Representatives from Parliaments that are centuries old and just decades old are in New Zealand to share tricks of the trade.
Delegates from the UK and Pacific Parliaments attended workshops run by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association - a group which promotes and supports Parliamentarians.
Pacific flags fly outside New Zealand's Parliament House Photo: RNZI/ Koroi Hawkins
The Pacific Islands Parliamentary workshop included sessions on topics like the evolution of the Westminster system in the Pacific and how to be a clerk.
“We have so much to learn from New Zealand,” said Clerk of Bougainville House of Representatives Ruby Garnean.
“It’s been a milestone for us in Bougainville in a sense of developing standing orders and our practice has gradually become inline with the standards.”
Clerk of Bougainville House of Representatives Ruby Garnean. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Standing orders are rules for how a Parliament is run and New Zealand helped Bougainville’s Parliament develop its standing orders as well as broker a peace agreement for the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
“At the start we had help from New Zealand and Australia, we’re just a decade old and we’re still growing, trying to achieve the best level of practice.”
The region is part of Papua New Guinea and has a history of colonial rule and a complicated journey towards independence which included a civil war in the 1990s.
The peace agreement requires a referendum on independence that must be held by 2020.
“Since Bougainville is going through its referendum process we need to develop and improve our processes especially being part of this workshop; there’s so much to learn,” Ruby Garnean said.
Bougainville’s House has 41 MPs including the President and the Speaker.
It also has reserved seats for women and ex-combatants.
“It all comes about from the constitution we have there, it allows three reserved seats for those ex-combatants, and three reserved seats for women as well,” Ruby Garnean said.
“We have a hybrid system that incorporates Westminster and the Presidential system so our president is in the House as well as the rest of the cabinet...our parliament exercises gender equality so in the cabinet there is also a woman minister.”
Representatives from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Tonga also attended the workshop which was hosted by New Zealand's Parliament.
