(5) FAQs

What happens if some of the polices agreed in the coalition agreements don’t get done?

These types of agreements between parties are a bit like a ‘gentleman’s agreement’, i.e. they are the governing parties agreeing amongst themselves that they will try and do these things as best they can. Remember that the agreements are put together quite quickly after an election, so some of the policies are ‘aspirational’ in nature rather than strict binding commitments. Nor do the parties know what will happen in the next 3 years as this will impact on the government’s actual policy programme (e.g. think COVID-19). But where specific police commitments have been made, opposition parties will justifiably pursue the government on an actual or perceived failure to deliver the policy.

‘The party or parties that can together win 61 or more seats can win confidence votes and be the government’. Ok, but who decides how many seats each party gets in the first place?

We do when we vote at a general election. The MMP electoral system can be a little complicated, but the main point is that the number of seats each party gets will be determined by its share of the ‘party vote’ across the country. If Party ‘A’ gets 20% of the nationwide party vote, it gets 20% of the seats in the 120MP Parliament, i.e. 24 seats.

What is a ‘whip’?

Each party in Parliament usually has a ‘whip’. A whip is one of the MPs in the caucus - although some parties have two whips, the ‘senior whip’ and the ‘junior whip’. They organise which MPs will speak on bills and budgets being debated in Parliament, and ensure MPs are present for voting and other procedural stuff.

Also in the government parties, the whips can act as an important link between the frontbenchers (i.e. the ministers) and the backbenchers (i.e. the ordinary MPs who are not ministers) by lobbying/negotiating with the backbenchers in the party to vote in favour of all the ministers’ bills. This is certainly true in British-style Parliaments overseas where backbench MPs are typically permitted to make up their own minds whether to vote in favour of a government bill. But, government MPs in New Zealand are already very ‘disciplined’ and getting their support for government bills agreed to at Cabinet is not considered difficult.

Interesting interview. Like you were saying about candidates not being reseIected, isn’t that what happened to her? Like Labour pretty much tried to move her on by not choosing her again?

Yep I forgot to mention this (though I think Jame Tame did in his intro comments to the interview). Louisa Wall was the MP for the electorate of Manurewa for a number of years, but ending up withdrawing herself from consideration to be the Labour Party candidate for Manurewa at the 2020 election. She instead came into Parliament on the Labour Party list. The whole episode was very messy - canvassed in detail here in this Newsroom story - and there are different points of view, but it’s probably safe to say that the the party hierarchy preferred someone else to be the Labour Party candidate. And that’s exactly what ended up happening.

What about laws gong through Parliament. Are the MPs whipped for these too?

Short answer is yes. Parliament considers three categories of business.

First are the small number of confidence votes that happen in Parliament each year. We looked at these in the session and they always whipped.

Second are votes on matters of process, for example whether a vote on whether a law should be considered under “urgency”, i.e. rushed through Parliament quickly. Again, always whipped.

Third are the laws themselves (known as ‘bills’). These are overwhelmingly (say 95%?) whipped, i.e. voted along normal party lines with the whip applied. Meaning that when Cabinet makes a policy decision (e.g. creating a new criminal offence or establishing a new government agency), the law that makes the policy happen will get turned into a bill, introduced into Parliament by the minister, and it will be passed by Parliament! Why? Because the same 68 votes that allow the government to win confidence votes sticks tight together to pass every law that the government introduces into Parliament. Yes there will be scrutiny of the bill and debate, but ultimately there will be 68 votes in favour to pass it through (a government needs a majority of 62 votes to pass a bill, the same as confidence votes). This, of course, puts the 28 Ministers in a powerful position and effectively allows them to dominate Parliament’s law-making function.

The 5% relates to bills that are not whipped, i.e. MPs are free to vote however they want (i.e. Yes or No to the bill). These are known as conscience vote bills. The idea is that some bills deal with matters of ‘morality’ that should properly be decided by MPs voting according to their own criteria and belief systems. Example include laws on marriage equality, cannabis decriminalisation, euthanasia, prostitution law reform, abortion, and adoption. These votes are always fascinating, in part because of the intensity of the debate generated (inside and outside Parliament), and also because we just don’t know how MPs are going to vote until they vote - so there is often uncertainty until the last minute as to whether a conscience vote bill will actually have a majority and pass. For more, check out this RNZ story.

Ryan I’m confused by the Māori seats. Can you recommend something for me to read to understand them?

Yep perfectly understandable. Check out this great RNZ explainer for the history of the seats, the Māori roll, and how they work in practice.