Labour’s filibuster
Blaise Drinkwater is unamused by Labour’s 1000s of frivolous amendments to the Auckland Council bill.
I’m not quite on the same page. I do support the rights of the Opposition to filibuster – within reason. In fact I was the primary staffer who helped National delay the Employment Relations Act by a week in 2000.
But a filbuster is a blunt weapon for an Opposition to use, and if you get it wrong, it can hurt you.
I tend to think an Opposition should do a full filibuster only once per parliamentary term – it should be used against the piece of legislation that you think is most harmful to the country.
This was the test National used in 2000 with the then ERB. It gave all sorts of special favours to unions, and National decided it was the law they were most against.
Now some will say why filibuster at all? Well an Opposition can not defeat a law, so all they can do when it is a really really bad law, is delay it to show how bad they think it is.
And this is the aspect I find somewhat bizarre around Labour choosing the Auckland Council to filibuster. Labour actually support there being an Auckland Council, and set up the Royal Commission that recommended it.
Now some will say, but wait the Government has changed some of the RC’s recommendations. Yes, this is true. But all those details such as the composition of the Council, Maori seats and the structure of the second tier are dealt with in a second bill, that is going to select committee for full consultation.
My other criticism of Labour’s filibuster is they overhyped it, and underdelivered. Labour MPs talked about keeping the House sitting until the Budget, when in fact they failed to even keep it sitting until Saturday midnight. They made two tactical blunders with their filibuster:
- Had too many amendments on the Part voted on just before midnight Friday. Labour had hundreds and hundreds of amendments to Part 3. Normally each of them would take around a minute to vote on, so they were counting on it taking up much of Saturday. But there is an exception to the rule that the House rises at midnight under urgency. It does not rise until all the amendments for a Part have been voted on, if that vote has started. So instead of having the voting delay things further, it just meant that MPs ended up sitting past midnight. There was no debate to be had – just a series of votes.
- They had too many amendments on the same clause, allowing the Government to take them out in a first strike? How? Well any Government amendments get put first, and if the Government amendment is passed, it can make redundant an Opposition amendment. The easiest example is the date the law comes into force – meant to be the day after royal assent. The Opposition put up hundreds of amendments proposing alternative dates. The Government then put up an amendment to change it it the second day after royal assent, and that wiped out all of Labour’s amendments.
Tactic No 2 stopped the House sitting until around 5 am Saturday as it wiped out most of Labour’s Part 3 amendments. But I was amused to get a call a bit before midnight asking me to bring in blankets and sleeping bags for National MPs. I felt like the Red Cross!
May 18th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Bit ironic that Darren Hughes was wailing about National trying to subvert democractic process with the super city debate when Labour sent Annette King’s folic acid in bread legislation in under the debate radar. Had National done that, the headlines would have read “National condemns thousands to prostate cancer”. Keep up the hypocrisy Labour. The voting public stopped believing your lies in January last year.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:39 am
I was surprised the Chair/Speaker allowed the amendment farce to happen at all. What they should do is ask the mover of the legislation if he/she wants any amendments put. Put those. If they are passed then the substantive clause should be put. Then all of the frivolous amendments can then be wiped.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Also ironic that Phil Goff is complaining about the government ramming through legislation.
Can anyone say ETS or EFA?
May 18th, 2009 at 8:15 am
While it is deeply ironic that Labour are squealing about others taking their best moves thats kind of part of the point of this sort of thing.
They have an absolute right to do it. In this case I think they misjudges the outcome and they just pissed a lot of people off.
However I am against the use of urgency in all but exceptional cases and this one does not qualify to my mind. As with a everything Labour rammed through, like the mass drugging on New Zealand with folic acid. So for everyone jumping up and down that this sort of thing should be stopped, answer me this, is it becaue you are against the cocept of a filibuster on principle or because its labour doing it?
Governments change and if you change the rules to suit your favorite then thats the rules the other get to play by when they get in. This is the situation Labour now find themselves in.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Saturday morning when they were trying to get some oversight of the Rodney Hide appointed transition council was actually very worth while and well timed.
Parliament tv when people could actually watch it in action.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:36 am
I thought that one of the reasons behind the super city was that greater Auckland, having to deal with several local bodies, was having progress stymied by the process.
Labour’s filibustering illustrates that very well.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Murray – agree with you to a point, but the folic acid thingee never actually went before Parliament, despite the fact that 87% of people surveyed over the issue opposed it. It was a backdoor change to a regulation, without any Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever. That is how Labour views democracy.
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/05/democracy-in-action.html
They are nowt but a pack of hypocrites.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
siobhan – how was the EFA “rammed through”?
They didn’t take quite as long as I’d have liked on a few of the parts in the committee of the whole, but other than that what was there to call it “ramming”? No extended sitting hours. No urgency. No foreshortened select committee report-back time, etc.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Hypocrites yes Inventory, but playing by the rules that apply to both sides in this case.
And its pretty much blown up in their faces as well.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:21 am
DPF :- I agree that the filibuster is a weapon to be used sparingly but has advantages other than those obvious to the public, they involve team building and giving opposition MPs many more opportunites to speak in the House than would be the case sitting normal hours. When a bit of pressure goes on you see both the best and the worst of MPs and real talent shows through. Grant and I have commented on Red Alert but important points for me were Friday afternoon when John Carter took over running the House from Gerry Brownlee and the government slowly but surely regained control, the speech from Su’a William Sio late on Saturday night which is by far the best speech from a Manukau MP since Lange was right at his peak, and the fact that the ginga who came from Wainui showed he could run a team and house tactics in a way that gives me confidence that he could be run the House really well in government.
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/05/16/started-with-a-shambles-ended-with-a-shambles/
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/05/16/credit-to-john-carter-and-darren-hughes/
May 18th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Come clean bully…given the profile you are endeavouring to foster here at Kiwiblog…what evening is the BBQ at your house?
May 18th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Murray, the argument is not one of proceedure, but the question of what is right or wrong.
Lets say Party X passes a law that says children now attract a growth tax. They do this by fast tracking a process to avoid debate and scrutiny and because they have the numbers. Party Y objects as much as it can, but it passes anyway. The government changes and party Y fastracks its appeal in a similar way.
Did Party Y commit an hypocrisy? Should it have opened the new tax to debate and amendment or should common sense have been self evident?
Add into this scenario an “intellectual” element that will argue against good sense just for the sake of it or because they can no longer recognise good sense.
There is no inconsistency or hypocrisy in righting a wrong as quickly as possible.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Seems to me there is a moral hazard here in that Political parties will tend to feel that filibustering etc are appropriate tools for fighting to convince the public that they are right in the same way that protest groups will occupy sites and shut down roads trying to convince people to do what they say. The general public on the other hand might not be so happy with it. The difference being we the public are paying the politicians.
Anyway, as soon as the filibuster gains national headlines then the countries attention is already drawn to the issue so one should not have to waste a week of parliments time.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:40 am
One other thing – the work Phil Twyford had done on the difference in costs between the Royal Commission and the governments approaches was really interesting, could be very important in 2011 and was ignored by MSM.
[DPF: Probably because it was done by a Labour nominee for Mt Albert. Not to say they are wrong, but media will be more suspicious of someone who is an active politician, than an economist who has no political ties]
May 18th, 2009 at 9:47 am
I agree, its a strange topic to fillerbust on. The super city isnt that big a deal!? no one i know gives a rats about it.
Trev – the ginga sounded like a complete wanker on the radio. he has a smugness about him that makes me want to bitch slap him. i think he learned too much from Helen.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Trevor M>the work Phil Twyford had done on the difference in costs between the Royal Commission and the governments approaches was really interesting
He’d have plenty of time to do this work, ever since he was told not to do anything that might risk bringing your lampshade-buying ex-colleague back in to parliament.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:54 am
I found a little incident on saturday rather ammusing. There was uncertainty in the house on a ruling earlier that day, and “Twevor” (I am cleaverly disguising his real identity) assured the house that he remembered said ruling with “absolute clarity”, and described the ruling in a way that would be biased pro-labour. Gerry Brownly didn’t buy it and suggested they check Hansard, after which “Twevor” suddenly changed his tune and allowed the point to drop. Now why would someone who was dedicated to delaying the bill not want to waste more time forcing everyone to wait while they check Hansard? Could it be because “Twevor” was lying to the house on a matter of order?
May 18th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Twevor eh… how will we break this code?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Ah paradigm, you use the same theory as me in disguising twevors name, I use the Delta Omega Zeta method of every 2nd word, followed by a convoluted line by line sub paragraph formula.
My word comes out as bully, or bully boy depending on how I apply the formula….funny that
May 18th, 2009 at 10:13 am
@ paradigm
Really interesting that when the matter went back to the committee for a vote my recollection of events was also that of the chair and the clerk. Hansard confirms what happened. Whether to lodge a breach of priviledge against Gerry is currently being considered. Thanks for reminding me and helping to get this out into the cyberworld.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
On a more serious matter I agree with dime and others in that this was a stupid topic to filibuster on. As has already been said, there is not much interest in local body politics in Auckland – only about 50% of people even bother to vote for Mayor. When Rogernomics part deux does not eventuate and the oversight boards don’t make wholesale vetos Labour et al will end up looking like the boy who cried wolf; moreso in the extremely likely case that Auckland governance actually improves with the “super” council and voter participation increases.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Somebody tell Trevor that Labour drafted the laws and they are unworkable – then he will vote for them.
Come on Trevor, I know you are a Labour guy but how can you protest against anything National do after the dross you voted for over the last 9 years. Wake up dude – parliament needs a shake up not more of the same dressed in blue rather than red.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Yeah excause us Trevor but we’ve all been watching NZ politics for a while now and not many of us a too keen on assuming that a politcians “recolections” of events are a definitave benchmark.
Hansard we’ll accept.
Not sure that labour are people who want to start pointing the bone over privilage breechs either Punchy.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:34 am
@twevor
Were this the case you should have shown some balls in parliament and stuck to your guns. I imagine it would be rather difficult for such a breach to be upheld when Gerry simply gave his recollection and suggested they check Hansard to find the truth; as opposed to a bold assertion like claiming to remember with “absolute clarity” then recoilling like a streaker who just realised its colder than he thought it was.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:37 am
heh i talk politics everyday and have never voted in a local election.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:43 am
@Trevor Mallard
If the filibuster was about team-building, don’t you think you could have found some other exercise a little less costly to the taxpayer, and a little less stressful for the Clerk of the House?
And if you must filibuster, as is your right, why diminish the dignity of the House by putting up “joke” amendments instead of amendments seriously aimed at improving the Bill?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:47 am
DPF is right. Labour has essentially used it’s “fight to the death” opportunity on a proposal that it supports in principle. It might have been a different matter if Labour actually did not support a unitary authority for Auckland.
Nor do I think that Labour’s opposition will provide any pay off in the medium term. Which group of voters are they hoping to pick up arguing about whether Rodney Hide did a proper referral motion or not. It’s all parliamentary complex stuff no one outside cares.
Perhaps it wasn’t about the proposal at all but rather attempting to demonstrate that the National Led Government cannot manage Parliament – but if this was the objective then they failed on this.
Or perhaps as Trevor Mallard has suggested; it was about Labour proving it would do the business in Parliament without Cullen. However, that doesn’t explain Trevor’s face “looking like thunder” when the Government started moving motions.
Now of course all future opposition to the government’s programme will be compared and contrasted against this effort in order to gauge Labour’s sincerity.
On the whole Labour contributions to the debate were largely dismal except for Su’a William Sio and David Parker (who occasionally raised issues not actually relating to the Bill itself but rather issues that likely to come up in the 2nd Bill and more likely the 3rd Bill). David Cunliffe was overblown; he seems to have caught the Shane Jones disease.
And the humour award goes to Gerry Brownlee who got two good jokes away.
But for me the highlight was Sue Kedgley and the way she positively purred the words “coup d’état” repeatedly over my radio. Her voice is so smokey and hard bitten; she could easily pass for a narrator in film noir. She was like a moth to Rodney Hide’s flame.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Teambuilding for labour
Here’s a bit of rope and a stream Trev, cross the stream without getting wet.
Cost to taxpayer
Rope $60
Bus to stream $2.40 each
Getting all of labour out of parliament in one hit – priceless.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Trevor’s voting in Te Reo Maori would have been a whole lot more effective if he was actually speaking with understanding, rather than reading the words which had been written on a small piece of paper for him.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Because the one change they really wanted couldn’t be moved by the opposition.
I move that the Local Government (Auckland reorganisation) Bill be referred to the committee established to consider legislation concerning governance Auckland…
May 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I see the point, and I’m sympathetic to it, believe me.
But “Funsized Coucil”? Or the amendment requiring the Opposition Whip’s assent to precede the Royal assent? There’s a difference between making a joke in the House, and making a joke of the House. The latter is best left to people who aren’t MPs.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Agree this wasn’t the most cost effective team builder Murray, especially with tax payers picking up the tab.
Another particularly popular (and cheap) team building exercise is for people to take turns falling backward off a desk and trust that everyone else will catch you. In fairness to twevor mallard, he probably did suggest this, but I suspect it was vetoed by Phil Goff.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Team building… Come on Trevor is just full of shit. Don’t buy into his distractions. Labour don’t like National acting like the Labour party did for 9 years and neither do I.
The difference between Trevon and myself is I didn’t support it when Labour did it.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
The opposition I understand lies in the way that National are ramming through this law, refusing to have consultation on it of any meaningful nature. This would be ok if they had accepted what the commission had recommended – but they have not they have changed it significantly. There is no need to rush this law so it should not be rushed – better to get it right imo.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I thought John Carter did a great job as Leader of the House. He played Labour at their own game and came out on top. He should be Leader of the House.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The fillibuster in fact was a whole series of utterly trivial amendments specifically designed to use the voting procedure to slow down the progress in the house. Many hundreds of amendments were put forward. It was in fact an abuse of the procedures of the house to act in this way. Therefore the Chair is within his or her rights to stop the abuse. Hence getting the substantive question sorted with its amendments and rule out all the other stupid amendments.