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Sunday Star Times
October 5, 2003
Keeping a low profile
While most of our leading parliamentarians are
hard-working there are some who keep their heads down and say little.
Jonathan Milne asks 10 of our most invisible MPs what they do for a living.
Clem Simich is a familiar figure around parliament - courteous, gentlemanly,
shuffling along the corridor with his head down so one is met by his bald
head.
"Good afternoon," he mumbles from under his moustache. He is always
ready to hold the door open for others rushing more hastily than he up and
down the red-carpeted hallways.
That is not all he does - but it would seem almost that way from statistics collated
by the Sunday Star-Times on our MPs' performances.
Simich is one of a number of MPs who rarely appear in the national media,
rarely seek any attention, stay quiet in the debating chamber and seem
content to let the public forget they exist.
This year, Simich has not stood up in parliament to ask a question, has not
filed a written question with a minister about a constituent's concerns, has
issued no media statements and has rarely been approached by journalists.
And that's how he likes it.
In the years since replacing Rob Muldoon as member for Tamaki in a 1992
by-election, he has served as police minister and has in latter years emerged
as a well-liked elder statesman of the House of Representatives.
That status saw the National MP appointed last year as an assistant speaker,
taking a turn in Jonathan Hunt's chair when neither Hunt, Anne Hartley, nor
Ross Robertson are available.
Suffice to say, nobody in National has expressed to this paper dismay at the
loss of Clem Rudolph Simich's political clout in the debating chamber. He was
never a hard- hitter.
In the past, the public was able to judge which MPs were too lazy to
represent them in the debating chamber, with the Office of the Clerk keeping
records on how often MPs actually turned up. No longer.
After the Alamein Kopu embarrassment, when it emerged that the Alliance MP
had attended only 16 of parliament's first 47 sitting days, the office handed
over the record-keeping responsibility to individual parties. Unsurprisingly,
most parties see little benefit in keeping such potentially damaging data.
However, the Star-Times has collated data on how many primary oral questions,
supplementary questions and written questions have been asked this year by
each MP, excluding ministers. The paper has also analysed the number of press
releases each has issued, and the number of times each name has figured in New Zealand's
main newspapers.
The 10 MPs who show least evidence of sweating for their pay have different
excuses: Maurice Williamson and Donna Awatere Huata are not allowed to ask
questions or speak in parliament after their parties suspended them. Most of
the new NZ First MPs are kept on a tight leash by leader Winston Peters, who
has first dibs on questions and speeches in parliament. Others say they are
still learning the ropes, or are busy with their electorates.
Don Brash is a new MP who has worked hard, made an impact, and is already
reading about his National Party leadership aspirations on the front page of
the morning papers.
While loath to name names, he agrees that some of the NZ First backbenchers
are making little public impact.
"I suspect that if you are a list MP in a small party with a relatively
undemanding policy responsibility, you may be able to just work nine to five.
"In some cases there is clearly work going on behind the scenes, in some
cases there clearly is not."
Brash says he worked hard as governor of the Reserve Bank - but as an MP the
hours are longer, there are more nights away from his family, and he counts
himself very lucky if he gets an hour or two off on Sunday.
"I don't know if that's just because I'm a new chum, learning the ropes
... I think it's probably quite a culture shock for some. It was less so for
me, because I've been round the Wellington
scene for 14 years."
Prime Minister Helen Clark is another notorious workaholic, leaving
journalists panting to keep up as she rushes from meeting to function to
engagement from dawn until late at night.
Simich says it's not so easy being low-profile though.
He has to spend six to eight hours a week in the chair of the debating
chamber, responsible for rulings such as deciding that Judith Tizard was
allowed to knit in the house, but not while in the minister's chair.
Though he is National's spokesman on the office of the attorney-general, he
says his role as assistant speaker prevents his entering into any
controversy. Controversial issues in Simich's portfolio, such as replacing
the Privy Council with a Supreme Court, have been handled by other MPs.
He is somewhat of an enigma: last year one paper named him as a plotter
backing a Gerry Brownlee leadership coup; this year another named him as
firmly backing English, and a few days later a third paper named him as a
member of the "soft" English camp. For the record, he is not saying
where his allegiances lie.
As police minister he supported decriminalising marijuana, he supports
getting rid of the nuclear-powered ships ban, he signed the Peter Ellis
petition, and he was one of only six National MPs to vote for prostitution
law reform this year. He holds electorate clinics most Mondays and Fridays,
depending on demand: he will listen to lobbyists' demands, try to address
tenants' concerns with state housing or immigrants' difficulties getting permanent
residence.
"List MPs have it on a plate," he says. "Their sole purpose is
to get into power, and the only way to do it is to campaign non-stop. They
don't service any people in electorates unless that person can give them
coverage.
"The ones that have no seats at all like Act, the Greens, and pretty
much Peter Dunne's party and Winston's - free as a bird. They don't have any
of that work to do and they don't do it."
And so today, Clem Simich will change out of the "jeans and tatty
jacket" he wears around his electorate, and put on his dark suit for a
six-hour meeting with the Indian community, where he will sit quietly and
listen. "I don't hanker after a profile, unless it does the party good.
And nothing would have done the party any good in the past three years, but
we have been working very hard to put things together."
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