Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, Edition 4

by David G. McGee

Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand is the definitive work on practice and procedure in the New Zealand House of Representatives. This edition incorporates developments since the third edition in 2005, reflecting significant changes in parliamentary law, practice and procedure. This easily searchable ebook has hyperlinked contents and indexing.

1648 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 31, 1985

Reviews

[Aranka]

A manual written by an ombudsman and former clerk, this book is an authoritative source of the machinery of parliament. Then it is very detailed and written from an administrative perspective. I guess the biggest gain is to form a mindset of order:
- How all parliament processes from legislation to budgeting and debate are based on conventions and rules developed over time.
- How checks and balances are maintained by different settings of functionalities.
- How such a setting can provide the public a toolbox to access critical information, influence the decision making and safeguard their own rights.

There is some new (unexpected) knowledge for me, such as the setting of private law that allows "special cases" apart from established laws. Such knowledge makes the lengthy reading of pure administrative rules more interesting. Quite a big proportion was talking about how the rules evolved in history. While acknowledging the value, I personally found it less relevant and would prefer more recent cases.