[fvc-wat-disc] List Members Jobs

Thu Sep 6 14:45:59 EDT 2007

Hey Everyone,
Just thought you might like to see what a list MPP might do under a Ontario MMP
system. This is a description of what a New Zealand MP does, same job just a
different name. Its rather long, but this information will help you answer the
publics' question about what a list member will do.  
Marcia Soeda 

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand  	Electoral Reform | Parliament and Politics
| All Other documents

Rod Donald MP
The Role of a List MP

Rod Donald MP, Green Party Co-Leader

1st January 1998

I would like to explain what I do as a list MP because some people wonder what we
do. One of our first tasks after the election was to organize ourselves to most
effectively represent the people who voted for us. We did this in two ways -
through geographic constituencies and nationwide communities of interest.
Firstly, we allocated all 65 electorates amongst our 13 MPs. In addition to this
seat, I was quick to request Kaikoura, Nelson and West Coast-Tasman.

It is interesting to note that in my four seats 19,246 people cast their party
vote for the Alliance. The Alliance vote in Banks Peninsula was the third highest
in the country, with all four of my electorates ranked in our first 15. When
compared to our nationwide party vote Alliance voters in my electorates are
entitled to 1.1 Alliance MPs. I do my best to meet their expectations!

Once we had sorted out the areas I was to be responsible for, I set about
establishing my electorate bases. Fortunately before the election the
Parliamentary Services Commission had recognized that list MPs would be likely to
have responsibilities for geographic constituencies. After all, what we now do
only formalises the buddy MP system that used to operate under
First-past-the-post. Therefore each List MP was allocated an "out-of-Parliament"
budget of $34,000 per year plus a full time secretary.

While constituency MPs, such as David Carter in Banks Peninsula, receive $55,000
plus two full time secretaries I have to stretch my resources to provide a
reasonable level of representation in four electorates. I have three offices, my
main one in Banks Peninsula and smaller ones staffed by volunteers in Nelson and
Greymouth. My Banks Peninsula secretary works 25 hours per week, with the balance
of the full time salary split three ways to enable me to employ electorate agents
one day a week in the other electorates. In addition I have made a personal
commitment to spend a minimum of one day a month in each of the "away from home"
electorates - a commitment I have so far managed to keep.

Quite clearly I'm not in the business of competing with David Carter, Doug Kidd
in Kaikoura, Nick Smith in Nelson or Damien O'Connor in West Coast-Tasman. They
are full time constituency MPs. However three of these seats are amongst the
largest ones in the country. The increase in the size of all electorates has
clearly increased the workload for constituency MPs. Therefore I hope they have
got used to me offering a service, not only to those people who voted for the
Alliance, but also anyone else who seeks my advice, assistance, advocacy or
representation.

I firmly believe that voters deserve the choice of someone from the party they
voted for to look after their interests. One benefit of our new electoral system
is that this choice is being delivered in a formal, and upfront way. In other
words, while I am not a constituency MP I still handle a wide range of cases
covering problems with government agencies such as ACC, Income Support, Inland
Revenue, Housing New Zealand, Children and Young Persons Service, the hospital
system, the Employment Service and many more. I have learned  a lot in the last
year, and I know I have more to learn about how to best help people deal with
their concerns.

Just like a constituency MP I get invited to the local fairs. Last summer I was
on the dunking stool at several of them, much to the delight of the wet sponge
throwers. I am invited to speak at local meetings on cellphone towers and
superannuation. I was asked for my vision for the Marlborough province, and
invited to join consultations on health and other issues, as well as briefings by
local authorities and support agencies. I'm even make a fool of myself by
participating in fund raising debates.

Secondly, I represent a number of nationwide constituencies. This comes about
through our allocation of portfolios - something which every party does. In my
case I have been appointed the Alliance spokesperson on employment, skills
training, overseas trade, tourism, electoral and parliamentary reform.

Like all MPs with portfolio responsibilities I try to keep up with current
issues, and to liaise with all the sector groups concerned with each portfolio.
It is not an easy task covering so many bases.

In practice I have concentrated on the employment portfolio because tackling
unemployment and creating real jobs is crucial to our future as a nation. I have
yet to convince the government that it should be reducing the level of
unemployment rather than planning to increase it.

To learn more about my portfolios I have made a point of visiting most New
Zealand Employment Service offices in the electorates I look after as well as
many Work Trusts and local employment initiatives. I have met regional tourism
organisations in my electorates and have recently begun establishing a
relationship with primary product export groups. I already had good contacts in
the alternative trade movement, having been the Coordinator of Trade Aid for six
years before coming to Parliament, and with groups concerned about the negative
social and environmental consequences of "free" trade and globalisation. In the
skills training area I am learning more about the role of Polytechnics and
industrial training organizations. I am already up to speed in the electoral
reform area.

In Parliament itself there is little to distinguish constituency and list MPs. We
all have offices. We are all expected to work in them. Most of us appear in the
parliamentary debating chamber most days, even if only for question time (from 2
to 3 pm). Every MP is also on at least one select committee. In my case I am our
representative on the Electoral Law Select Committee. I also attend the Commerce
Committee for tourism matters, the Social Services Select Committee for
employment matters, and the Foreign Affairs and Trade Select Committee for
overseas trade matters.

The Electoral Law Committee is conducting a review of the last election.
Previously we dealt with the legislation for the forthcoming referendum on
compulsory superannuation, and we are about to look at legislation to allow a
type of proportional representation for local body elections called STV (Single
Transferable Vote). On the other committees we have conducted inquiries into the
last two year's expenditure, and have scrutinized this year's budget estimates.

In addition to delivering my Maiden Speech I have spoken in Parliament on a
number of occasions: several times on the Super referendum legislation, a couple
of times on the STV legislation, on electoral reform issues, including the Cullen
Bill and our opposition to political party representatives on the Representation
Commission, twice in the general debate (the first time in opposition to what had
been a secret treaty called the Multilateral Agreement on Investments or MAI
which this government wants to sign up to without proper debate and consideration
in Parliament and on the second occasion against modifications to the Community
Task Force scheme which turn it into virtually a slave labour programme).

I have introduced my first (Private) Member's bill which would have abolished the
Intelligence and Security statutory Committee and restored to Parliament scrutiny
of intelligence and security agencies. This bill was heavily defeated, with all
other parties, including Labour, voting against it, despite the fact that there
is little accountability for the $30 million these agencies cost us.

In the Budget debate I delivered a speech attacking the Government's employment
policies and its callous disregard for how important the productive sector is to
the health of our economy and society. I followed this up in the debate on the
employment estimates where I challenged the cruelty of the government's
employment policy and called for common sense solutions to revitalize the
economy. I have also asked several Parliamentary questions and numerous
supplementaries, mostly on employment, but also on trade and tourism matters.

Last but not least I spoke out against the State Sector Amendment bill. In fact I
am the very person who caused the proceedings of Parliament to be delayed for 25
minutes while other MPs argued over whether I could hold a green balloon or not.
While I was embarrassed at the time I make no apology for the action I took.
Government MPs were quick to dismiss our behavior but they failed to admit the
context in which it occurred.

It was not surprising that opposition MPs resorted to delaying tactics to
highlight the viciousness of the State Sector Amendment Bill. It was the only
avenue left to express our frustration. Here we were faced with a government
which had introduced a Bill under urgency to remove Kindergartens from the
Education Service. The Coalition government rode roughshod over the democratic
process to push this Bill through all it clauses in 24 hours.

None of the normal parliamentary conventions were followed; there was no 3-day
notice of a Second Reading debate to enable opposition MPs to prepare their
arguments against the Bill, the Government refused to allow the Bill to be
referred to a Select Committee so that those groups most affected by the Bill
could make submission on it and there was no time for the community to lobby
their local MP on the Bill. While it is not surprising that the Government took
the high moral ground on behaviour in the House they should reflect upon their
own behavior which, I believe, was to the denigration of Parliament.

While no-one in their right mind would want to spend more time in the debating
chamber that they need to, we are still obliged to be on site within the
parliamentary complex when parliament is sitting unless we have leave from our
Party coordinator or "whip". This means a minimum presence from 2 to 6 pm on
Tuesdays, 2 to 10pm on Wednesdays, and 10 am to 6 pm on Thursdays, plus, of
course, select committees which usually meet outside those hours and any other
meetings you need to attend, such as the South Island MPs or your own party
Caucus and Caucus sub-committees. Leave is restricted to one-quarter of each
party's MPs at any one time.

When I am not in meetings I am usually in my parliamentary office tackling the
ever present stream of correspondence and reading. You would not believe the
number of letters MPs receive, in many cases from industry lobby or pressure
groups of one sort or another, which demand our attention. Without dismissing
their causes there are also many genuine people who write seeking assistance or
information. Some even take the trouble to tell you that you are doing a good
job, while other are quick to criticize, not always without justification! All
these warrant a reply and many require additional representation to a Ministers
or Government Departments.

Parliament is not the only place to raise and promote issues of concern. High on
my agenda earlier in the year was the unsustainable logging of the Charleston
forests by Timberlands. I have also taken an active role in fighting to retain
the South Island's power differential, I support moves to clean up Christchurch's
air pollution, I am promoting domestic tourism as an alternative to more New
Zealanders traveling overseas, and have begun campaigning for better cycle
facilities for cycle tourists and commuters.

In August I undertook a "Vote No" Superannuation Roadshow, speaking at meetings
and running stalls to get the message through that NZ Super is fair and
affordable and that Winston's folly is expensive, risky and unfair. Last year
might also have seen my promotion of possum fur in the form of a tie and a seat
cover for my chair in the debating chamber. This campaign is designed to
highlight both the need to get rid of this pest and the employment potential
which could be achieved by the hunting and processing possums and marketing the
products as "eco fur".

On top of all this is the work you do for your party. In the case of the Alliance
there is a degree of duplication as we each belong to one of the sovereign
parties which make up the Alliance as well as to the Alliance itself. In the
main, this means meetings and more meetings, but your party role involves fund
raising and other duties. However I tend to regard party work as my "voluntary"
contribution to politics. Since the Green Party left the Alliance this has
inevitably become more complicated.

I hope you now have a clearer picture of the role of a list MP and the part we
play in endeavoring to make New Zealand's first MMP parliament a success.

Rod Donald is the Alliance Spokesperson on Electoral Reform and Green Party
Co-Leader. The views expressed are his own.

On Sun Sep  2 19:08 , <marcia.soeda at ontariocitizensassembly.ca> sent:

>Hello Everyone,
>Maybe you know this already, but CTV News is having a portion of the news at 6pm
>talking about the Referendum. It will be aired on Tues. Sept. 4. I think this
>will start a spark of great interest.
>Marcia 
>
>On Wed Aug 29 18:20 , Adam Glauser adamglauser at wlualumni.ca> sent:
>
>>On Sunday 26 August 2007 18:47:50 Paul Nijjar wrote:
>>
>>>  	I put together a new poster advertising the September information
>>
>>> nights. Tell me what you think:
>>
>>
>>
>>I like the look of the poster.  It just occurred to me that the member of the 
>>
>>OCA from New Hamburg (Bill Ritz) owns is a professional printer and might be 
>>
>>willing to cut us some deals.  Maybe it wouldn't be necessary for this poster 
>>
>>in particular, but if we need to get any professional printing I can at least 
>>
>>sound him out.
>>
>
>
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