Reserve powers in action!
The Governor-General appointed a new government today. By doing so he used one of his "reserve powers" - the ability to appoint the Prime Minister and Cabinet (technically the Executive Council) without anyone "advising" him to do so. All on his own, he re-appointed Prime Minister John Key. In the smoke and mirrors world of "our" constitutional monarchy, the fact that we had an election - where we all had a say last month - doesn't feature.
We all know though that the reality is that we did in fact have an election last month, which saw the incumbent National Party re-elected for a second term. National's leader, John Key, put together a series of confidence and supply agreements with Act, United Future and the Maori Party, giving his government a majority. He allocated ministerial portfolios and set the agenda for the next three years.
The Governor-General's re-appointment of the Prime Minister is a nicety. It has no practical value other than to remind us that under the constitutional monarchy, power comes from a monarch. It's as if that election we had was just to arrange the seats in the Governor-General's debating club.
Instead of putting up with this farce, we should institute a system of votes of confidence, as the late Rod Donald proposed. Governments would be made (and unmade) on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Head of State's role would be simply to convene parliament within the set time frame (which could easily be reduced).
Parliament would do the rest, by electing the leader of the largest grouping in parliament as Prime Minister. Sure, it would lead to the same outcomes. But it would emphasise that it is the will of we the people, not the Queen or Governor-General, on who the Prime Minister depends to keep his job.
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