Comments on "Elephants and the Law" by Dean Knight: Governments in transition – some constitutional FA...

Chris: Just to be clear. Appointment as Speaker d...

2011-12-01T06:31:29.175+13:00

Chris:

Just to be clear. Appointment as Speaker does not affect the numbers. The Speaker's vote continues to be cast with the party.

yes but ... what if National selects a speaker fr...

2011-12-01T06:28:47.089+13:00

yes but ...
what if National selects a speaker from 'the other side' viz Winston Peters?

... what if Maori Party do not enter the coalition and Key asks either Tariana or Pita to be Speaker?

There is a precedent to this when Labour selected National's Dr Bruce Tapsell as 24th Speaker from 1993-1996.

but .. the previous MOU is bilingual .. and why would they co-leaders want to adopt or to be seen as being different from other MPs with the title you suggested?

They would suffer enormous and unnecessary criticism from everybody and their desire to achieve their objectives would be reminiscent of Babel.

Interesting post though.

Steve Overhang (thankfully) means it won't ar...

2011-11-29T00:14:49.891+13:00

Steve

Overhang (thankfully) means it won't arise. With 121 seats in the House, there cannot be a tie (as you say, the Speaker's vote goes with his or her party).

Dean Here's a scenario, I'm not sure if it...

2011-11-28T16:28:19.767+13:00

Dean
Here's a scenario, I'm not sure if it's fanciful or not but it popped up over at Pundit

The specials are counted. national looses a seat. The Greens gain a seat.
The speaker is a national member. After many huis and much hoo ha the Maoris decide not to go with National. The speaker, at least at the last time I looked , votes as an ordinary member. So that leaves us with a 60 to 60 split......

Steve

Do we take lessons from across the ditch on a hung Parliament or look forward to the most entertaining TV in the past three years with Winston in the lead role !!!

Very interesting post, I especially liked the rugb...

2011-11-25T16:50:09.706+13:00

Very interesting post, I especially liked the rugby analogy (Roosters for life).

Out of interest, do the minor parties give confidence to the Prime Minister, or their party? For instance, if National couldn't form a government and the only way Labour could would be to involve either NZ First or Mana, but neither of them would give confidence to Phil Goff, could Labour be forced to change their leader to form a government? (Sorry that's incredibly poorly worded but I think you get the picture) Or am I just nit picking?

Cheers,
Jared