Talk:Parliament of New Zealand

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flag Parliament of New Zealand is part of WikiProject New Zealand, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of New Zealand and New Zealand-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
B This article has been rated as b-Class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.
Assessment comments

Contents

[edit] Forms of Address

How are List MPs called on in the House?Keeperoftheseal 06:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

By their name. The standing orders were changed with the introduction of MMP to allow references to MPs by their names. Names must be either in full, or by surname. First name only is unacceptable.--Midnighttonight 06:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leader of the New Zealand House of Representatives

Is it worth writing an article about the Leader of the House? Brian | (Talk) 11:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is in my opinion. The Leader is a significant position within the House. --Midnighttonight 01:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand House of Representatives

This article is really about the House of Representatives, not Parliament. I think we should change move this page to New Zealand House of Representatives, and have New Zealand Parliament as a seperate article which discusses the links between the House and the Queen/GovGen (which constitutes Parliament), issues of Parliamentary sovereignty, and so forth. I will leave this for a few days of course to see what other people say. --Midnight tonight 01:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

YES, and Yes, I have been thinking this for a while, was waiting for some one else to suggest :) Brian | (Talk) 01:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps expand the legislature section of the New Zealand constitution article to include this? --Lholden 10:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I would go with the original proposal alongside having a section on the constitution article.
Done, but both need working on. --Midnighttonight 03:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move

I propose moving this article to Parliament of New Zealand. The reasons for this are three-fold:

  • It's the correct name of the institution.
  • It's the same formula for the articles for almost every other country's Parliament (Parliament of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Italy, etc).
  • Most non-Kiwis aren't aware that 'New Zealand' can be an adjective. Consequently, the current name would seem awkward to the average user.

Parliament of New Zealand has only ever been a redirect to this article. Bastin 09:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

support. David McGee's (the Clerk of the House) book Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand (2005) gives the official name as "Parliament of New Zealand". --Midnighttonight 09:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I've moved the article now. Bastin 23:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Labour supported MMP?

The article suggests Labour supported MMP. Is this true? I believe at least Helen Clark was (from memory of an article I read a few days ago) opposed to MMP. I'm guessing Labour itself was either officially neutral or opposed Nil Einne 17:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

About 70% of Labour MPs supported it, but all the top dogs opposed. --Midnighttonight remind to go do uni work! 19:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Until the 1992 referendum that is... --Lholden 08:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the Senate proposal

Has there been any recent talk of reviving the Senate proposal yet, and if so which model are they basing it on? Which Senate model were the original proposals based on? -Daniel Blanchette 00:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope. It's an issue that comes and goes, but it was only properly dicussed in 1992. It was really a distraction from the debate taking place on the electoral system, albeit a useful one. --Lholden 00:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What model was the Senate proposal based on when it was discussed in 1992? Was it something similar to Australian Senate? US Senate? German Bundesrat? The House of Lords? Which one? -Daniel Blanchette 00:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a speech by Douglas Graham from about 1998 called Reflections on the Constitution (Graham the Attorney-General at the time) which has some vague details. His proposal was for half of the senators to be appointed by traditional Maori means (i.e. the leaders of various Maori iwi would make up half the members of the Senate) with the other half elected by FPTP. So basically a bit like the Lords (prior to New Labour) but with some elections. --Lholden 01:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Why wouldn't he have wanted it based on something like the Australian Senate or even the US Senate, with seats for the Maori? Or even allowing PR (via STV) for Senate elections? In Canada we have a Senate similar to the House of Lords, and (except for the Tories and the Liberals) a lot of people, like the NDP, want it abolished. -Daniel Blanchette 20:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The main reason was probably because the proposal was made at the height of the debate over whether New Zealand should change its electoral system from First Past the Post to Mixed Member proportional (See Electoral reform in New Zealand). The Maori seats proposal was probably a sop to Maori, as they had the most to gain in some respects from MMP. --Lholden 21:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
So, let's take the idea into the real world. Other than the Maori seats, how would've the seats in the Senate been alloted? -Daniel Blanchette 21:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
They would've been elected by First past the post (FPTP) elections in Senate electorate (riding) seats. These seats would've been larger than the seats in the House of Representatives --Lholden 19:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
How large would these ridings have been? -Daniel Blanchette 20:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
At a guess, similar in size to Maori electorates, which divide NZ into about half a dozen regions. The comparison with the Senate in Australia, Canada or the US isn't really valid, as New Zealand is a relatively small unitary state. (That's one of the arguments against an upper house in NZ, although far smaller places in the world still have one.) I'm not sure about the Senate being elected by FPP - I remember reading Hansard debates in Wellington library, which seemed to suggest that Graham accepted STV for the Senate. Anyway, National seem to have accepted MMP, so have lost interest in the Senate idea. Quiensabe (talk) 18:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia?

Where would a para on Trivia go?? Hugo999 11:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC) Eg MP with longest length of service (Rex Mason, c40y), first NZ-born MP, candidates who stood in most electorates at once, candidates who were elected for two electorates simultaneously (George Grey in 1876) etc.

[edit] Demographics

There should be an article on the demographics of NZ Parliament. --Postbagboy (talk) 05:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dates of opening/dissolution?

I think that the date each parliament was opened and dissolved should be added to the table, but I cannot find a source for this information. The articles on each individual parliament has these dates (unsourced), but most of those are redlinks. --superioridad (discusión) 10:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)