HoS can’t count
February 26th, 2012 at 2:59 pm by David FarrarThe Herald on Sunday editorial:
In the big grey building on the hill in Wellington are 121 MPs – one for every 36,600 New Zealanders.
That’s almost a record (they had to redo the seating plan to fit in such numbers) and it’s a big increase on the 99 MPs who represented us in 1996, before the introduction of MMP.
The last Parliament had 122 MPs, so in fact it has dropped. And worth mentioning that the population growth since 1996 means that even without MMP, we would be up to 109 MPs. In another decade or so Parliament under MMP will be smaller than what it would have been if we had continued with FPP.
Do we need so many MPs? Well, Australia’s House of Representatives contains 150 MPS – one for every 152,300 Ockers.
The HoS is not comparing apples with apples. With no second chamber our backbench MPs on select committees do the work which upper houses often do. Also with no state governments, the national parliament and government is responsible for all laws and policies. So what is the total number of legislators in Australia.
- Federal – 150 + 76 = 226
- NSW = 93 + 42 = 135
- Victoria = 88 + 40 = 128
- Queensland = 89
- WA = 59 + 36 = 95
- SA = 47 + 22 = 69
- Tasmania = 25 + 15 = 40
- ACT = 17
- NT = 25
The total number of legislators in Australia is 824. That is one for every 27,700 Australians – a considerably higher ratio than in New Zealand.
The truth may be unpopular but for a country of its size, New Zealand has one of the smaller Parliaments in the world. I researched around 50 different countries for a submission on this a few years back.
Does MMP need so many politicians? No, it would work perfectly well if we went back to 99 MPs – 63 in general electorates, seven in Maori electorates, and 29 list MPs to bring specialist expertise and proportionality.
Another incorrect statement. In 1999 Labour would have had an overhang under a 70/29 Parliament creating a disproportional result. Again in 2002 Labour would have had an overhang. And such overhangs would be inevitable in the future. A 70/29 split doesn’t produce proportional results when the winning party wins a lot of the electorate seats.
February 26th, 2012 at 3:07 pm
Rome would have used two regional governors with 4 staff each.
But then they had a low threashold for bullshit and cricificition. Lucky bastards.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:07 pm
Why does anyone read the hearld on sunday these days, unless they need something to lay down for their cat to do its business on.
Do they recycle this editoral every couple of years, or what.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Apart from the limitations of their simplistic use of facts, this argument is irrelevant anyway.
The MMP review specificially excludes looking at the total number of MPs, and I don’t think any parties are interested, so it’s pointless trying to talk it up.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
I accept that we would have more chance of diverting the Waikato River to run into Wellington Harbour than reducing the headcount of MPs. Such a selfless opportunity to spare the taxpayer needless expense would be an anathema to the parasites who would run our lives for us.
Twenty less politicians at a minimum of $250K each would save the country at least $5 million/year. We can dream.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
It’s a shame that the number of MPs is off-limits. I reckon the number of list MPs should be a “top up” to the electorate MPs, such that the party with the most electorates gets no list MPs, and all other parties are apportioned list MPs to top them up to their proportion of the vote.
However, if we are going to fix the number of list MPs, they shoudl be much less than now. I think we could fix the number at 25% of parliament, so that would be 30 List and 90 Electorate. There would be a higher risk of overhang, but I don’t think it would be significant.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
@Nasska:
1. What evidence is there that it’s needless expense? Expense yes, needless I’m not so sure. Unless you’re going to let me pick which of the MPs go – I can give you a list of the useless ones. Unfortunately, the people who voted for them may not always agree with me.
2. $5 million per year. That’s what you’re worried about? I’d be more worried about the things these folks are spending the rest of our money on than this line item. $5 million wouldn’t last 5 minutes in the welfare or ACC budgets.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Why 20, nasska? Why is 100 such a great number?
why not 40 less or 60 less politicians?
And do you also mean the parasites that you voted for?
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
I find it fascinating, actually, this continual push in New Zealand for fewer MPs. To me, fewer MPs means a greater concentration of power, and I find that scary. I would rather have MORE MPs (electorate ones of course), so that the executive can be outvoted and we have more diverse opinion, less railroading of decisions, more scrutiny, and a better democracy. But that concept escapes most people, who simply look at the pennies we spend on our parliament and think it’s too much.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Agree BlairM. How many people does it take to run other organisations as large as the NZ government? Do we think it’s out of proportion? These people get to spend a large proportion of each of our incomes each year. Do we really want to save .001% of that at the cost of making their decision making worse? Even if it’s only fractionally worse, the costs of poor decision making will vastly outweigh the savings.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
I’m not sure relative comparisons are all that helpful.
Western decocracies have been inflicted with rampant bureauro-bloat for ages now. Our halls of power continue to fill with people who apparently know what’s best for us, and their medicine has typically been to find still more more of them to dispense this wisdom.
I believe NZ could be effectively, and democratically governed with 20-30 representatives
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
“Do we need so many MPs? Well, Australia’s House of Representatives contains 150 MPS – one for every 152,300 Ockers.”
the regular editorial writers must have been away, so one of the sports jocks took over.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
This is the bit that made me laugh out loud……
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
PaulL
1) Not sure that I can produce a lot of evidence but we managed for quite a few years with less then 120 of them.
2) The $5 million cost is symbolic. I agree that the potential for extra spending rises with extra MPs positioned to dream up new ways of wasting our money.
eszett
If we are going to keep the dog that is MMP it needs a certain number of MPs to make it work. DPF’s figure of 99 may be it. As long as it allows the representation it is designed for then the minimum should also be the maximum. The entire argument is hypothetical anyway as no MP will vote him/herself out of a job.
BlairM
As long as whipping is allowed I can’t see the will of back bench MPs overriding the executive.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Let’s not forget that, in the US, if you count all the federal, state, county, municipal, and town governments, you have one entire government for every 8000 inhabitants. Yes, one government consisting of many politicians and multiple branches. Now that’s excessive!
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
BlairM
As long as whipping is allowed I can’t see the will of back bench MPs overriding the executive.
Yes, but at the moment a Prime Minister can make almost a majority of his caucus members of the executive. Give a few more committee chairmanships and you can override your backbenchers on anything.
In Britain, a governing party can usually make no more than a quarter or so of its caucus part of the executive. The difference that makes is huge. Governments there are constantly doing the numbers for their own party in whether they can implement policies. The larger number of MPs makes for a far better constraint on government and a far more fettered executive.
Tas – Here in Texas we have 24 million governments of one
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
So according to HoS logic our rugby teams should only have 4 players – on account of having a smaller population than Australia.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
I think BlairM raises an interesting point: would we be better off with MORE MPs? Would a parliament of, say, 200 provide better government overall?
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 7:14 pm
milkenmild – if we had stuck with First Past the Post, we would have 107 electorate MPs at the moment, according to the old rules. Add maybe 30-40 list MPs to that and we are getting in the realm of a more reasonable body. I’m also a great advocate of a second chamber, with perhaps two dozen Senators, popularly elected at-large in staggered ballots. Nearly all countries have a second chamber, and for good reason. It is a great shame that the first National government got rid of ours in a short-sighted move, and we should bring a form of it back.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Agreed. A larger 2-chamber parliament would be good for democracy. Not a chance of it happening of course.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
mikenmild: I think the question we should be asking is how to increase the talent of our MPs – both in terms of volume and in terms of the individuals. They get little to no training for the job, and most people with an ounce of common sense would run a mile before becoming one. The structures of parliament, and the pedantry necessary to make any sense out of it, turn off normal people. But ultimately these people are running our country, so ideally we’d have some with some smarts.
This is a large part of why I’m in favour of getting the government out of most elements of our lives. In theory they could get involved in almost anything, but having met a number of senior civil servants (whom are hamstrung by the processes, and largely spend their time keeping their political masters out of trouble), and a few politicians (who are mostly drongos with enough rat cunning to get elected), I’d much rather that government didn’t get involved in anything at all.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
BlairM
I can see where you’re coming from. We could, however, obtain a ratio of executive to backbench MPs that would prevent the current skullduggery by simply limiting the size of cabinet. Ten, twelve at the most ministers is ample.
It’s worth remembering that the number of voters of each electorate represented by a constituency MP is a throwback to days of travel by boat & train & primitive communication systems if compared to today’s standards.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Excellent blog, David. The HoS editorials are almost always tabloid garbage and obviously I made the right choice not to bother reading that one this morning.
If people would put half the energy into supporting a constitution to protect individuals’ lives, liberty and property from politicians as they do into complaining about how many MPs there are we would be a lot better off. It’s not how many there are, but the awful damage they can do that is the problem.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Actually it’s not DPF’s number at all. David argued, quite correctly, that with 120 MPs we already have one of the smallest parliaments. Why do you think we would be better off with less?
You still haven’t brought a reasonable argument why less is better, other than that you don’t like politicians.
BlairM argued to actually increasing the size of politicians, to get better results.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Yes Alan, imagine how much might be achieved if half the moaning energies of politicians, pundits and posters was turned positive.
I’d rather look more at quality of politicians than quantity. A bonus is it’s something we can influence if we put our minds to voting more effectively.
Vote:February 26th, 2012 at 9:33 pm
eszett
I don’t have anything personal against individual politicians. There seem little justification for so many of them & I doubt that list bankbenchers do anything other than make up the numbers.
They just don’t represent value for what they cost.
Vote:February 27th, 2012 at 8:18 am
Why do people still confuse the number of MPs with the electoral system which we use to elect them? The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform specifically recommended 120 regardless of the electoral system. The reason why this point is still confused is because of the anti-MMP lobby groups in the nineties who deliberately tied the two together by using under-hand propaganda. In fact, if we had changed the number of MPs and retained FPP, we would probably now have in excess of 130 MPs, based on using the old formula, which stipulated a certain number of South Island electorates and then the number in the North Island changed to give the same number of constituents per electorate. Also, as a proportion of GDP, we are probably spending a pittance on MPs salaries, compared to say, oh, the odd city manager or two. I calculated a few years ago that Christchurch has 1 in every 1,000 people working either directly or indirectly for the Christchurch City Council. Does it matter, as long as they get the job done and in a cost effective manner? As Winston said all those years ago (and I refer to Churchill, not Peters), Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Just think if you were in a dictatorship, you wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
Vote:February 27th, 2012 at 9:14 am
This is the second blog in a week on KB that covers inept journalism from the Herald. So this is just from the political beat. That newspaper has gone to the dogs
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