Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Sir Lockwood Smith: Former Speaker of the House on the calls to revisit the rules of Parliament

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Sir Lockwood Smith: Former Speaker of the House on the calls to revisit the rules of Parliament · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There are calls this morning for harsher punishments for MP's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: misbehaving in the House and he's in first. Shane Jones
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: says the party Marti's routine last week was a step
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: too far. It was a disgrace, and he says Standing
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Orders need a once over.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We now need to reform, sharpen and bring standing Orders
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: into a world where it is a parent a host
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: of members no longer fear the consequences.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: So Lockwood Smith is a former Speaker of the Houses
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: with us this morning. Mortenna, good morning, morning, Ray, great
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to have you on the show. Do we need tougher penalties?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Harsher penalties? Do they actually work?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: It's an interesting issue because obviously Parliament hass some real privileges.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, as speaker at the start through parliament you
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: go to the Governor General, the head of Saint New
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Zealand and seek the privileges of the Parliament from the
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Governor General. And one of those privileges, of course, is
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: the privilege of free speech in the Parliament, which is
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: pretty special. You know what you can say. A member
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: can say almost anything in the House and not be
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: sued for it. So the privileges are very special and
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: to breach those privileges to is a serious issue. And okay,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: the other day, I think the Speaker named a member
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: for interrupting the proceedings of the House, and the penalty
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: for that's only one day's exclusion. They lose a member
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: that's named, loses their pay for one day. They can't
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: be involved in the debate or committees or anything, they
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: can't vote for a day. If they do it again,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: of course it's seven days. And if they do it
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: beyond that, it's even a bigger penalty again for a
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: third offense. But it's possible, you know that the issue
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: should be referred to the Standing Orders Committee, which is
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: a committee of senior members of Parliament that meets every
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: parliamentary term to upfate the Standing Orders and look at
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: that issue of this verity of that first breach, you know,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: just being named and suspended from the House for one day,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: and it was a Thursday.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It was a Thursday too, so it wasn't much happening
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: on that in the House on a Friday.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Seymour reckons that because of social media, the electoral benefits
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to people from from protesting and doing things like this
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: far outway at any punishment, you know, and with your
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: TikTok moment. So maybe there is a case to dock
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: more pay or something like that, something more severe. Or
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, do you allow time for a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: hucker if there's going to be a controversial bill?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: You know, well, I think that's something that also the
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Speaker can consider. I mean, over recent years when when
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: treaty settlements have been made, they are important occasions and
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: here we often attend in significant um. There's it's been
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: a tremendous development that in consultation with the Speaker, let's
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: agreed that the EWI present can perform a why to
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: cup a hacker event. And that's great, you know, it's
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: it's lovely to see it, it's lovely to hear it,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: and it recognizes Maori Maori culture and traditions, and so
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: there's no reason why that couldn't be explored as well,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: that where there's something that's really really held deeply by Maori,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: that there could be allowance for some performance of a
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: cultural activity. And there's no reason why that couldn't happen.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: But it needs to be. It can't be just jumped
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: on the house. You can't reach the surprise.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: The house is the surprise hacker. I think that there
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: was the problem with Sir lockwood Smith, former speaker. Appreciate
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: your time. For more fam Earlily Edition with Ryan Bridge,
• 3:50
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• 3:54
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