Editorial: Sharing the spoils of power

When two parties from opposite ends of the political spectrum agree on any subject it is probably beyond serious contention. Act and Greens, who do not agree on very much, are in accord that it is time to deprive the Government of the power to appoint the chairmen or women of Parliament and its standing committees.

Act's acting leader, Ken Shirley, has written to leaders of all other parties questioning the House rule which gives the party with the most seats the right to select the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and chairmen of select committees. In response, the Greens co-leader, Rod Donald, says his party has advocated the change for years and believes the distribution of select committee chairs should reflect the proportionate strength of the parties in Parliament as far as possible.

Labour, which has the most seats in the newly elected Parliament, cannot seriously argue for the status quo. After the first MMP election, in which National won the most seats, Labour's deputy leader Michael Cullen argued strenuously that voters had changed the electoral system precisely for this sort of sharing of power. He accused the National Government of arrogance and promised that Labour would be more reasonable.

This is the time to fulfil that promise. Labour has not won the majority it expected. The country has returned the party to office but denied it absolute power. If parties from both sides of the spectrum combine to outvote Labour and Jim Anderton's party, they would strike a useful blow for Parliament's independence.

They need not go to the extent of unseating the incumbent Speaker, Jonathan Hunt, now the most seasoned member of the House and deserving of another term in the chair. But they could help assuage Mr Hunt's stated concern for the lack of attention he thinks news media pay to Parliament's committees. If more of the committees met under the gavel of opponents of the Government, their proceedings might be more compelling.

Already, since the introduction of MMP, the committees have become more vigorous in the examination of ministers and public service heads and have undertaken inquiries on their own initiative. But with members of the governing party in the chair they are bound to be inhibited when they range into areas the executive finds sensitive.

The main reason that governments prefer to hold the positions to themselves is that the posts are part of the system of control from the top. Committee chairmanships, along with cabinet seats, portfolios outside the cabinet, parliamentary whips and the like, all help give the party leader leverage over the caucus. The leadership creates sufficient positions to reward a majority of its MPs, virtually ensuring that the majority will support decisions made at the top.

Removing parliamentary posts from the Government's dispensation might therefore enhance democracy within the executive as well the legislature. So would a statutory limit on the size of the executive - another idea that MPs are inclined to avow until they find themselves in line for a cabinet seat. The man of the hour, Peter Dunne, is the latest to have lost some enthusiasm.

His party, United Future, has a policy to reduce the number of cabinet and extra-cabinet positions to 18, which seems more than ample in a country of this size. Now, however, Mr Dunne says the party had planned to "revisit" that policy before the early election was called. It is not an auspicious start to his pivotal role in the new Parliament.

The voters have elected a legislature in which no single party can have all the spoils. If Parliament's leading chairs were now to be filled by free votes of the members, it could be a more interesting and important place.

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