Select Committees of the House of Representatives, New Zealand

Abstract

In spite of the undoubted importance of committees of various kinds in the operation of parliamentary government, very little information about them is readily available. This dearth of material is particularly apparent with regard to the select committees of the House of Representatives. Indeed, most writers, while dealing relatively fully with other institutions, dismiss select committees in comparative silence. Yet they are examining what purports to be a democratic parliamentary system. Democracy has been well defined in part as "a way of life....... whose method is discussion, and spirit, toleration;" and nowhere in parliamentary institutions is real discussion more active, nor toleration more apparent than in select committees. For the parliamentary select committee has two great advantages over its brother institutions - secrecy and flexibility. Unlike debates conducted in the whole of the House of Representatives proceedings in a select committee are taken in camera unless the meetings have been specifically opened to the Press and/or to the public by resolution of the House. Under these circumstances a member of a committee will probably talk less than he would do in public in the House but what he says will generally be more to the point, and his decisions may be more often in accordance with the evidence presented rather than with the party platform. But in any case discussion will be more concise and more frank.