Two years in, Parliament groans under the weight of difficult social lawmaking – Stuff.co.nz

OPINION: I pity this Parliament.

It's had more knotty and divisive social issues to deal with than many others. Within months of its first sitting it was voting on not one, but two medicinal cannabis bills, and things only got more complicated from there.

Euthanasia, abortion, and drug reform followed.

This wave of difficult social legislation is partly a symptom of having a left-leaning government, which tend to have more of a passion for social reform than their right-wing counterparts.

It's also the result of contentious members' bills, like Chle Swarbrick'smedicinal cannabis bill, and David Seymour'sEnd of Life Choice Billbeing drawn.

But I don'tpity our politicians too much. After all, it's their job to work through these challenges on our behalf.

That's why the forthcoming euthanasia referendum is such a problem: we vote for politicians who vote for legislation, we don't vote for MPsonly to see them kick important votes back to us.

Many of these social issues get put to conscience votes, where MPs vote independently of their party. This was far more common in the days of First Past the Post when an MP represented an electorate, not just a party, but MMP has made it a rare thing.

The advent of the party vote has meant parties have a more powerful mandate than individual MPs. It's bad faith for an MP to cross the floor and vote directly against the party that put you in Parliament.

Conscience votes are difficult in and of themselves. At an induction course run for incoming MPs, many felt conflicted about whose conscience they were actually voting with: their own, or that of their electorate?

This becomes even more complicated when you consider that some MPs don't just represent geographical constituencies. They represent the views and interests of groups defined by religion, race, class, and gender.

ROSS GIBLIN

The euthanasia bill was passed thanks to the work of a cross party group.

For religious MPs it's even more difficult: what happens when the values of their faith collide with the wishes of their constituents?

Aupito William Sio'smoving speech on the first reading of abortion law reform explicitly touched on the tensions he feltasarepresentative forMngere, Pacific peoples, and the values of Christianity.

He voted for the bill in the end, but only after working through his constituencies' complex, overlapping andconflicting interests.It was refreshing to see an MP openly wrestle with the fact he represented many different constituencies, each with its own conscience.

Other MPs have decided to poll their electorates, or conduct elaborate listening campaigns to work out which way to go. This has been positive for some: itforges stronger links between electorates and MPs in the style of First Past the Post.

Other MPs have used the opportunity of multiple conscience votes to brush up on their lobbying skills,forming cross-party groups to discuss issues, lobby colleagues and get bills passed.

An incredibly successful example of this is the group of MPs that turned David Seymour from a party of one into a bloc of 69 MPs that eventually voted for his End of Life Choice Bill.

Our political system has groaned under the pressure of this barrage of difficultvotes. The euthanasia bill was filibustered through a 16 month-long select committee.

MPs are exhausted too. Agonising over euthanasia is much more stressfulthat blandly speechifying on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Bill (don't ask).

That's a problem. The brewing culture war suggests our Parliament is likely on the cusp of a wave of important social legislation and our MPs should be ready to deal with it, not kick it down the road.

Other issues, like gay conversion therapy the barbaric practice of psychologically "converting" gay people straight are crying out for Parliamentary debate, and our nimble political system shouldn't be afraid of launching into the fray.

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Two years in, Parliament groans under the weight of difficult social lawmaking - Stuff.co.nz