Question Time Statistics
October 31st, 2005 at 3:04 pm by David FarrarNo Right Turn has compiled statistics on which MPs ask the most primary questions in the House during question time. It’s useful to look at – I was unaware Bill English had asked the most for National.
However oral questions are a bad tool to judge how productive MPs are. If MPs don’t ask many oral questions, it is usually not for lack of trying. The larger parties meet every morning to decide what questions will be asked, and who asks them. And often you have MPs try day after day and week after week to get their pet question asked. However if their colleagues don’t agree it is a priority, then they don’t get the chance. Also even if there is an issue in someones portfolio area, it may be given to an MP more experienced in trapping Ministers.
So you can’t label someone an under-performer on the basis of their lack of oral questions.
A better measure in my opinion would be written questions. Written questions (and OIAs) are how MPs dig up issues and scandals in their portfolio area. No matter how obscure the portfolio, an MP should be continually firing off written questions relating to it. You get to know the portfolio much better, and you often get good material for a release.
UPDATE: NRT has now done stats (in excel) for written questions also. Very interesting.
The most prolific question asker over the last 2.5 years was Muriel Newman with 3929 followed by Tony Ryall on 2702 and Katherine Rich on 2414. Next is Rodney Hide on 2330 and Bill English on 1878. Four Opposition MPs asked no questions at all. Government MPs generally ask no questions, as if they want an answer to something they get it direct informally from the Minister’s Office.
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October 31st, 2005 at 3:17 pm
I certainly agree that you need more information than just this – written questions and participation in debate are also worth tracking, and would give a much more complete picture of work which is mostly invisible to the public.
I also think someone should do a head count at the beginning of Question Time each day so we can see who actually bothers to turn up. Again, MPs have all sorts of other demands on their time – constituency work, select committee meetings, plotting and scheming against the leader – but we would still be able to work out who is at the bottom end of the distribution and ask them nasty pointy questions (as people did for Alamein Kopu).
All this would need is a seating plan, a friendly person in the public or press gallary, and a website (AreTheyThere.org.nz?). Unfortunately I expect the politicians would get rathe rupset about the thought of the public keeping an eye on them….
Really though, the Office of the Clerk should be doing all of this for us…
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 4:31 pm
I hope everyone gets a fair go and not just leave it to the more experienced MPs. I am not that fussed with National’s front bench frankly, and I think the brat pack, who have played themselves back in, are strictly on probation. I hope Don has a good hard look at how everyone is performing and should ensure everyone has a chance to earn some spurs. George Gair was famous at asking heaps and leaps of written questions. A new member would be most wise to get some traction through written questions.
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 4:54 pm
I/S: Every MP is working – those who are away are on duties that are approved by the Party Whip. What we really need is not a measure of productivity, but a measure of effectiveness.
I think the best measure is number of positive, nuetral and negative mentions in media clippings. Therefore, you will get an idea of effectiveness. Someone like Michael Cullen will score a lot of all three, so we know he’s working. An Alamein Kopu will score highly only on negative mentions – so we know that she’s no good.
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 5:03 pm
If you had someone independent of Parliament running such a site, you could also have a page (moderated so as to avoid defamation suits) for public feedback – i.e. ‘I asked X MP for assistance on this issue and found them to be really helpful/useless’. This would also enable some kind of assessment for ministers who, as I/S pointed out, are not going to be asking questions or filing OIAs… Accountability is about far more than a numbers game for PQs, OIAs etc and different MPs will have different strengths. Developing some kind of balanced scorecard would be good though. Maybe someone should make an OIA to DPMC to see what kind of assessment measures the PM already has going, or if it is all just oral feedback from political advisers and whips?
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 5:15 pm
Thanks for clarifying DPF: so am I right in thinking that people like Lockwood Smith (ranked 12), Richard Worth (15) Clem Simich (your preferred speaker), and Maurice Williamson (13) aren’t lazy, just unable to convince the colleagues of the merits of their question… gee, I wonder how they still manage to retain senior portfolios?
As for Te Heu Heu – I reckon her score reflects her affection for her leader!
Oh and written questions as proxy for work – sure, for the research unit!
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 5:37 pm
I thought the main purpose of written questions and OIA requests was so the all the government’s policy analysts were occupied replying to them and not spending time working on and helping the government implement its policies
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Paul W – as you well know some portfolios just don’t often have issues which attract oral questions. Not often arts and culture will be a big issue compared to education. With only 15 questions a week, not a lot of opportunities.
And yes Research Units can do a lot of the grunt work for questions, but good MPs will be proactive and come up with their own also.
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 6:31 pm
DPF: fair points but I still think people like Lockwood are well past their best. I’ve had more than my fair share of run-ins with Lockwood but I recognise that he was a comparatively good Minister of Education – it is however time for him, Williamson and a few others to make way and this term should be when National make the generation change (they’re well positioned for it).
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Some written question stats are now up at http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2005/10/written-questions.html
Sandra Goudie in particular comes off a lot better. But you really have to wonder what Shane Ardern and Maurice Williamson are doing to earn their salaries…
Michael: media clippings requires judgement as to what is positive, negative and neutral. But grepping Scoop’s “Parliament” newswire or the party sites to find out who is issuing press releases gives another idea of who is actually doing something.
Mr K: I’d like to see a website which put all of this info in one place, as well as providing rankings, so people could make up their own mind about the performance they expected from their representatives. It would also be clear from that whether someone is not doing _anything_, which I think is valuable.
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 8:08 pm
Yes… in some ways it is a bit peculiar that MPs escaped the 80s and 90s obsession with measuring outputs, but in other ways it’s good since it probably shows that there is an underlying comprehension that performance stories are more complex than how many PQs were asked or debates spoken in.
But just as the move to Managing for Outcomes requires that ideas about departmental accountability for performance need to move on from the Vote silo mentality of Westminster models, so we need to develop the sophistication of our thinking about evaluating MPs’ performances.
I think a useful first step would be for a select committee to commission the Controller and Auditor General to conduct a little inquiry into performance metrics for MPs, along with some input from academia here and abroad. The report from that would be a good start for debate. The development you recently posted about on your blog about the transparency of members’ votes is also an important move.
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Mr K: MP’s aren’t responsible to Parliament or the government – they’re responsible to _us_, the public. And what counts as sufficient performance is up to every individual voter to decide.
The problem is making sure that the information is widely accessible so people can use it in their judgements (or not as the case may be).
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 9:55 pm
I just did an analysis of all the party leaders (as well as Michael Cullen’s and John Key’s) conscience votes. It turns out that Winston, Tariana and Dr Don form a strong clique, and the others, including Rodney Hide, John Key form their own very distant clique. Maybe this sheds some light on why Winston wants to sit with Don and why Tariana ignored her electorate and considered Don. They are actually very similar
http://greengeneration.blogspot.com/
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 10:10 pm
I/S – I entirely agree that they’re accountable to us and not Parliament or Government, and I agree that it is up to each of us to decide on what we agree is adequate performance from an MP. However, it is difficult to just say “The problem is making sure that the information is widely accessible so people can use it in their judgements” – it immediately raises the question of ‘What information?’.
I was simply suggesting that while MPs are accountable to the public, there are likely to be difficulties in trying to come up with a set of agreed performance metrics, so it might be an idea to get an expert at least provide some technical guidance on how we *might* want it to be done, so that there can be some kind of consensus as to what is meaningful data to make more accessible.
The other issue, it seems to me, is the role of MMP and list MPs. While it is *relatively* straightforward to judge the performance of a constituency MP, I’m not sure how easy it is to evaluate list MPs, since they may have different responsibilities allocated to them by their party and it is no longer a question of how well they have represented their constituents (and their interests). The other thing, of course, is that even if the voters have the performance information on a list MP, they can’t not vote them in if the party concerned has placed them high enough up. Which may be a function of their political clout within the party, rather than their effectiveness as an MP. This begs the question of how parties assess the performance of their list MPs and decide how to rank them for the next election. Is this a fair proxy for performance or not?
Vote:October 31st, 2005 at 11:23 pm
8861 (2005). Dr Muriel Newman to the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services: What has been the number of Ministers who have changed Ministerial Services owned cars since 1 July 2004, and what is the car type and value of each of these?
Rt Hon Helen Clark (Minister responsible for Ministerial Services) replied: Parliament Dissolved. Answer not received.
8792 (2005). Dr Muriel Newman to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (4 August 2005): What was the number of persons in receipt of the domestic purposes benefit, who would not, or could not, name the father of their child as at the end of July 2005?
Hon Rick Barker (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) replied: MSD officials have advised that as at 29 July 2005 there were 12,810 working age (18-24 years) recipients of the Domestic Purposes Benefit with at least one child for whom they could not or would not name the father, as at the end of July 2005.
8793 (2005). Dr Muriel Newman to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (4 August 2005): What was the number of persons in receipt of the domestic purposes benefit broken down by ethnicity, and who would not, or could not, name the father of their child, as at the end of July 2005
Hon Rick Barker (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) replied: MSD officials have provided the attached table which shows the number of working age recipients of the Domestic Purposes Benefit who would not or could not name the father of their child, as at the end of July 2005. This information has been broken down by ethnic group.
Attachment to Reply
8794 (2005). Dr Muriel Newman to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (4 August 2005): What was the duration breakdown of the number of persons in receipt of all forms of the unemployment benefit for under 6 months, over 6 months, over one, two, four, ten and fifteen years, where duration includes transfers to and from other benefits, as at the end of November1999, and July 2005?
Gee hard working muriel should be N02 on ACTS list. But instead there are wild celebrations when she just misses out by a country mile
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