(7) Some FAQs - taken from the question function inside each session

How far back in history does this ‘separation of powers’ idea go?

As far back as Ancient Greece (Aristotle wrote about it) and Ancient Rome. In more ‘modern’ times, the French philosopher Montesquieu (1689-1755) famously set out the case for separated branches of government in his book The Spirit of the Law (beware, a heavy read)

So a Minister from the Executive branch must also be a member of the Parliament branch. I thought the branches were meant to be separate?

Indeed, a good point! The Westminster (British) system that New Zealand inherited is premised on parliamentary government, i.e. the government of the day (ministers) are drawn from, and are accountable back to, the Parliament branch. This does constitute a blurring of the lines in that you have some of the same personnel in 2 of the 3 branches of government. 

You say that a Governor-General can, in theory, reject a Prime Minister’s advice on how to exercise their powers, e.g. declining to give the Royal Assent to a law passed by the House of Representatives….but that it’s highly unlikely to happen. Is this how Governor-Generals see it?

The accepted view, even among Governor-General’s that have addressed this topic, is that refusing to follow the advice of a Prime Minister, for example declining to give the Royal Assent to a law (known as a ‘bill’), is basically a non-starter. Here’s an excerpt from a speech that Governor-General Rt Hon Sir Anand Satyanand gave to Canterbury Law students in 2010 (full speech here).

It would be essentially unthinkable for a Governor-General to refuse to provide assent to legislation that has been passed by a democratically elected Parliament and, in reality, in the United Kingdom no Monarch has refused to give assent to a government bill since 1707, and in New Zealand not since the New Zealand Parliament assumed full law-making authority.

When people talk about New Zealand becoming a ‘republic’ what does that mean exactly?

As we saw in session 1, the current ‘Head of State’ is the King in Right of New Zealand (Charles III).

Some people are of the view that we should have a New Zealand citizen as our Head of State, reflecting Aotearoa New Zealand’s journey from British colony, then to a Dominion, and finally a fully independent country that makes all it own decisions. It’s essentially a ‘coming of age’ argument. The New Zealand Republic group puts forwards the argument in favour of a New Zealand republic.

Equally, some people want things to remain as they are. It’s argued that the system is not broken and therefore doesn’t need fixing. It’s also suggested that because other countries have the same person as their Head of State (e.g. Australia and Canada), the monarchy provides us with an important link with those countries. Monarchy NZ puts forwards the arguments in favour of the status quo.

You said that ministers are always changing. Why?

While the Governor-General formally appoints and dismisses ministers, they do so on the advice of the Prime Minister. So effectively, ministers are only ministers while the Prime Minister wants them to continue in that position. 

A Prime Minister might decide a minister isn’t performing and is therefore no longer required as a minister. It can be that brutal.

Or they may dismiss (i.e. sack) a minister for a failure to meet their expectations as a minister, for example here and here in the previous Labour government.

The third reason why ministers change is when we have a change of government altogether following an election. When this happens, all the ministers are replaced by ministers from the opposition parties. This is exactly what happened as a result of the 2023 election. We’ll look at this in session 2.

Remember that even though a person may no longer be a minister (Executive branch), they often continue on as an MP (Parliament branch).

Here’s a dumb question for ya Ryan :) What’s the difference between a Minister and an MP?

Not dumb at all. Lots of people ask this.

So if you think about the separation of powers: Executive, Parliament and Judiciary.

Ministers are from the Executive side - they run the country, with the support of al the public sector agencies. There are usually between 26 to 28 of them at any one time.

Members of Parliament (MPs) are in the Parliament branch. There are normally 120 MPs, though there are currently 123 of them (for reasons we’ll explore in session 2).

Where it gets confusing is that to be a Minister (on the Executive side), you must first be a Member of Parliament (Parliament side). So, for example, Louise Upston, the Minister of Social Development is also the MP for Taupo.

As things stand, of the 123 MPs in Parliament, 28 of them are also Ministers on the Executive side. Opposition parties - Labour, Greens, and Te Pāti Māori- do not have ministers because together they do not hold a majority of seats in Parliament. But National, ACT, and New Zealand First do - hency they make up the government (i.e. some of the MPs from those parties get to be Ministers on the Executive side). Again, we’ll look at this more in session 2.

Who appoints the judges in the Judicial branch?

The judges that sit in the courts are appointed by the Governor-General. But remember the Governor-General 'acts on the advice'. In this case it’s the advice of the Attorney-General (who is a Minister in Cabinet). All Judges have been lawyers prior to their appointment. The judges are independent of both the Executive and Parliament branches in terms of the decisions they make. There’s more info here.