Beyond Westminster? 2024 Edition Hineraumati

07/10/2024

Since 2000, I have been testing a hypothesis that our traditional Westminster-derived model is under strain. My instincts are that we are beyond Westminster. To evaluate that hypothesis, I use the framework in Rhodes, Wanna and Weller’s Comparing Westminster (2009), from which I take five elements: parliamentary sovereignty, an opposition recognised as an executive-in-waiting, collective and responsible cabinet government, ministerial responsibility to Parliament, and a non-partisan constitutional bureaucracy.

Each year, as annual reports are tabled and officials appear before Select Committee, I systematically assess progress against each of these elements. My assessment draws on multiple sources: analysis of annual reports presented at select committees, Office of the Auditor General reports, discussions with colleagues in governance and public administration, and the progress of any commissions of inquiry. The approach is subjective, but it provides a structured way to observe system performance over time.

The Five-Year Picture

Looking back across the period from 2020 to 2024, certain patterns emerge with uncomfortable clarity.

Parliamentary sovereignty, the unity of the executive and the legislature, has consistently maintained strong performance throughout. This should not surprise us. The executive is drawn from the legislature; the fundamental relationship between these branches remains robust even through changes in government. The machinery continues to function.

The opposition’s effectiveness as a recognised executive-in-waiting has fluctuated more dramatically. This too follows a familiar rhythm: outgoing governments typically endure difficult years in opposition until they can demonstrate readiness to take the Treasury benches. What stands out in 2024 is that Labour appears to have found its footing earlier than the usual pattern would suggest. Whether political parties can reduce this volatility remains an open question, and the same volatility shows up in cabinet.

The concentration of political power in a collective and responsible cabinet presents a more troubling trajectory. Strong performance in 2020 gave way to uncertainty, then challenge, then apparent recovery in 2023, only to return to strain in 2024. The proximate cause this year is the confusion surrounding the Treaty Principles Bill: the peculiar spectacle of collective state resources being marshalled behind legislation that Cabinet itself does not believe in and will not support through the House. This is not how collective responsibility is supposed to work.

Ministerial accountability to Parliament has remained persistently problematic across all five years, regardless of which party holds power. This consistency tells us something important. We are observing systemic issues rather than party-specific failures. The accountability mechanisms themselves appear to be under structural strain.

Most concerning is the trajectory of constitutional bureaucracy and public service independence. From a position of relative health in 2020, this element has deteriorated steadily, reaching and maintaining critical status in 2023 and 2024. The appointment of three central agency chief executives provided some modest grounds for optimism this year: I have rated the element slightly less red than in 2023, but the underlying pressures on an independent, non-partisan public service show no signs of abating.

2024 in Detail

Parliamentary Sovereignty remains effective. The legislative programme has been implemented smoothly, albeit with heavy use of urgency. Coalition management processes in the House have functioned adequately. The parliamentary majority has been maintained. What gives me pause is the lumpiness of navigation: a focus on siloed portfolio work rather than the cross-cutting issues that increasingly define modern governance, and leaning heavily on a single select committee to carry complex legislative loads. The machinery works, but it creaks.

The Opposition has improved markedly. Question time performances have sharpened. Alternative policy proposals are beginning to emerge with greater coherence. Select committee participation operates as a coordinated block rather than a collection of individual efforts. The shadow cabinet presents a more professional operation, with a more substantial media presence and public engagement than we saw in 2023. The trajectory is encouraging.

Cabinet Cohesion is where the strain shows most visibly. Coalition dynamics are affecting collective responsibility in ways that the traditional Westminster model struggles to accommodate. Complex power-sharing arrangements have produced multiple centres of authority. Coalition partner disagreements play out publicly in ways that previous governments, even MMP coalition governments, managed to contain.

Ministerial Accountability continues to disappoint. Responses to parliamentary questions arrive incomplete or slow. Performance information reported to Parliament raises significant quality concerns. Accountability relationships have grown complex in ways that obscure rather than clarify responsibility. Delegation chains multiply without corresponding clarity about where the buck stops. And we have seen ministers deploy personal narratives, stories of their own backgrounds and intentions, as substitutes for the substantive accounting that ministerial responsibility demands. That is a performance rather than an account.

The Constitutional Bureaucracy remains in critical condition. The increased use of politically sensitive appointments continues. Public service turnover has not stabilised. Policy capability has diminished in ways that affect the quality of advice reaching ministers. Strategic capacity raises serious questions.

The Wider Picture

Beneath the immediate assessment lies a set of structural pressures that continue to reshape our governance landscape. The ongoing adaptation to MMP, now decades old but still evolving, requires constant refinement of political processes that were designed for a different electoral system. International obligations increasingly constrain domestic policy choices in ways that sit uneasily with traditional conceptions of parliamentary sovereignty. Governance arrangements grow more complex with each iteration of coalition government. The public sector finds itself caught between traditional Westminster principles and modern governance requirements, without clear guidance about how to navigate the tension.

The path ahead requires careful navigation between keeping the essential strengths of our Westminster heritage and adapting to contemporary governance needs. The protections for public service independence need strengthening, ministerial accountability mechanisms need improving, coalition coordination needs tightening, and policy capability needs rebuilding. These improvements are becoming urgent.

The challenge lies not only in identifying these needs, as this assessment attempts to do, but in finding the political will and public service capability to address them effectively.

A Question for Raumati

There is an additional challenge I will address in next year’s post: is it time to integrate Te Tiriti o Waitangi formally into this assessment framework? The more I sit with the five elements, the more I suspect they may be measuring our performance against a constitutional model that was never quite ours to begin with. I will make that argument next year. I welcome your thoughts.

Nau mai haere mai Hine Raumati. He iti tangata e tupu, he iti toki e iti tonu.