Time to review Parliament's structure

Alan Collier outlines the case for reintroducing an "upper house" in the New Zealand Parliament.

The four voting options to be put to the people in the planned referendum do not go far enough.

The electoral reform that introduced MMP in 1996 provided some relief from decades of exhaustion brought on by rapid policy changes and the gradual breakdown of public trust and confidence in politicians and Parliament.

But New Zealand stands alone among Westminster democracies in having a single chamber of national Parliament.

And the opportunity to review the system of voting for the lower house is the ideal time to review the structure of Parliament itself.

New Zealand needs to re-introduce an upper house.

It will provide scrutiny and accountability on the government that no system of lower house committees can ever do.

MMP was meant to remove the status of Parliament as a mere cipher of the government.

It has gone part of the way, but MMP is a cure almost as bad as the disease.

Properly designed, an upper house can be an effective brake on government excess, it can probe deeply into government conduct and it can provide for minority representation.

It should have extensive power, but not the power to break governments by rejecting or amending money bills.

And an upper house can reduce the total number of MPs while improving representation and governance.

It can do this by eliminating list MPs.

List MPs are elected to Parliament without any mandate, without a constituency, and without accountability to the people.

They are elected because a party has selected them and placed them on a list.

There could be few systems better devised to create time serving and sinecures without any regard to the suitability of candidates.

A total of 52 list MPs are provided a parliamentary seat, in some cases potentially for life, without being directly answerable to the electorate or any constituency.

Seats in an upper house of Parliament can be created by abolishing list MPs.

This would not disturb the 70 MPs at present returned by individual and Maori electorates who would continue to constitute the House of Representatives.

I propose an upper house comprising six regional electorates based on the original six provinces of New Zealand.

Three in the south (Nelson, Canterbury and Otago), and three in the north (Auckland, Taranaki and Wellington).

Three electorates in each island offers geographical fairness in a way similar to the United States Senate, which returns two senators from each State regardless of population.

Each of the six upper house electorates could return, say, five members on a proportional representation basis, returning a total of 30 members to an upper house, a reduction of almost one-half on the number of list MPs presently returned.

And, by representing an electorate, each new upper house member will be accountable to the electors of a province rather than chosen by their party on the basis of reliable party service.

Like other Westminster democracies, ministers could be chosen from both upper and lower houses.

Minor parties retain the opportunity of having members elected to the upper house because proportional representation reduces the quota necessary to gain election.