David Carter: Former Speaker of the House on Gerry Brownlee cracking down on behaviour in Parliament

A former Speaker of the House is confident attempts to tighten parliamentary standards will be successful.

Current speaker Gerry Brownlee's cracking down on behaviour following what he sees as multiple disruptive incidents.

The latest saw Te Pati Māori MP Oriini Kaipara's maiden speech go well over time.

David Carter told Mike Hosking Brownlee will definitely get the majority support from Parliament to do this.

Carter says Brownlee just needs to show the will to enforce stricter standards.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker Jerry Brownly looking to tidy Parliament up after get
another decorum incursion from the Mallory party, who, as he
pointed out, her more about noise and attention seeking them
making the place better, so stronger penalties, sanctions for non attendance,
tough addressed standards. David Carter, former Speaker of the Houses,
back with as David Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Morning, Michael.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I thought he missed a little bit of an opportunity yesterday.
Honestly thought he was going to call a renny out
and he could he have? Should he have? Or should somebody?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I e?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
And MP in the ensuing period since last week have
called them out and got them in front of the
Privileges Committee.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
The speakers responsible for setting the standards of Parliament, and
he has to do that. They were lowered by mister
Mallard and mister Brownley now has the responsibility to up
the standards in Parliament. He needs the backing of parliamentarians
to do it. He's chairs the Business Committee that meets
every week. If he can get the majority of parliamentarians
to agree that the standards have slipped and need to

(00:52):
be improved, then he'll be able to do it.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
With these do you think he will get that support.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I think he definitely will. Parliamentarians like to think they
are members of the highest court in the land. Make
the highest court of the land adhere to standards that
are suitable, and I think the parliamentarians would back Jerry.
He's just got to show the world to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is there any room in there? I was thinking about
this as he was speaking yesterday. There's a lot of
I mean, you and I can sit here and go gee,
it's not like it was in the old days, is it?
But these aren't the old days. Is it the regenerational
slash cultural clash here that we might want to pay
attention to or is it just gone too far?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
I think it's gone too far, But I do agree
that you've got to be continue adjusting your rules. So
the Maori Party are there. They're very strong and personalities.
They need to be listened to. But they are part
of the Business Committee. The Business Committee meets regularly. It
arives at decision by near unanimity. Doesn't require every parliamentarian
sitting around the Business Committee to agree, but the majority

(01:52):
win and that Parliament itself needs to adjust the rules
and be prepared to do so. To raise the standards.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Is it just party in your viewer of the Greens
fall under this net as well.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I don't watch parliament anymore or was there for long enough,
and I don't have to. You're the one that does.
I think all parliamentarians need to consider whether the standards
have dropped. I think they have. You had the speech
the other day that made the speech has caused the trouble.
It went well over time. That's not allowed to happen. No,
if you allowed parliamentarians to just have their own speaking,
times of become chaos. But the speaker, mister Browne, could

(02:27):
have actually controlled that. He could have cut that speech
off at due time. He chose not to. He's got
it tough enough as well.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Good on you, David nicely, said David Carter, former Speaker
of the House. Yeah, it was building. I watched it
live and I thought, hang on, he's heading in the
right direction here. I think we've got something. He's going
to name her and he's going to do something about it.
And he sort of whimped out. And I think my
general criticism of Jerry Browne, so far as he's not
a great speaker, he's certainly better than Mallard. But that's
saying nothing. He's certainly not as good as Carter was.

(02:55):
He wasn't as good as Jonathan Hunt, and you can
go back further from that.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
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