I’d love to know how they came up with the recommendation. Presumably it was not based on history but they are trying to set a new precedent with longer suspensions.
I don’t either. Everyone should get to vote. I was reading about the Homosexual law reform the other day and surprised to see some members tried to make Parliament vote early to take advantage of the weather preventing others from attending. That shouldn’t be a thing.
That’s crazy. Absentee votes should be available for MPs. In the case of the suspended MPs they are not allowed to vote, but do you know if we have ways for MPs to vote if they simply couldn’t make it to parliament? With widespread internet access it should be easy to do.
Ah nice find. So the weather is now unlikely to affect who can vote.
This part is perhaps relevant:
20.5.2 Prohibition on interjections during party vote
Interjections during the conduct of a party vote are regarded as particularly serious since there is no debate in progress, so they can have no justification. In particular, members are not permitted to comment as party votes are cast.[39] Indeed, the Speaker has suggested that interjections at this point, as well as promoting confusion, could, if intimidatory, amount to a breach of privilege.[40]
It seems once the debate is over and they are into voting, no one should talk, and doing so is deemed particularly serious. In this case we have two Te Pāti Māori members making a quite disruptive “interjection” just after Act had voted. The part “since there is no debate in progress, so they can have no justification” would apply in this case, even though perhaps there wasn’t an actual party currently voting (as I understand it).
Even though, it doesn’t sit right with me that the government can prevent the opposition from voting for a period of time (and especially not the length of time in this case). Surely removing them from the floor (e.g. through suspension) would achieve any goal of restoring order to parliament, and there would be no reason not to let their party vote on their behalf.
I’d love to know how they came up with the recommendation. Presumably it was not based on history but they are trying to set a new precedent with longer suspensions.
I hope it doesn’t become the new normal going forward, like “under urgency” has.
I think it will. It’s ratified now, it will be considered in future cases.
I don’t really get why we let the government kick out the opposition anyway. At the very least they should still get to vote.
I don’t either. Everyone should get to vote. I was reading about the Homosexual law reform the other day and surprised to see some members tried to make Parliament vote early to take advantage of the weather preventing others from attending. That shouldn’t be a thing.
That’s crazy. Absentee votes should be available for MPs. In the case of the suspended MPs they are not allowed to vote, but do you know if we have ways for MPs to vote if they simply couldn’t make it to parliament? With widespread internet access it should be easy to do.
I think you only need one member of your party there these days and they put in a vote for the whole group (section 20.5).
But suspended people can’t be included.
Ah nice find. So the weather is now unlikely to affect who can vote.
This part is perhaps relevant:
It seems once the debate is over and they are into voting, no one should talk, and doing so is deemed particularly serious. In this case we have two Te Pāti Māori members making a quite disruptive “interjection” just after Act had voted. The part “since there is no debate in progress, so they can have no justification” would apply in this case, even though perhaps there wasn’t an actual party currently voting (as I understand it).
Even though, it doesn’t sit right with me that the government can prevent the opposition from voting for a period of time (and especially not the length of time in this case). Surely removing them from the floor (e.g. through suspension) would achieve any goal of restoring order to parliament, and there would be no reason not to let their party vote on their behalf.
This context makes sense, thanks. I can see that interrupting a vote is more serious than ordinary interjections.
I agree though, preventing people (and their constituencies) from voting for weeks seems really anti-democratic.