The Green Party is warning Speaker Gerry Brownlee he should take care to avoid becoming Parliament's fashion police, while National and Labour are welcoming his attempt to address what they see as slipping standards in the House.
The Speaker - who acts as Parliament's referee - on Tuesday announced plans to be stricter with standards including around leave, attendance and dress.
He gave Parliament a dressing down - specifically new Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara - after her maiden speech last week went well over time and was followed by an unsanctioned haka. He delivered a ruling on the disruption caused as Parliament began sitting again on Tuesday afternoon.
Supplementary questions would now be entirely at his discretion, he would make more use of the punishments Parliament's speaker can hand down to MPs and he would seek changes to rules around attendance, dress standards and leave, he said.
But Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March said it should be up to voters to judge the way politicians present themselves.
"If voters don't like how a party is presenting, they can punish us on election day," he said.
Menéndez March said any changes to the rules would need to be clearly spelled out, and putting someone in a tuxedo was no guarantee of improved behaviour.
That politicians need to conform to "business attire" was already quite broad and open to interpretation, based on age, background and culture, he added.
But National Minister Simeon Brown told RNZ's Morning Report he welcomed the Speaker looking into those issues, and it was the Speaker "doing his job".
Brown believed removing the requirement to wear a tie reduced the standards across parliament, and "standards continue to slip", leading to some of "the behaviour we're seeing now".
"This is the highest court in the land, MPs are elected to that position. It is a position of great responsibility," Brown said.
He wanted standards that "make us turn up to work, to do our jobs and to represent our people, the people who put us there".
Support with reservations
Labour's deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said she was supportive of Brownlee's decision because the public had an expectation of politicians to do their job well, but Brown was oversimplifying the issue.
However, she told Morning Report she didn't think there'd been a decline in behaviour "because men are no longer required to wear ties".
On attendance in the House, Sepuloni believed that was a "fair and reasonable" to look into. She said Labour had strict rules around attendance, and there was a process to go through in order to take leave.
"The Labour Party, even within opposition, is very reluctant to vote down in numbers. We think that we need to be there in full force."
Brown wouldn't speak on whether Te Pāti Māori MPs were present enough in the House, but said he believed politicians were "elected to do a job, we should be turning up".
He acknowledged there'd be a debate around what the standards should be, "but there should be standards, and they should be enforced".
