PUBLIC SECTOR Public Sector, Vol. 30, (4) 2008 Articles The changing nature of parliamentary practice Politics and administration Reflections on the partnership between the School of Government and the State services State-owned Enterprise governance News Fellowship and Distinguished Service Awards Submission IPANZ’s submission to the investigation into the Public Service recruitment and employment of Madeleine Setchell Publisher Institute of Public Administration New Zealand. P O Box 5032, Wellington, New Zealand. Phone +64 4 463 6940 Fax: +64 4 463 6939 PUBLIC Email: [email protected] The whole of the literary matter of Public Sector is copyright ©2007 – IPANZ Editor Allen Petrey SECTOR Layout Hettie Barnard Volume 30 Number 4 2008 ISSN 0110-5191 Editorial Office c/- The Publisher as above Contents Editorial Committee Articles Tom Berthold Ralph Chapman The changing nature of parliamentary practice Chris Eichbaum by David McGee .................................................................................................................... 2 Geoff Lewis Allen Petrey Politics and administration: some reflections on the ‘Setchell Affair’ (or Michael Reid boundary riding in the purple zone) Carol Stigley by Chris Eichbaum and Richard Shaw ................................................................................... 8 Advertising Reflections on the partnership between the School of Government and Jay Matthes the State services: where to from here? Phone: +64 4 463 6940 by Gary Hawke ....................................................................................................................15 Fax: +64 4 463 6939 State-owned Enterprise governance Email: [email protected] How should State-owned Enterprises be governed?How should State-owned Enterprises be governed? Scope How should State-owned Enterprises be governed? IPANZ is committed to promoting by Richard Norman ..................................................................................................... 36 informed debate on issues already signifi- cant in the way New Zealanders govern Improving board selection and development: lessons from the themselves, or which are emerging as issues private and public sectors calling for decisions on what sorts of laws by Karen S Martyn ...................................................................................................... 42 and management New Zealanders are prepared to accept. News IPANZ arranges seminars and workshops for people to debate these issues. Much of School of Government ................................................................................... 21 this debate is reflected in Public Sector. Awards .......................................................................................................... 46 Information for Authors See our web page at Book Review www.ipanz.org.nz/pub.html Kiwi Keith: A Biography of Keith Holyoake by Barry Gustafson Reviewed by Judy Whitcombe ............................................................................................ 45 Subscriptions The Institute welcomes both corporate and Obituaries individual membership and journal subscriptions. Please see the subscription Maurice (John) Belgrave DCNZM ............................................................... 47 form on the inside of the back cover. Sir George Robert Laking KCMG ................................................................. 48 The views published in Public Sector do not necessarily represent those of IPANZ or IPANZ’s submission to the investigation into the Public Service those of the authors’ employers. recruitment and employment of Madeleine Setchell .................................... 22 Public Sector Volume 30 Number 4 2008 1 Article The changing nature of parliamentary practice David McGee Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives (1974–2007) This article is an expansion of the lunch-time address David gave to the Institute in Wellington, 31 October 2007. Editor Some considerable time has past since I was asked to speak to parliamentary session extended from May/June to November/ the Institute. Since then my circumstances have changed and I December. The organisation of business through the session am to leave office as Clerk of the House preparatory to taking ranged from the leisurely to the frenetic. On meeting, Parliament up appointment as an Ombudsman. So my reflections on the would embark on a three- or four-week Address in Reply debate changing nature of parliamentary practice, especially in regard to during which all members would speak. This would be almost the impact of mixed member proportional representation immediately followed by the Budget and a further three-week (MMP) on select committees, take on something of the nature debate, again with all members participating. Apart from Budget of a valedictory address reflecting on how parliamentary practice legislation, little progress at all would be made on the legislative has evolved over the decades of my association with Parliament programme before the session was half over. from a ‘pre-modern’ to a ‘modern’ system. I will end by speculating whether, in some respects, even a ‘post-modern’ But, in contrast, the second half of the session was extremely epoch can be envisaged. pressurised. This was because the legislative programme was concentrated into it and because legislation that would not Thirty years ago when I was a junior parliamentary official I come into effect until the following 1 April or 1 July had to be accompanied a delegation to the European Parliament, then passed before the House rose for Christmas, since the House meeting in Luxemburg. Our host at a dinner given in honour would not sit or have time to attend to it closer to its com- of the delegation was one of the European Parliament’s Vice- mencement. In this way legislation that was not to take effect Presidents, Senator William Michael Yeats of Ireland (the son for another eight or nine months was regularly passed under of the famous poet, and who died recently). During my urgency. Urgency was a parliamentary staple. It was invoked parliamentary career I must have listened to thousands of virtually every day for the last two months of the session. It speeches but Senator Yeats’ remarks on the New Zealand also involved far more onerous consequences than does Parliament have remained with me. urgency today. Once urgency had been taken the House did not rise until the business concerned had been completed (or the According to Senator Yeats, if one wished to learn how the Government decided to pull out) or 12 midnight on Saturday British House of Commons worked in 1922, one should visit was reached. There were no meal breaks, for example. This, the Dail (the Irish Parliament); and if one wished to learn how combined with the fact that individual stages on bills were not the House of Commons worked in 1865, one should visit the subject to the time limits applying today and that members New Zealand House of Representatives. expected debates to last much longer than they do now, meant I have no idea where Senator Yeats drew this reflection from (he that it really was legislation by exhaustion. did not say) but I was struck by it and reminded of the saying All of this and much else changed, not with the 1996 about how many a true word is spoken in jest. introduction of MMP, but with reforms to procedure adopted At the time of Senator Yeats’ speech the New Zealand Parliament in 1985. Indeed it is 1985 that I would identify as the year in was in many respects unchanged in its practices from the previous which Parliament became ‘modern’. After 1985 what Senator century. This was especially so in the parliamentary sitting pro- Yeats had said about the New Zealand Parliament ceased to be gramme. This still operated on the basis of members assembling true. Today, although the British House of Commons and the in Wellington late in the year (after gathering in the harvest), House of Representatives are recognisably of the same genus transacting business in a continuous block of sittings, and then (and the same can be said of other Commonwealth legislatures) adjourning in late spring for six months or more. Thus the and an observer familiar with one would not find it difficult to 2 Public Sector Volume 30 Number 4 2008 find his or her way around the other, they do operate in quite different ways. Comprehensive select committee structure Before focusing on select committees, it is as well to remind First, a comprehensive select committee structure of general ourselves what changed in overall parliamentary organisation purpose committees was established for the first time. from 1985. Up to 1985 the Standing Orders required that a few named First, the reforms introduced a pre-announced programme of committees be established (Statutes Revision, Local Bills, parliamentary sittings. This comprises a sitting programme for Petitions etc). A number of other committees were also the coming year identifying the days on which Parliament will be regularly established by convention and in this way a structure sitting. This hardly sounds dramatic today, but it was in 1985. of committees covering most subject areas existed. But in 1985 When parliamentarians adjourned for the Christmas recess they the committees were reorganised into 13 subject committees did not know precisely on which date Parliament would that between them explicitly covered the field as far as govern- reassemble in the following year. (Though they could surmise ment activity