Economist Brian Easton with some sage words for the newbies entering the hallowed halls of Parliament

This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.

Being an MP is not quite what you think.

Hello Mr Orange Man, I’ve really depended on you during the election over the last few weeks. Thank you for helping me to get elected to parliament. So what are you doing here, meeting me in parliament, now I have made it?

My job is to keep you all in touch with reality and to keep you all honest. It does not stop on election day.

But now I am in the reality of parliament.

You think so?

I’ve been to the new members' induction course. They have fixed up my salary and my office, and I am to get an executive assistant and expenses. That is real enough.

Is that what being an MP is about?

Of course not. Whether you are in the government or opposition caucuses, it is to make New Zealand a better place.

You think so?

What is it then?

I think you will find you will spend more time supporting your party leadership.

Mr Orange Man! I will have you know that I am an independent representative of my electorate.

So you got elected without any help from your party leadership, not even funding? Perhaps the performance of your party leader had no effect on your success?

I suppose so. But now that I am here I’ll get things done for the good of my constituents and the country. I am not here because I was on the party list.

Does it matter to you where you will be on the list at the next election?

If I do sufficiently well in parliament, I will be high enough on the party list to survive a swing in the next election.

And how will you do sufficiently well in parliament, as far as your party is concerned?

They will find me a thoughtful diligent constructive contributor in caucus.

Will that be enough to get you the junkets and other privileges – like favourable speaking slots – which they give to approved backbenchers? Your parliamentary managers are not called ‘whips’ for nothing.

You mean they don't just want me to help develop our policies?

They will want your public support for what they are doing, even if you disagree with it.

I cannot be expert on everything, so I guess I will follow the leadership decisions on other matters.

So to support your party’s position, you will make speeches about parliamentary bills you don't understand. You will sit in select committees listening to informed evidence offering thoughtful constructive insights and be unable to do anything about them because the party is not interested?

Really?

Even when it weakens your role as an MP?

Certainly not.

The last parliament agreed to a Public Service Act, which reduced the power of MPs over the control of public expenditure. Parliamentary financial control of the executive has been central to a democracy.

Impossible!

That’s what happened. And what is going to happen on matters where you are expert or have strong commitments, and you lose the arguments in caucus?

That wont happen.

Really? Sometimes – some would say ‘often’ – forces outside, such as the public service, powerful lobbies or just plain expediency will overturn your logic.

I suppose I will have to follow the party line in public.

Even at the cost of your principles and values?

Of course not. They are sacrosanct.

What if they come into conflict. Politics is about tradeoffs?

I wont trade off my highest ones.

There are a number of MPs whose highest principle has seemed to have been self-preservation.

Oh dear.

So you will have to make compromises. Otherwise you would be demoted on the party list in the next election, and find less support for your campaign?

I suppose so. I suppose that is the price of influencing the party leadership.

From the backbench?

If I do well, I will end up on the front bench, where I will have greater influence.

Of course you will have even greater influence if you end up in the inner circle of the leadership.

The kitchen cabinet?

That generally consists of people who have not been elected.

And they have even more influence?

Not usually as much as the public servants.

What do you mean?

Typically the bureaucrats set the policy frameworks which limit the choices politicians make – even opposition politicians.

What about the kitchen cabinet?

They work within those policy frameworks.

And so do backbenchers?

Successful ones.

You mean that despite my campaigning on transforming New Zealand, redirecting policy towards a caring society and accelerating change, we backbenchers wont have much effect?

That is the record of most MPs. There have been a very few who have succeeded outside the party.

For instance?

Perhaps the most effective to disrupt the policy framework was Mike Minogue, a Hamilton MP. He supported the introduction of an Official Information Act as recommended by the Committee on Official Information (the Danks Committee) in 1980.

But is not the OIA integral to modern democratic government?

It wasn’t then. Officials opposed it because it reduced their powers by disclosing how they worked. Prime Minister Muldoon adamantly opposed it. Minogue threatened to cross the floor and vote for the other side if an OIA act was not passed; Muldoon had a wafer thin majority and succumbed. It was passed in 1982.

So we should honour Mike Minogue?

We do not. He was never a cabinet minister and lost his seat at the next election (to the current Speaker of Parliament, actually). It is not easy for MPs to stand for their principles. That is why they are referred to as ‘cannon fodder’ and ‘whiMPs’.

What have I got myself into?

You are about to find out.

Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was the Listener economic columnist from 1978 to 2014. This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.