Low standards in Parliament mirror societal decline - Bruce Cotterill

The C-word is now in Hansard.

For those of you who are unaware, Hansard is the official record of the New Zealand Parliament. It records a transcript of all debates, and is essentially a near-verbatim written record of everything said by Members of Parliament (MPs) during proceedings in the House of Representatives.

And it now records the C-Word in its commentary.

No wonder our oldest MP, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, placed his head in his hands. He must be yearning for the good old days. The days when standards of behaviour were more traditional and more appropriate.

I believe what is going on in and around our parliamentary process is no longer appropriate. And it sure isn’t traditional!

The collapse of parliamentary standards has been a long time coming, but it is now there for all of us to see. It accompanies the collapse of standards elsewhere in society. Standards of behaviour, of dress, of timeliness and of responsibility. In a sense that collapse is behind at least a part of our productivity decline too. I’m not sure that we care enough anymore.

The recent behaviours have been there for all to see. Outside the house, a lone heckler abusing our deputy PM in public tells a story of lost respect for the system. And then there’s a political party releasing a nonsensical set of financial proposals that they then can’t even explain. And of course, in my view, the worst behaviour in history in our parliamentary chamber, an aggressively themed haka, this time from another political party. It was followed by that party’s refusal to participate in Parliament’s disciplinary process, and then a challenge to the outcome of that process from one of our two main parties, people who should know better.

If you accept that our politicians and the traditions of our Parliament is where our foundation and our standards are set, we are in very deep trouble as a country.

And if you were watching New Zealand from afar at present, you might quietly declare that it’s no wonder we’ve slipped so far down the international rankings in almost everything.

Part of the role of our media is to hold our parliamentarians to account. But I think the media are letting themselves down in parallel with the politicians, particularly as a TV channel gave disproportionate air time to the loopy budget and elsewhere, one newspaper sank to a whole new low.

That new low saw a hysterical media attack and subsequently, a youthful politician sticking up for her colleagues. Both the media and the politician have made mistakes. Neither will admit to doing so. Simply put, it’s an outcome of a longer-term decline in the standard of political debate and the reportage that follows that debate. This newspaper and its associated radio network do that job better than most. But it’s not a high bar!

If you accept that our politicians and the fabric of Parliament is where standards are set, we are in very deep trouble as a country. The past few weeks represent a case in point and a new low. A low that, if not halted, will likely see our decline continue until we’re having fist fights in the parliamentary chamber, like some despot-led basket case on the other side of the world.

The maintenance of standards is something that is led from the top down. Presentation is important. The parliamentary chamber once required formal business attire. In many countries around the world, that is still the case. But we’ve let that go here. By all means, let go of the necktie if you wish, but some of our MPs’ attire would not qualify as smart casual.

I don’t recall whether it was the politicians who first lost the plot on dress standards or the people. Our dress standards say a lot about us. One only has to sit and observe, at an airport or a shopping centre, to see that we’ve become a scruffy lot. You can blame the cost of living if you wish. But I’ve seen people who are very poor, present themselves better than many who are not. Part of it is personal pride. Part of it is confidence. It would appear that we’ve lost a bit of both over the past five years.

But there is no question that the relaxation of the dress code has coincided with the degradation of parliamentary behaviour. Perhaps it’s the type of people who are now attracted to the role of MP. Gone are the core of high achievers, farmers and wage earners giving something back. In their place are activists and career politicians who know nothing else. The result? Decay.

There has been much said about the decision of the Privileges Committee’s reaction to that haka. The proposed punishment is the most severe ever handed out. However, most would argue that the behaviour being punished was the worst we’ve seen in the house, too.

Unusually, some politicians have spoken out against the Privileges Committee’s recommended parliamentary suspension. I’m surprised that the Labour opposition are supporting that challenge. They are meant to be one of the two main parties, the traditional upholders of parliamentary behaviour. Sadly, their opposition appears as more a function of protecting a potential coalition partner, rather than taking a view on what’s best for the function of our Parliament.

That coalition partner made much of the parliamentary suspension eliminating them from this week’s budget debate. In the end, they didn’t turn up anyway.

The opposition leader took a similar position on the Greens’ alternative budget. Most observers would acknowledge that the proposals were unworkable at best, and down-right nutty at worst. Unfortunately, our parliamentary system now encourages the mainstream political parties, the ones we rely on for the majority of core policies, the same people we rely on to provide some common sense among the madness, to “not rule out” or “favour some support for” that very madness.

This is where we must rely on our media. Newstalk ZB’s Ryan Bridge and Mike Hosking have called out the Greens’ budget for what it is. Can we have more of that please?

Which leads us to the Sunday Star Times article, which led to perhaps the lowest moment in the history of our parliamentary debating chamber. Many years ago, this writer led a media company. It was a substantial business with 54 mastheads and more than 100 publications every month. There was a time when we supported a journalist and one of our mastheads through a case in the High Court, which then went to the Court of Appeal twice and eventually the Privy Council. It cost a small fortune and we won at every turn, but the real winner was press freedom.

But we also had cases where the journalist concerned, or the editor, or both, were not worthy of that level of support because what they wrote was wrong. In some cases, and most unfortunately, jobs were lost because of what had been written. The Sunday Star Times article is one of those examples.

I’m all for challenging governments, their policies, decisions and performance. But if we’re going to take issue with those decisions, let’s criticise the performance, not the performer.

The topic in this case, the Government’s decision to roll back several pay equity claims, is worthy of a proper discussion. One that challenges the Government on policy, decision-making and timing. Although extremely one-sided, the second half of the MPs article made some of those points well. But the opportunity was lost because the reaction was always going to be about what was written in the first 500 words.

My take is those words were sarcastic, nasty and personal. They were also unnecessary. The MPs, targeted by the article, all women, and from what I can tell, all doing their best with a basket case economy and a set of books riddled with debt, have every right to be offended.

One of those women, the youngest of them all, Brooke van Velden, took that offence to the next level and spoke about her reaction in Parliament. That’s when she used the C-word. Should she have done so? Some would say that her anger justified the comment. Others would suggest that the newspaper didn’t publish the word in full, and so the MP shouldn’t have said it in full.

Either way, it’s in Hansard. It’s alongside a trail of increasingly erratic behaviour and too many cases of bad judgment.

Is it up to Parliament to set the standards for us? Or, is it up to us to set the standards we expect of our politicians? We currently have a House that has lost its way. A House scrambling for the standards and the standing it once had. A House struggling with a disproportionate range of views that don’t represent the majority of us anymore.

I would like to see our leaders return to leading. I’d like to see a return to decent standards and respectful debate. I’d like to see MPs acting in the interests of the country, a country that needs all the help it can get at the moment, rather than themselves. I’d also like to see them honouring the rule of law, particularly the law that stipulates how they should be behaving.

And so Mr Speaker, you have some work to do. On behalf of all New Zealanders, I invite you to please step up. Take responsibility for this mess and sort it out. Incidentally, you only have 18 months to fix it.

Bruce Cotterill is a professional director, speaker and adviser to business leaders. He is the author of the book, The Best Leaders Don’t Shout, and host of the podcast, Leaders Getting Coffee. www.brucecotterill.com