Professor Robert MacCulluch: Has the New Zealand Parliament and our MPs become Irrelevant to our Future?

Here are six reasons why our present National-ACT-NZ First government, although voted in by a majority of the Kiwis, has become irrelevant to the plans of the left:

1. Monetary Policy is set independently by the Reserve Bank. But increasingly, the RBNZ has re-interpreted its own mandate to allow it to venture into other areas, like environmental policy, all done regardless of what our Members of Parliament think. The way the Governor talks to the MPs at the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee, it appears he has little respect for them and their understanding of what he does.

2. The Courts increasingly don't give a fig about Parliament and have begun to consider themselves the paramount chiefs of law-making in the country. However, many of our judges are highly partisan, yet won't admit it, pretending they are unbiased arbitrators. If you believe that, you will believe anything.

3. The Mainstream Media, our Fourth Estate, has for many years now regarded parties like National, ACT and NZ First, as hostile to its interests and agenda. Our Mainstream Media has been waging a quiet coup on our present government ever since it was elected. It does not regard the new coalition as being NZ's legitimate government.

4. Our universities regard the new government as hostile to their agenda. Because it is. The reason is that universities have become agents of political change, and are presently altering their course prescriptions to indoctrinate, rather than teach the different sides to every issue, which is their job. Former Labour Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, has more power than ever as Vice Chancellor of Otago University to push his own personal political agenda than he ever had in Parliament. He's the boss of Otago, whereas in Parliament he had to get the support of his colleagues & the House to pass laws.

5. The announcement by Te Pāti Māori to set up a rival Parliament was symbolic. Many of its supporters don't respect our existing one. At some level, our MPs are to blame. NZ is too centralized. Most decision-making goes through Wellington, a city in decline as folks leave, its streets become empty, its water supply leaks, its ferries run aground, its house prices fall, and its roads get clogged as it can't afford to build new tunnels. In nations like Switzerland, most decision-making is done at Canton level - they have different tax rates, varying from 22% to 45%. Competition is good, even for government institutions. It's not just Māori suffering from Wellington's centralization of power - it's all of us.

6. Our Members of Parliament are of declining ability & competency. MMP maybe to blame. You can get into parliament now without ever having won a seat and stood before the public to make your case. The people may not even like you. Your only talent can be to grease up the party hierarchy. Having worked in the office of an MP so you get to know everyone, then you can network your way onto the list. Ironically, our MMP was copied from Germany which at the time was the leading industrial nation in the world, after the US. Now Germany is in an awful state of economic and social decline. We copied a lemon.

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.