Michael Cox: Rule out honours for sitting MPs - ban a gong, get it on

Former Prime Minister Right Honourable John Key at his Auckland home received a Knighthood in 2017. Photo / Greg Bowker

About 120 New Zealanders will shortly receive a letter from the Governor General. It will in essence say, "I am writing to advise you Her Majesty The Queen has been pleased to award you the honour of [whatever the award is] in recognition of your services to New Zealand. This honour will be announced in The Queen's Birthday Honours List 2018 ..."

On average, I was once told, 10 per cent will decline such an offer. Their reasons, which they don't have to supply, will be various. They will range from their personal dislike of the royalty system and therefore being unwilling to accept an honour from it, to not wanting their usually unpaid work for the community being publicly recognised.

Such awards are usually given not for the work that is their main source of income, but for efforts made on a voluntary basis in their spare time. Therefore someone who has been a Plunket nurse all her life would not necessarily comply. If she'd spent all her free time teaching riding for the disabled, then that would be seen as a good reason for such an award.

The majority of awards emanate from the public. Groups of ordinary citizens who believe one of their colleagues or friends needs recognition write to the relevant parliamentary officer with their proposal, usually endorsed by some local dignitaries, and the system takes it over from there. The business sector or sports organisations also follow this simple course.

The Prime Minister appoints various ministers of the Cabinet to a ministerial committee named the honours and appointments committee. They sort out a list of people they believe deserve recognition and send this to the Queen for her approval. When that is received, the GG sends out those letters.

There are a couple of gongs floating around this household. Both were total surprises, as they are to most recipients. It also surprised me to see that apart from the few public figures present, those attending the investiture ceremonies were very much middle of the road and ordinary New Zealanders. The system seems to work and although some may see it as "gilding the lily", I think it has a place in our community.

But like all such processes it has one serious flaw. It has always concerned me that sitting members of Parliament could receive an honour. After all it is they, usually at the top end of the system, who appoint the honours committee that recommends such awards.

Surely this leaves a suspicion there could have been some leaning on those ministers who approve and recommend such honours.

I recall the morning after sitting Prime Minister Rob Muldoon had jumped from ordinary "Mister" to Sir Robert Muldoon. He came into the National Party caucus room and thanked "all but three of you who have congratulated me on my knighthood". I nodded to two of my colleagues and friends whom I knew shared my views.

In that 1980s era, when the "other lot" were in power, a member of their honours committee, the late Trevor De Cleene, told me why the publication of the list of the Queen's Birthday awards was three weeks late. Apparently some sitting MP poo-bah, who couldn't be ignored, had at the last moment insisted he should receive a knighthood. Only five names could be sent to Her Majesty for approval as dames or knights. This late intervention threw the process askew, hence the delay.

Maybe it is time a member of the Opposition introduced a Private Member's Bill forbidding sitting members from being recommended for an honour.

Wouldn't that cause a rustling of parliamentary feathers?

Michael Cox is a former National MP. He received an OBE "six years after my unfortunate removal as an MP"