If being Leader of the Opposition is, as often described, the worst job in politics, then being Speaker of the House of Representatives is, as Gerry Brownlee is now discovering, the loneliest.

The office of Speaker ranks highly in New Zealand, third behind the Governor-General and the Prime Minister in the official Order of Precedence. Appointment as Speaker carries the entitlement to the honorific “Right Honourable” for life, and a near-automatic Knighthood on leaving office.

The Speaker’s role is a combination of Parliamentary, ceremonial, and administrative functions. The Parliamentary function is to preside over the business of the House, including Question Time and significant debates. In doing so, the Speaker pledges to uphold both the “rights and privileges” of all Members, “without fear or favour”, and Parliament’s Standing Orders (the rules by which Parliament’s debates are regulated), including ruling on their application and interpretation.

The Speaker also performs ceremonial functions on behalf of Parliament at significant State occasions. Administratively, the Speaker chairs the Parliamentary Service Commission, which oversees the work of the Parliamentary Service, which employs Parliament’s staff and looks after the day-to-day running of the Parliamentary complex. 

Above everything else, the Speaker is expected to be scrupulously impartial. But the Speaker is also a politician, elected to Parliament every three years on a party label. Almost invariably, the Speaker is drawn from the ranks of the government party and is usually a senior politician of many years standing, often with a lengthy background as a Minister. (The only time in the last eighty-odd years where the Speaker was not from the ranks of the government party was 1993-96 when Labour’s Sir Peter Tapsell held the role because of the narrowness of the National Government’s majority.)

While the Speaker’s vote on legislation is still recorded as being one of their party’s votes, the Speaker is expected to sever all other party ties (until the next election). Speakers seldom attend party Caucus meetings (although some have been known to do so during Parliamentary recesses).  Informally, and through the Business Committee – the cross-party committee that meets each week to determine upcoming business in the House – the Speaker is kept aware of the government’s legislative plans but has no direct input into these. Yet, at the same time, as at least one former Speaker has observed, there is an informal expectation that the Speaker will help the government “get its business through the House.”

Therefore, in short, the Speaker is expected to be the friend of all in Parliament, but no-one in particular. The Speaker is often criticised by one side of the House or the other for either not seeing the things the way they do or being too accommodating of the other side's interests.

On occasions, the differences between the Speaker and a party, relate to the interpretation of a particular Standing Order, but these are usually resolved through informal discussion, outside the Parliamentary Chamber. It is against Standing Orders to directly criticise the Speaker, with resort to a motion of no-confidence being the only permissible way of doing so. This nuclear option is seldom used or even threatened. I recall only one such time in the late 1980s during my time in Parliament.

All of which makes the current row brewing between the Speaker and the ACT Party that much more interesting. There are two levels to this. The first is that Speaker Brownlee has determined that his ruling last week that Members cannot display prominent party stickers on their laptops in the House, also means they cannot wear lapel badges featuring their party logos.

ACT MPs wear these lapel badges like a uniform, the same way many other MPs across the House have done over the years. ACT has taken affront to Brownlee’s decision that lapel badges are the same as stickers on laptops. He has subsequently escalated things by refusing to allow MPs to speak in the House, including Ministers answering questions, if they are wearing party lapel badges.

This seems on overreaction, inconsistent with upholding the “rights and privileges” of Members, “without fear or favour”. It should be capable of resolution through off-line discussion, rather than the trivial-looking public posturing we are now seeing.

The second issue is more complex. ACT is aggrieved at what it considers racially motivated abuse against Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, over her support for boot camps and the removal of the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi in the Oranga Tamariki legislation. ACT believes that the level of verbal and other abuse Chhour has been receiving within the Parliamentary precincts is completely unacceptable, and that Brownlee, as chair of the Parliamentary Service Commission, has not done enough to protect her and other Members from such abuse and intimidation.

 

In effect, Brownlee is being held to account by ACT for failings by the Parliamentary Service to ensure Members have a safe work environment, in the same way a Minister would be held to account for performance failure within their department. That is an important recognition of the reality that the Speaker’s responsibilities also include the operation of Parliament as a whole, not just the Chamber and the select committees.

It is also significant that ACT, as National’s senior coalition partner, feels the need to “go public” on the issue – a clear measure of the extent to which it feels Brownlee has failed to respond. Given its sensitivity, other parties are unlikely to rush to Brownlee’s aid, lest they become caught up in the row.

Coming on top of the issues that occurred during the previous two Parliaments about behaviour and conduct, which led to at least one independent review, a Speaker now appearing to drag the chain on allegations of abuse and intimidation of Members is far from a good look.

Brownlee needs to front up and treat seriously the concerns ACT is raising – otherwise his role as Speaker will become even more lonely.