so long it has become normal and acceptable.
Parliament can improve its behaviour and still maintain robust debate but it’s not up to just the Speaker; it’s up to all MPs.
If you’d like to see better conduct in the House keep emailing the Speaker: Lockwood.Smith@parliament.govt.nz
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Gareth Hughes on Fri, August 17th, 2012
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Just wondering as well, has this post been tagged wrong (Environment and resource management)?
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A great example pointless questioning and childish behaviour from MPs here –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFnQ2DxUPA8
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Gareth – do you think perhaps the system of questioning we have encourages point scoring and “non-answers”?
Do you have any ideas on any way the system or rules can be changed or tweaked to make questions AND answers a lttle less pointless and a waste of everyones time?
I get the feeling that if everyone is a little more polite, the only difference is that we will have polite pointless questions and polite pointless answers, instead of antagonistic pointless questions and antagonistic pointless answers.
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Questions to hold Ministers accountable to parliament are symbolic of their accountability to (the representatives of) the people. The principle was once made manifest when Ministers resigned if their “department” failed to perform.
There is nothing pointless about it, it is the government and the opposition part of democracy – the partisan politics that we see on this blog and others in the rest of the free speech media. They are no better or worse in that than the rest of us. Concerned citizens could try and set an example here and there. The Greens are already known for it in the House.
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I have watched the UK (westminister) parliament on which NZ parliament is apparently based. Their MPs do make comment, but no where near the unfettered level here. It is a house of Parliament, not the local school-yard
Kia-ora
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Gareth,
Whilst I agree with you that the level of debate in parliament leaves a lot to be desired, I disagree that this is why citizens are becoming disengaged from politics.
I believe the reason for lack of engagement in politics is mainly because people do not see substantial differences between the main parties. What is the point in engaging in politics if it won’t make one iota of difference? This applies to all people, irrespective of whether one supports the major parties or not. If you support the status quo, you know that even if the government changes it won’t make too much difference, so won’t be too bad. If you don’t like the status quo, you know that no matter what happens, you still won’t like the outcome.
Once politics has descended to being nothing more than a school yard like squabble between centre and centre-right parties whose only differences are in the way the icing is arranged on the top of the cake, then what is there to be engaged with?
I once voted for the McGillicuddy Serious Party. I wish they were still around, because quite frankly their policies were so much more inspiring than what National or Labour have on offer.
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Since they behave as children, treat them as children. Name and shame, as a classroom teacher has lists of those who are polite and those who are in trouble, so the speaker could have lists, published weekly by the press, of the people responsible for the most disruption and their offenses.
They are not accountable to their electorates for their behaviour otherwise.
BJ
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It would be tempting to record the most stupid behaviour of some of the MPs and to replay it just before the next election to refresh voter’s minds on just who they might be voting in.
Trevor.
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