Scrutiny Week: When 'government comes to Parliament and tries to justify its spending'

Despite Parliament having supremacy, governments often play the boss. This week the tables will turn as ministers face up to backbenchers for Parliament's first Scrutiny Week.

This week Parliament is undertaking 12 concurrent inquiries into government spending plans, in a rejigged post-Budget process being called Scrutiny Week. It is hoped this will improve on recent Parliaments' lacklustre scrutiny of governments.

During Question Time you often see ministers dodge questions from opposition MPs - sometimes batting them away as pesky or irrelevant. Watching this, it would be easy to assume that governments are in charge. Most governments seem to agree, but that's not how New Zealand's constitution works.

Despite appearances, Parliament is the boss, but seldom gets to show its dominance and properly inquire into what its subordinate governments are up to.

The big brother, Parliament House, wraps itself around its minor sibling, the executive qing (aka. the Beehive).

Question Times are often a dead loss for getting answers. Written questions are more effective at gaining information, but the results can be lost in the deluge of tens of thousands of questions.

The best means for drilling deeper into governments' plans, actions and spending is in public select committee inquiries. Select committees review the executive twice a year, but for a long time these inquiries have lacked real teeth.

Getting ministers to turn up, or to devote more than half-an-hour to being questioned has sometimes been an effort. Upon turning up, some ministers have shown skill in wasting time with long introductions, or wandering bloviate answers, leaving little time for real scrutiny of their plans or performance.

Scrutiny week - now with added scrutiny

This year, fingers crossed, that will change. The new rules for Scrutiny Week may actually involve solid scrutiny.

National MP and chair of the Justice Committee James Meager describes Scrutiny Week as "when the government comes to Parliament and tries to justify its spending".

His description accurately describes the power-relationship between the institutions. Spending may be planned by governments, but it only occurs at the allowance of Parliaments.

A new approach

Parliament has new rules and guidelines for scrutiny (from the 2023 Standing Orders Review). Some of the changes and implications are:

Normal sittings of the House are on hold so select committees can devote the whole day and whole Parliamentary week to scrutiny. (Each committee normally only sits one morning per week).

Despite the House not sitting, Scrutiny Week is still a sitting week so all MPs are expected to be at Parliament. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details