Lies, damn lies and parliamentary debate

Analysis - In New Zealand's Parliament, both lying and accusing others of lying have long been forbidden. A new ruling appears to have undercut that. We outline Parliament's traditional approach, this week's new interpretation of the rules, and the almost immediate changes to debating behaviour that resulted.

The problem of facts in politics

Productive political debate is difficult, if not impossible, without some agreed truth. In recent years, that consensus over what constitutes reality has frayed internationally, and in many places has arguably been severed entirely.

This is not new. To varying extents, there have always been politically differing ideas of truth. For example, scholars believe that the conflicting versions of the biblical creation stories in Genesis are the tellings of groups with slightly differing philosophical and political objectives.

In the West though, the extent of deterioration of a shared reality is unusual in recent history, and has worsened markedly over the last decade or so.

A marker of this decay (in my experience), dates back to the immediate aftermath of, I think, a 2012 US presidential debate, when in a post-debate media "spin-room" the former Republican contender Newt Gingrich rebutted a journalist's question with "I see your fact and I raise you my belief".

At the time I watched slack-jawed, but such an insolent disregarding of reality as being irrelevant is now neither unusual nor shocking.

New Zealand is not as affected by this political disease as many places, but the international slide towards defending alternative realities affects everyone. It would be surprising if it had not had an impact on how New Zealand politicians think and argue. It may even have influenced a recent shift in the rules.

Parliament rules: Truth and lies

This is the second story from The House in two weeks on Parliament's rules and small rulings about those rules by the Speaker. It might appear to be an overabundance of inconsequential Parliament geekery. But Parliament's rules and how they are interpreted can have a significant impact.

Small shifts in interpretation can alter the tenor of debate and how MPs treat each other. It could be argued that this, in turn, impacts their and our behaviour externally. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. MPs are highly tuned to these small changes and adjust quickly.

Parliament has rules about telling lies. It also has decades of collected interpretation of those rules, as various Speakers have fought the good fight against disorder.

Broadly, the rules say mistakes are understandable but should be corrected as soon as possible. Differences of opinion or interpretation are matters for debate. But intentional lies are one of Parliament's biggest no-no's, described as "misleading the House". Doing so without self-correction is considered a contempt, and (if a formal complaint is accepted by the Speaker), may be dealt with by the Privileges Committee.

Lies are taken seriously because debate is pointless if MPs make things up. This is especially true of government ministers, who are responsible to Parliament. Parliament's oversight of government relies on MPs abiding by a slightly archaic honour code built on gentlemanly conduct: truth, honesty, decency and so on.

While lying is disallowed, so is claiming another MP is lying, even by implication. That would question their honour. Pistols at dawn and all that. Any such claims have to be made formally, not in debate.

All that background became relevant on Tuesday, when Winston Peters complained about Chris Hipkins' description of tobacco tax changes. The complaint led to a to-and-fro:

Winston Peters: "Point of order, Mr Speaker. We have sat here for month after month after month while those members have repeated that lie in this House. I am seeking to correct it…"

Chris Hipkins: "Point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week you ejected a member and named them for saying that they were struggling to find members with a backbone. How is accusing other members of repeatedly lying in the House any different?"

Gerry Brownlee: "Well, it is quite different in my head. One was directed very personally at members of Parliament. The other was a question about repeating a lie. Now, if you're taking a point of order on that, then… the member knows that there is a remedy by way of the Standing Orders to have that corrected. [i.e. making a written complaint]..."

Chris Hipkins: "Point of order, Mr Speaker. It has never been the case that where a member has called another member or group of members liars that they have to raise a privilege complaint to have the Speaker do something about."

Gerry Brownlee: "No, no. Sorry. You're pushing it too far. To suggest that there is something out there that is a lie and is being repeated is not an allegation against any individual member or group of members."

A change of tack

Because of the previously mentioned honour code, usually, any use of the word "lie" is dynamite in the House. Using it has long been asking for trouble, usually a demand from the Speaker to withdraw and apologise. Brownlee's ruling may have surprised MPs. It is definitely contrary to the norm, for example Speaker's Ruling 48/3 says:

"The offence of calling another member a liar, or implying that another member of the House is a liar, is an offence against the House not an offence against the other person; it is an offence against the dignity of the House and the assumption that its members behave truthfully and honourably. For the Chair to allow that accusation to go unchecked would not be an injustice to the member accused but an injustice to the whole House."

Among the Speakers' Rulings on 'allegations of misleading' and dealing with offensive claims of improper conduct (pages 47-49), are rulings banning euphemisms for lie or liar; and (despite the Speaker's ruling on Tuesday), noting that it is just as bad to apply an offensive term to members of a party, or a government, as to an individual (55/1).

The change in behaviour was very fast. Just a few minutes later, Leader of the Opposition, Chris Hipkins tested the Speaker's new interpretation by interjecting "nah, it's just a lie", when Winston Peters was talking about the iReX ferry project. It led to another short interchange with the Speaker, and in response, Winston Peters put in his own two cents worth, illustrating another reason why accusations of inaccuracy are not encouraged.

"I am happy to refute that allegation that what I'm questioning is based on a lie, because we can itemise-with particularity, to the last cent-the $471 million they spent before we even got the job."

Trying to decide the truth on the fly is impractical unless someone were to fund a vast team of fact checkers to adjudicate.

That brings us to where this led. A new allowance for claims of mendacity. I can't tell whether or not it's a good thing. It's possible it will become a rhetorical arms-race of claim and counter-claim, muddying the waters of reality ever further.

Playing to the ref

In sport they say 'play to the ref', so on Wednesday, having digested the Speaker's new approach to such accusations, Labour's Shadow Leader of the House Kieran McAnulty stood to speak in the General Debate - a debate over which the Speaker typically presides. McAnulty led in gently, with euphemism.

"They think that they can say that 'black is white' and people will believe them. They think that they can say that they 'are going to make things better', when actually, what have they done? They've made it worse. They think they can claim to have built 7000 houses. That's what Christopher Luxon said in the House on numerous occasions-in the House, where you are bound by truth. How many have they built? Forty-five."

But that was just the pre-game warm-up. Remember that under the traditional interpretation of the rules, presenting evidence doesn't matter - you still can't claim a lie. Neither by an individual MP or a group. McAnulty continued:

"Now, there's one thing that New Zealanders hate, and that is a lie. If you were to extend that further, there's only one thing worse, and that is a repeated lie. And there have been repeated lies after repeated lies after repeated lies.

"What is interesting is that they think New Zealanders are thick, that they can stand there and tell them that the last Government wasted money over Covid… They think New Zealanders are so dumb that they won't remember: at the time, they voted for it. They supported it. In fact, I have a quote here from Paul Goldsmith: 'We obviously back this and how this money is spent. We support the Government. We encourage them to go further.' That's what they said."

Speeches in the General Debate are generally given more leeway, but even so, that was unusual. I wouldn't be surprised if McAnulty had a few arguments up his sleeve, expecting to be interrupted from the chair, or told to sit down. He was not.

A couple of speeches later his colleague Ginny Andersen spoke. Her topic was the same - National support for even more Covid spending - but she avoided the dreaded L word. Possibly her speech was a less aggressive backup, in case McAnulty's speech had been cut short. Andersen tested out a variety of euphemisms, which are also often disallowed. It almost felt like a focus group of one - just for the Speaker - to see what could now be gotten away with.

She successfully tested "selective memory", the idea that "for National, history is something to be rewritten", "political amnesia" and "hypocrisy". All of them were allowed. Claims of hypocrisy have been disallowed previously, even when aimed against unnamed members of the public.

These General Debate speeches were akin to a sportsperson testing the very limits of the rules to feel how far they could go. Of course, where that line is can change markedly depending on who is the ref, which is why 'play to the ref' is a common tactic in the first place.

I suspect that, over time, as Parliament's own referees settle into the role and possibly feel a little annoyance and frustration at one thing or another, each Speaker begins to imprint their own ideas on the role, and the institution. Usually only a little, in different ways from each other, and probably for many different reasons. The ways they do that are usually unpredictable, but they are always interesting, and they can have unexpected flow-ons which might be good, or not. It can take time to tell.

* RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcasts at RNZ.

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