THE PRESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1986. M.P.s’ income register

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 18

THE PRESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1986. M.P.s’ income register

The Westminster model for Parliament is not always a good one. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, is using it to support the Government’s plan to introduce a register of the assets and ihcomes of all members of Parliament. In this instance, Britain’s Parliament is a poor example to draw upon. Wanting members to be free from the bias of personal interests is fine. Insisting that they are open about where they earn money, and about what assets they have, may be a way to keep politics clean and honest. The process implies, of course, that politicians are not necessarily free of a sense of self-interest. If this is to be the assumption, the Government should be thinking about requiring all Parliamentary candidates to declare their interests before they are elected.

This much accepted, exactly the same rules should apply in local government. It is there, more than in Parliament, that the councillors have much more say in the day-to-day allocation of contracts and other expenditure. The law already recognises this in local body work. Local body members must, by law, declare a conflict of interest in such matters as contracts; though the law does not demand disclosure of their assets or earnings.

The argument does not stop here. If a member of Parliament has to be financially frisked, so should the member’s wife or husband — perhaps other family too; and the husbands and wives of local body members. Even more to the point than concern about money and other assets, is the possibility that social, business, and political connections will influence members. All these should be exposed as well, though the risk of their being misinterpreted is probably very high. Here lies perhaps the greatest problem of the idea: the proposed register could acquire a completely misplaced and exaggerated significance.

Parliament is not the judiciary. It is an assembly of representatives, all biased in

some way or other, all touched by a vast range of interests and connections, and all capable of resisting in varying degrees the pressures put upon them. A register of assets and earnings is not going to change this. Having declared a monetary interest in some enterprise, is the member going to be disqualified from speaking or voting on a matter concerning this enterprise? Parliament could not entertain such a notion. A wise member will declare the connection anyway, or abstain from the debate. Voting is a different matter. At Cabinet level, the executive position of members is different. A prudent Prime Minister will be sure to be acquainted with Ministers’ private interests and, on any issue, should be ready to exclude the voice of anyone known to have a conflict of interests. If necessary, the Prime Minister can make this exclusion publicly known; though even in this there is a hint of a lack of confidence in the impartiality of a Minister. The whole exercise proposed by the Government implies a lack of good faith and a lack of trust. This is bad for Parliament. • Reference to a register would be great fun in Parliamentary debate. Here would be wonderful opportunities to disparage the opinions of members, especially Government members whose votes will nearly always carry the day. Extending the register to include club memberships, associations with businesses, patronage of societies, magazine subscriptions, and private donations would enliven the House tremendously; but to little other good purpose. As for the possibilities at local government level, the opportunities for devastating implications — probably wrong and unjust — are as endless as they are likely to be irrelevant.

The whole idea reeks of irrelevance and potential mischief. It should be dropped as one of those notions that may have begun in a striving for perfection but is insulting in its implications and, in a society as small as New Zealand’s, quite unnecessary. -