Taking their word for it: Lying and MPs

Few people think MPs never lie, so why are they seldom punished? We investigate Parliament's rules on mistakes, fibs, and perfidious calumny.

Few people would believe that politicians never lie. But it is incredibly rare for an MP to be disciplined in the House for lying, or made to explain themselves before the Privileges Committee. Why? What exactly are Parliament's rules around lying?

MPs refer to lying as deliberately misleading Parliament. They also have a related no-no referred to as misrepresenting, which is lying about what another MP has said or done.

These are topics that come up in Parliament frequently. Just this week an MP accused another of misrepresenting, more than one corrected a mistake that might come to be seen as a lie, and another was censured for responding badly to another MP's claim.

Listen to the radio version of this story from The House.

David Wilson, Clerk of the House of Representatives, giving evidence to a select committee.

To assist in traversing Parliament's quirks I spoke with two experts: David Wilson and Duncan Webb.

David Wilson is the Clerk of House of Representatives. Parliament's rules are his metier, and among his many roles, the Clerk advises Parliament's Speakers on its rules. Labour MP Duncan Webb is deputy chair of the Privileges Committee, which investigates MP misbehaviour.

Free speech and honourable behaviour

Let's start with an important fundamental about Parliament from Webb. "It's the freest place in terms of speech and expression in the country." He's talking about the fact that MPs are privileged - just not in the way you think.

"The absolute privilege that Members of Parliament have to say anything. And that's part of the kind of values system, that means we don't intervene lightly. We let people say stuff, because that's the right they the English Civil War for."

Under absolute privilege, parliamentary speech comes with no legal repercussions. Balancing that kind of power is a tricky thing. Webb says that this freedom is balanced by a social compact in which everyone agrees to abide by a set standard of behaviour. For historical reasons that standard is based on the conduct expected of a mid-sixteenth century Italian courtier. Anyone who thinks that Renaissance Italians were an ideal of good behaviour never met Lucrecia Borgia, or most renaissance popes.

Honourable = honest…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details