Return power to the people

If politicians want to improve their low reputation, they must listen more to the needs of those who put them in Parliament, writes BILL ANDERSEN*.

The split of the Alliance into two organisations exposes significant questions for all parliamentary parties, especially in relation to the control and accountability of elected MPs.

Whether it is Labour, the Alliance, National, Act or the Greens, who are the MPs responsible to after the election? Are they accountable to the party that worked to get them elected and/or to the voters who elected them, or are they responsible to themselves?

It would appear the MPs are responsible only to themselves, but even that perception falls short of the reality.

The top-level control system gets tighter from the Cabinet down. Unless there is a coalition agreement to the contrary, every Cabinet minister is bound to a Cabinet decision, and is not accountable to his or her caucus or the political party concerned, or to the voters.

Cabinet power lies usually with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. Because they play such a significant role in Cabinet appointments, other ministers are not going to disagree too much.

Most politicians regard their parties as electoral machines to get them elected. In Parliament they become independent from their parties until this three years of independence is recycled if they get re-elected.

This system and its poor results evokes a generally low opinion of politicians and politics. A large number of New Zealanders say politicians are all the same. The 628,565 people who did not participate in the last election is confirmation that more people are turning off most politicians.

The Blair New Labour Government was last elected in Britain with the lowest number of voters since 1918, surely another indication of serious political shortcoming.

Have these voters deserted the parliamentary processes or have these processes and structures deserted the voters? My view is the latter. And what has this system delivered of late for most of New Zealanders?

In terms of hours of work put in, the day/night hours worked (that is, shift work, night work, and part-time work) and income received, the workforce and many working proprietors are much worse off since 1984 and the free market.

We have an inadequate public health system (with some 1 million New Zealanders paying for private health schemes) and a rundown public education system (permanent prefabs and donations required from parents).

These inadequacies fall most heavily (but not only) on the Maori and Pacific Island people.

Many Kiwis have had their jobs restructured (or destructured) and the workforce in a number of industries has shrunk. But the so-called efficiencies and savings have not gone into health, education, transport and housing.

One of the most erroneous concepts in political thinking is that of favouring one government over another on the basis that one is less inadequate than the other. This is simply another version of favouring the better of two evils.

Those who want a real political alternative need to determine what sort of change is necessary. Effective political structures and effective politicians are urgently required to address the number of growing economic and social problems.

The undemocratic parliamentary system fails to make politicians accountable, and this has helped a succession of governments to separate themselves from the main needs of the people - good public health, adequate public education, reasonable incomes for all those employed (particularly nurses and teachers) and state beneficiaries, and a stable economic environment for New Zealand-owned and operated businesses, as opposed to global corporate domination.

Parliament itself has escaped the restructuring that many industries and employees have suffered. This system suits global corporates who are buying up more of New Zealand's assets or selling off those assets they bought cheaply and have plundered and stripped.

A number of these corporates subscribe financially to all those parties who choose to co-operate with them. Now and again this comes to light, as in the Enron case in the United States.

So, how can this whole parliamentary system be democratised and restructured?

First, each parliamentary party should appoint MPs/shadow ministers with responsibility to meet regularly with representative groups in health, education and the public infrastructures to report on Government progress in meeting the people's needs.

The MPs need to respond to the proposals coming from those groups and to consumer representatives.

Secondly, the electorate MPs should consult with their electorates on key questions - for example, more finance for health and education. The MP concerned could circulate his or her views about how such finance should be raised - for example, through a more progressive or alternative tax system.

Indicative electorate votes could be arranged (using modern technology) and if the MP concerned refused to accept such a vote (if carried by a large majority), a recall vote should follow. Some variation would be needed to fit with MMP and the list MPs.

Such a system could be structured as to frequency and only after the recall vote sponsors and the MP concerned had a full opportunity to address his or her views to the voters concerned.

This would require MPs to be more accountable and to spend more time listening to the needs of the people. This listening, and responding to, people's needs would reinstate a degree of respectability to our political system.

If the so-called three bottom lines of business audits - economic, social and environmental - were applied to our parliamentary system, we must be deemed to be low scorers. Whether we have the will and courage to struggle for change now will be a significant determinant as to whether we have a better New Zealand for our children and grandchildren.

* Bill Andersen is the national president of the National Distribution Union and president of the Socialist Unity Party of Aotearoa.