Gerry Brownlee: Speaker of the House reflects on the behaviour in Parliament in 2024

Have the standards in New Zealand’s Parliament been slipping? 

Between constant interruptions and heckling, name calling, and a haka towards the end of last year, 2024 was filled with events that drew concern about the behaviour of our MPs. 

Speaker of the House, Gerry Brownlee, told Tim Beveridge that since there is now a party of reasonable size that wants to make cultural expressions that recognise their voters, they need to ask how that fits in. 

He says there’s a lot of tension surrounding it, and they’re looking at ways in which they might formalise some aspects so that there isn’t the element of surprise or ambush. 

Brownlee says that in the end, New Zealand has a very safe Parliament, and people shouldn’t lose sight of that. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
And we have seen Harker's constant interruptions, heckling, name calling
and the odd questionable choice of outfit. Some may say
the standards have slipped in our parliament in recent times.
So I thought we'd speak to the man who has
to try and bring order to it all every day,
and that Speaker of the House.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Jerry Browny, Good morning, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Have you had some time to reflect on last year
and come up with any sort of conclusions around parliamentary behavior,
have you?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Well, Look, I think one of the things that people
don't appreciate is that everybody who's in the department has
been set there by voters, and so they've got every
right to be there. We have, I think a huge
amount of misunderstanding about the dress code. Gentlemen, for example,
have been able to wear hats in Parliament since eighteen

(01:01):
fifty four. The charts for changing that are pretty slum.
And then the actual dress code itself is determined by
the Parliamentary Service Commission, which is a group of all parliamentarians,
and it generally requires a sort of a unanimous buyer
and now true amount. I changed that quite substantially, and

(01:24):
I don't think in the current parliament there's much chance
that that's going to change. So that's one aspect on
the behavior stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
I think the.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Confusion that is there is we now have a party
that is of reasonable size that wants to express that
the or to make the cultural expressions that recognize their voters,
and you have to ask the question how does that
fit in? And I think there's been a lot of

(01:56):
tension around that, and we're looking at ways in which
we might formalize some aspects so that there isn't this
sort of surprised or ambush aspect of things. The reality
is that since I think nineteen ninety five, the use
of wyata, particularly around settlement bills, has been quite common.

(02:17):
I think it's just a few of the things that
happened this year that were notified people where they had.
If they had been, there might have been a different
outcome or a different reaction. I should say that all
needs to be sorted out, but look, can I just
say this in the end. In the end, we've got
a very safe parliament and I think people currentt lose

(02:40):
sight of that if you look at all the trouble
around the world in countries that are struggling with democracy
or don't have it at all, at least our discussions
or our differences. You know, I don't want to use
the word fights, but our severe differences are confined to

(03:00):
oral contest nothing more, and I think that's very, very important.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I've heard comment that that we're living in an
age where some MPs want to orchestrate stunts because it
looks great on their social media. Do you feel a
momentum in that that people are searching to be a
bit more outrageous and who cares what Jerry says?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yes? Possibly, But there's also quite a number of limits
on what can be filmed inside parliament. Those limits don't
exist outside parliament, and so you know, we do restrict
the amount of photography that can occur inside the parliament,

(03:43):
and if there is a debate on then anybody filming
in parliament, anybody including the mainstream media and the parliamentary
television itself, have to concentrate on the person speaking, not
on anything else that might be going on at the time.
So there's not a lot of that, to be quite obvious,
you'll get it where perhaps someone decides to use their

(04:07):
speaking slot to seem more otherwise, and I think things
being quite blunted about it. When the parliament opened last
year well ENDO twenty three, a lot of people were
very critical of the mot part, particularly because of the
way they presented themselves prior to being sworn in. They

(04:29):
weren'ty in peace at the time, Parliament was not in session,
and you know, there was no particular authority to you know,
come down on that at that time. So yeah, you
know it work in progress.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
You've very experienced parliamentarian and so your knowledge of the
rules and everything. But I'm curious to know when you
think ahead to a session of Parliament and you see
an issue coming up, do you sort of prepare yourself
for Okay, I might have to have X this response prepared.
You know, do you think sort of think ahead or
are you just completely reactionary to everything. I'm not reactionary.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I mean I know what you mean, but I think
a certain amount of th making ahead. You can't anticipate
everything that's going to happen, editing everything is going to say.
The job of the speaker is to make sure that
everyone in there gets a fair go that there's snow.
You know, I suppose domination of the parliament beyond the
size of a particular party, and sometimes smaller parties will

(05:29):
do things that might make the news because they're competing
as much bigger parties. In the end, democracy is a contest,
and I think, you know, I get all sorts of
letters telling me you've got to do this, You've got
to throw these people out, You've got to check them
out of parliament. All that something that's not how it works.
Are there because voters have sent them there and we

(05:51):
can't recite that. That's the fundamental principle of democracy.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Excellent. Hey, Jerry, thanks so much for your time and
good luck. Have a great year.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Well, thank you, and I hope you have a good
year too. Later.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Oh bye bye. I can't wait to wonder. I imagine
when it comes to the Treaty principles Bill. I wonder
if Jerry walks out of his office going on, here
we go. This will be fun anyway.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
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