On Tuesday Parliament chews over a government bill reducing the level of Road User Charges (RUC) by 36 percent for three months.
It’s a temporary change and you might think that the government had the power to alter this levy without resorting to Parliament; that Cabinet could wave its regulatory wand at RUCs and shrink them until the stroke of midnight (or the end of July). But no.
This small change will be debated on Tuesday because revenue and spending are at the heart of what a Parliament is for.
Listen to Chris Hipkins outline things to watch out for in Parliament this week
Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
The raising of taxes is one of the most closely guarded powers of any parliament. This is not without reason. Gaining a strangle-hold over the right to raise revenue was how the British Parliament inexorably gained ascendancy over their royal ‘masters’.
Who holds the purse strings calls the tune (to mangle a saying). Parliament’s are not about to give back that hard-won constitutional ground and allow executives to fiddle about with taxes without Parliament’s say-so.
The Leader of the House Chris Hipkins puts it like this:
“It is important to remember that almost all of the authority that the government of the day has (whomever that government is), comes from Parliament. And in most cases when you want to do things you’ve got to go back to Parliament to make sure you have the authority to do that thing. And that’s particularly the case when it comes to money.
“People … have the idea … that the Cabinet just sits around and decides how to spend money and waves its magic wand and then that happens. In reality every dollar that the government of the day spends has been approved and appropriated by Parliament.
“It’s an important democratic principle. The government of the day shouldn't be able to just levy or tax without the authority of Parliament. The Parliament is the elected representative of the people and therefore it should be the Parliament that determines what taxes can be levied and what expenditure can be committed.”
It’s worth remembering that the government’s authority is something akin to a sub-committee, a delegation from Parliament.
The core power of a representative democracy is the full body of representatives - the Parliament.
Whether governments want to adjust the money they collect or the money they spend they need to return to the font of their power for authority.