David Seymour: ACT Party leader voices support for four-year Parliamentary terms

ACT's leader believes four-year Parliamentary terms would lead to more accountability.

The Government plans to introduce legislation to go to a referendum - potentially as early as the next general election.

The opposition would need to get more proportional representation in Parliament Select Committees, providing greater checks and balances.

David Seymour says that would mean more debate.

"I think it would be genuinely better if laws had to go in front of a Select Committee for six months, as run by the other guys, to beat it around." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's introducing legislation they want to change our parliamentary
terms from three to four years. The bill will be taken,
of course, it'll be voted on it, we'll go select
committee and will eventually end up as a referendum, so
we will all have our say. It has a caveat though,
designed by the Act Party, the term would only be
extended to four years if there are greater checks and
balances on the government and power i e. The Opposition

(00:22):
would have some majorities on some select committees. David Seymour
is the Act Leader exactly, Acting Prime Minister today too, good,
good evening to you, good evening, great to have you
on as always. So how does this actually work? Can
you just explain to us the steps here from this
proposal to it becoming potentially law.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, for sure. Can I just say step one is
you got to whether you're a Act voter, a Green voter,
anywhere in between, step back and say you don't know
who's going to be in power. The only question is
would we be better in general if it was four years
at a time instead of three years, And just make
it about that rather than which side you're on, because

(01:06):
everyone will be in and out in different times in
the future. Anyway. The second thing is at the moment
we've got a coalition agreement for the government to put
up my bill that I drafted an opposition and it
basically says we go to a four year term, but
with a catch that in order to get four years,

(01:28):
the government has to give the opposition control of the
Select committees. And there's a couple of reasons for that.
One is that I don't think the New Zealand public
will trust politicians with an extra year unless there's some
sort of check or balance in return, so I think
it's important for the politics of it. The second reason

(01:49):
is that I think it would be genuinely better if
laws had to go in front of a Select committee
for six months was run by the other guys to
beat it around. The Government of the day ultimately has
the power in Parliament to change it back to their way,
but at least you actually have a debate. Second of all,
when you have people like Adrian or for example, coming

(02:11):
before the Select Committee, or someone who runs a government department,
they're going to get more of a grilling from the
opposition than people in the government side.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
I think people agree with Will agree with you there.
But my question is, so how do these two things
work together. You've got the proposed legislation and then you've
got your caveat. When, so when do we vote? Which
order does this go in?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, there's a couple of things. The first of all,
this law. So this law is going to be introduced,
the rest of the government may or may not support
it for the rest of the term, and then if
it gets passed through parliament, it or go to referendum,
and if it passes referendum, it becomes the law. So
that's the process part in terms.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Of you're with the caveat or without the caveat.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Well, at the moment it contains the caveat. And the
way the cavet it works is that let's say there
is an election and I don't know twenty thirty two when,
because this won't come into effect.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
For a while.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's you know, so you don't know who's going to
be in charge at the time. But let's say it's
twenty thirty two, there's an election, Prime Minister X wins
and he or she says, yep, I'm going to go
to four years. But they have to reassure the Governor
General that they're going to turn over the Select committees

(03:27):
to the opposition before the Governor General. We're going to
have four years and otherwise they just get three.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
All right, and you haven't got the support of New
Zealand First or of the National Party beyond the first reading, right,
So yeah, that's right, okay, all right, thanks so much
for your time, David Seymour, who's the NEC Party leader.
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