Talk:New Zealand Parliament

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

I guess the question remains though is it accurate to say Labour supported MMP (as I presume we did then and do now)? Did they have an official position on it? If so what was it? If not then it would seem misleading to suggest they supported MMP at the time, even if the majority of their MPs did. Nil Einne (talk) 16:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

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)

The Senate would have been elected by STV, not FPP, see here [1] Quiensabe (talk) 17:21, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

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.

Demographics

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

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)

Four years later, are you still keen? I could send you a scan of the dates by email. Schwede66 18:47, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead, I won't mind typing them in. I think I have emails enabled, but if licensing permits then just upload it here instead. --superioridad ^(discusión) 05:01, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, have emailed you the scans. I've converted the article to shortened footnotes, and you can reference a page number using {{sfn|Wilson|1985|p=xyz}}, or page numbers by using {{sfn|Wilson|1985|pp=abc–def}}

I typed it up yesterday (sans references), but I had trouble finding the dates for everything between 1987 and 2005.

Well, the reference book is from 1985. I was wondering whether you are also keen to start working your way through the individual Parliament articles. The articles for early Parliaments have tables with session dates already (see example here) and I'd be keen to introduce proper inline referencing where that's missing, and have the session dates added where they are not given yet. And when we get to the 30th Parliament, we start setting up stubs for the nine missing articles. How's that for a plan? Schwede66 03:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I've now had a look at your sandbox. Good work. I would have put the references once in there (in the header row); it's ok that a reference doesn't confirm every fact (in this case, beyond 1985). Schwede66 06:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Maori seats

There should be a section about the Maori seats, as this is a unique feature of the NZ electoral system. But I don't know enough about it and don't have the time to go researching. If someone else could add something, that would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.152.15 (talk) 12:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This article is about Parliament as an institution. There's a separate article on the Māori seats. --Lholden (talk) 19:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Aesthetic change

I moved the second template a bit lower (just under the title 'Sovereignty'), so now the article looks far more orderly without that ghastly gap. I hope you'll like it :) --B. Jankuloski (talk) 05:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

election formula

Reading about the recent elections, I also looked around for the formula for converting election results into actual seats in the parliament. I think it definitely merits mention but to someone from the USA (and other countries with simpler, winner-take-all or even different complex formulas), this process is a bit novel and complicated. I believe I have a pretty good grasp of it now (http://www.elections.org.nz/voting/mmp/sainte-lague.html) but I would still rather someone else more familiar with it add it to the article. Thanks -- Jieagles (talk) 18:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Urgency

These days all one reads in connection with the parliament is the word 'urgency'. Can anyone explain please? The first three pages of the Google search yield nothing useful. Benni B. (talk) 10:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Urgency is a parliamentary process. It should be under the legislative process section. --Lholden (talk) 18:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger with New Zealand House of Representatives

Oppose: the House of Representatives surely merits its own article, while at least half of the material here at Parliament of New Zealand would be out of place in that article. (Odd, by the way, how no one seems to have taken any notice of the proposed merger in nearly five months!) Moonraker2 (talk) 17:08, 29 November 2009 (UTC) Oppose: I agree with Moonraker2 above; while New Zealand is unicameral, it has not always been so, and the seperate pages allow a proper seperation of information on Parliament as a whole, the HoR, and the now defunct Legislative Council. It also allows the history of the institution to be properly conveyed, and conveys the constitutional seperation between the HoR and Parliament (which is technically the head of state plus the HoR). --IdiotSavant (talk) 11:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

• oppose I agree with the above comments. Will leave this another day or so then just remove the tags I think Brian | (Talk) 11:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - ditto. --Lholden (talk) 18:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

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Diagram after 2017 election

@Tomiĉo:

If I may be so bold, I'd like to suggest that

is the most appropriate one for the Wikipedia page.

Firstly, this is the same format used in the articles regarding the legislatures of Australia, the U.K., France, Germany, the United States, China, Italy, North Korea, ...

This is because these diagrams do not attempt to perfectly reflect where individual parliamentarians sit in their chambers: this is not the function of these diagrams.

Instead, these diagrams should make it very easy to discern the strengths of the various parties, and in the case of Westminster systems, their roles (Government or Opposition or Crossbench?).

Secondly, the Labour party has been reported as supporting a Labour MP (Trever Mallard) in the role of the speaker, and not a National MP.

Egroeg5 (talk) 16:04, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, the Speaker—I am aware that Labour intends one of its own to assume the speakership, but until then David Carter is still Speaker and it would be too presumptuous of us to predict the outcome of parliamentary votes in advance on Wikipedia. I intend to change the Speaker to Labour as soon as Parliament convenes and a Labour Speaker is elected.

Secondly, the diagram itself. While it is universal pratice to have a parliament diagram on each Wikipedia page for a parliament, there is no standard form which is used in all of them. The adversarial Westminster form is commonly used (Britain, South Africa, India, etc.), with only the hemicyle arch form more common (Ireland, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Malta, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, France, etc.). However, there are also countries which use a boutique form instead, e.g. Canada (variation on Westminster form) or Poland (variation on hemicycle form). Due to its hybrid Westminster history and European-style electoral system New Zealand has for some years also used a boutique diagram based on the horseshoe shape of the House of Representatives (see 2011, 2014 elections). This shows all the government parties having seats on the right side of the chamber, and all opposition parties solely on the left side. Since this has been the format used in the past two terms of Parliament, I believe it should continue to be used, as I see no discernible benefit to changing to a Westminster-style format, nor any Wikipedia-wide consensus for one style of diagram over another. Tomiĉo (talk) 23:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@Tomiĉo:

I defer to your judgement, given as that your reasoning appears to be reasonable.

Egroeg5 (talk) 03:40, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Disagree, a Parliament diagram suits a Parliament that has that form, such as the UK House of Commons, a hemispherical arrangement suits those that have such an arrangement such as the EU Parliament. The New Zealand House of Representatives is neither, being a hybrid, and the diagram does a fairly good job of representing the look of the Parliament, so much so that a version of the diagram was used in election coverage on TVNZ. Tomiĉo - since you've seen that the same image format is used across several NZ elections, could you please not start renaming them without reference to NZ politics project talk page or NZ 2017 election #Some updates and fixing-ups, where the rationale for the .SVG names, and why there were two files was explained. To be clear - one is the status post electoral count, the other is the government-in-waiting, since this is the first NZ election (MMP or FPTP) where the party with the largest number of MPs hasn't been in government. I take your point about the current speaker - an election for this position will be held on the first sitting day. FanN | talk | 01:44, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

A further point - the diagram is not supposed to represent "current composition" as it is only status after election, or in this case status after election and status at formation of government. If a version that shows changes (current composition), such as ongoing changes at by-elections (Winston Peters' Northland win wasn't ever factored in to the 2014 image) then a new image would be more appropriate. To put it mildly, your renaming has caused a huge f*ck-up to this .SVG project. FanN | talk | 02:00, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Very well then, my apologies. I shall propose to move the image back to the original name, and then reupload my image to New Zealand Parliament (current composition).svg. I wasn't aware that the wiki required two separate diagrams of the 2017 election, but evidently I was wrong. Tomiĉo (talk) 06:59, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Your Filename would do well as a separate file, linking to New Zealand Parliament - in whatever other wiki projects have a version in their local language, I'd ask you to keep it consistent with the current version I have uploaded as yours varies somewhat (I've added internal notes so that individual "seats" are more readily identifiable, as well as restored Speaker, including as a unique rectangle instead of a circle, added seat numbers per party and as a total, increased the size of the index box, and restored the #FFF background to the image). One version current, showing changes from election to election and within a Parliament if any by-elections change anything, another version as status at the election (NZ Parliament seats, 2017), which won't need updating and can be shared across multiple projects on [[New Zealand general election, 2017]] (localised versions), and for this election in particular, one version (New Zealand Parliament seats, 2017) as status post election count but prior to government formation. This 3rd diagram (actually the first I made, and differentially named for a reason) is to illustrate the unique nature of this election and formation of government, as the largest party is outside of government ... the first time this has happened in NZ political history. Had the coalition been one of National & NZ First all that would have needed to happen was a renaming of the New Zealand Parliament seats, 2017 file to NZ Parliament seats, 2017, in line with the other diagrams on previous NZ election articles. I already put in a request for a revert of the filename - that was refused, so I appealed the refusal on the talk page of the admin on commons that actioned your rename request, and refused my revert request. See Alvaro Molina's talk page FanN | talk | 07:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Alright, so we seem to be on the same page about having a file which shows continuing changes to the parliament forever, which was my intention with the "current composition" notation. As the admins won't let us rename the existing file, then I think the next best solution is for you to reupload your Labour government version of the image to whichever location you desire, and switch back New Zealand Parliament (current composition).svg to my image for that purpose. Thoughts? Tomiĉo (talk) 08:05, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I'll wait out any comment from the common's admin above - your input there may be useful since the rename request originally came from you. The current comp. image would then be a redirect and would then need uploading as a new filename, but as I've already spent most of today trying to fix this you'll understand my reticence in revisiting it again, since a rename/reupload of the original would necessitate renaming of previous years' files ... and I've already wasted far too much time and energy on this issue today. FanN | talk | 08:48, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

A resignation

Parliament is reduced to 119 members following Andrew Falloon's resignation "effective immediately". He is no longer listed on the Parliament's list of members. Since Falloon was an electorate MP his seat is now vacant.

References

Colors for Maori and Labour nearly identical

Is there any way we could respect the most correct colors, but change the Maori (or Labour) party colors as laid out in the graphic showing number of seats in the parliament to be more distinct from one another please? Currently they look very similar, both red, and barely a shade different. TY. — Moops ^⋠T⋡ 21:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Independent MPs

By my count there are two independent MP's. One being Elizabeth Kerekere and the other being Meka Whaitiri. --Spekkios (talk) 23:03, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Seating plan

@AusYou @Hazhk. The current seating plan has two vacancies, and that should be reflected in the seating plan. Until the vacant members are sworn in, we should show that. As the Green Party doesn't really have "15 seats" and can only vote with 14 at the present moment. Same with National being down one. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 04:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

You claim that the parties "claim" these seats. There is no such thing as that. You are sworn in as a member of parliament, and you represent your party in that seat. You cannot claim a seat when you don't have an MP to be in it, even if you have won that seat in the election, and that is confirmed when the parliament seating diagram shows the vacancies. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 05:02, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@Kiwiz1338: I get your point but the problem now is that all reliable sources state that the National Party has 49 MPs and the Green Party 15. Not only news media but the Parliament website too: See here. The infobox states there are 123 MPs in total, but now the numbers below don't add up. I think the infobox should simply reflect the number of elected MPs the parties have, but perhaps footnotes should be added for the National and Green figures to indicate that members have not yet been sworn in? Of course this is a temporary issue because the two MPs should be sworn in soon.
I should have started a discussion first and I apologise for reverting your revision to your own graphic because that was impolite. Your work in creating the seating plans is really appreciated. --Hazhk (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

No, not your fault. I think a footnote would work untill they are sworn in. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 16:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)