Parliament Bill sets it free from Beehive, and gives security guards greater powers

MPs will have greater power to set the funding for Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Parliamentary agencies could be given greater freedom over how they are funded, cutting some ties with the Beehive. The change is a win for constitutionalists who have criticised the stranglehold that the Government of the day has over the funding of the organ of government that is meant to hold them to account.

The Government recently introduced a Parliament Bill, which makes a number of tweaks to the way Parliament works and is funded. It gives Parliament greater independence in funding, gives Parliament’s security guards greater powers to protect the precinct, and updates rules for MPs’ expenses to make them more family-friendly.

There are some more esoteric tweaks, including the repeal of the Legislative Council Abolition Act of 1950, which got rid of Parliament’s upper house. Repealing that law does not mean the resurrection of the upper house.

The most significant change is to the way Parliament is funded. Currently, the two Parliament agencies, the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk are funded in exactly the same way as other parts of the government. The Public Finance Act, the bible for all things public money, treats the Speaker as the agencies’ Minister who submits their bids for funding from the Budget.

The Finance Minister and the Cabinet then trade off those bids against everything else in the Budget. While technically, Parliament is its own master and could amend the Budget to give itself as much money as it wishes, in practice, the Government of the day holds the purse strings.

The agencies do a lot. Parliament’s funding extends to including money for parliamentary parties and MPs, their communications, travel, independent advice and research to the House, select committees, and more.

A regulatory impact statement accompanying the bill identified the obvious problem: “The interests of the executive and Parliament will not always align with regard to funding. Governments will prioritise bids that meet their own objectives.”

Officials said this means “funding for uniquely parliamentary purposes are unlikely to be prioritised”.

The solution has been found in the model used by the Officers of Parliament: the Auditor-General, the Ombudsman, and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. These three “officers” hold the Government to account on behalf of New Zealanders and report to Parliament.

To ensure that a Government does not kneecap an officer it does not like, funding for the officers is not the responsibility of the Finance Minister or the Government, but the Officers of Parliament Committee, a select committee comprising MPs from across the House.

These MPs examine budget proposals from each Officer and get advice from Treasury on them. They then recommend to funding levels to the House, which recommends to the Governor-General that those funding decisions, called “Estimates”, be included in an Appropriation Bill — the legislation that allows the Government to spend the money.

By convention, the House’s recommendation is always adopted by the Government. The Government does, however, wield a fiscal veto, which it could use should it find a proposal from the Committee excessive.

Treasury was unsurprisingly unsupportive of the idea and warned the change would run counter to the Government’s fiscal objectives. A Supplementary Analysis Report on the bill argued Treasury’s fears were unfounded, noting that MPs had a political imperative not to vote themselves excessive amounts of money.

The change will make the Parliamentary agencies less beholden to the Government of the day.

The Parliament Bill will make life easier for MPs who need a caregiver or who have children who require their care. MPs are able to claim work-related expenses for some family members.

The bill will expand the definition of family member so that the provision of travel services could recognise a caregiver in certain situations. It will also expand the definition of dependant child to include children over the age of 18 who are still in secondary education. Both of these changes were recommended by an independent review.

The bill will also change the definition of an MP’s dependant to include adult children with disabilities if that disability means that they require ongoing daily care and remain dependent on their parents.

The bill also gives Parliamentary Security Officers (PSOs) greater powers which include a limited power of search, denial of entry, temporary seizure of specified items, and even temporary detention. The powers will apply within the Parliamentary precinct as well as at other Parliamentary meetings that take place off-precinct. In certain circumstances, they may also apply to electorate and community offices.

Parliamentary has taken a more serious line on security following the 2022 occupation of Parliament grounds. Security guards now wear protective vests and MPs have been given increased funding for their own security.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.