What's the Primary Role of A Member of Parliament, If It's Not Representing His or Her Electorate's Constituents?

Some weeks back, I wrote to every Member of the New Zealand Parliament, interested to prompt their response with regard to how they treated approaches from their respective electorates' constituents, when a member of that electorate had an issue.

I'd done that because I'd been totally underwhelmed at the repeatedly beyond woeful performance of my own local Member of Parliament, Mike Butterick.

For the interest of The Customer NZ's readers - who are, of course, voters in this country - I'd like to provide the following commentary on the Ministers and MPs who took the time to acknowledge my email:

Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Christopher Luxon

Hats off to the PM's staff, and thank you to his "Correspondence Lead Advisor" Sonya Ford, who responded in less than two hours of receiving my email. 

The Right Hon. Chris Hipkins

(With my sincere apologies for my having inadvertently omitted this from my first publication of this article.)

The Leader of the Opposition's "Senior Correspondence Advisor", Dinah Okeby, was also prompt in her acknowledgement of my email and, meaningfully, included that she would pass on my comments to Minister Hipkins.

And that is what a good ministerial advisor should do. Well done.

MP for Christchurch Central, Duncan Webb

And hats off to Duncan Webb, whose responsiveness is exceeded only by his sense of humour.

Webb responded:  "That is outrageous – the last MP was much better."

That's an MP worth having as your elected representative.

MP for Te Tai Hauāuru, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer

Thank you to this MP's staff member, Tineka Kumeroa, who sent the polite, non-automated, same-day response to "acknowledge that this email has been received and noted".

MP for Kaikoura, Stuart Smith

Another MP worth actually having.

Smith answered my email personally. He wrote:

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for writing to me about The Customer NZ.

I endeavour to answer emails on the day that they are received and do my best to resolve constituent issues. That said, a resolution is not always possible.

This MP would likely get my vote purely for his responsiveness, if I lived in his electorate.

MP for Coromandel, Scott Simpson

Same-day acknowledgement from Simpson's "Community Engagement & Communications Advisor", Cherie Staples - although Cherie unfortunately didn't take the time to read the actual text of my email to realise that I wasn't in Simpson's electorate and simply sent a standard template response.

But at least it was a response, and not an auto-responder, or worse still, radio silence.

MP for Banks Peninsula, Vanessa Weenink

I'm not sure if this was recognition or a polite chastisement (I think it was the latter) . . . but at least she wrote it herself:

Hi Jordan,

It’s helpful when people do identify themselves as constituents of my electorate, because with the volume of emails some triage is required. I am focusing on my local issues and where I have a role to play.

Best wishes, Vanessa Weenink

MP for Otaki, Tim Costley

I was over the moon to get the following response . . . .

Hi Jordan,

Thank you for getting in touch.

I can’t comment on what my colleagues do but, in my electorate, I am passionate about helping the community in any way I can. I try to get out and visit as many people and places as I can in my electorate.

Kind regards, Tim Costley

. . . . but I crashed from a great height after I sent him a request for an interview (subject:  A Month In the Life of A Community-Responsive MP). and he completely ignored me!

Green Party, Co-Leader, Chlöe Swarbrick

While Swarbrick's response was in the form of an auto-responder, what impressed me was that the auto-responder included something no other politician's auto-responder had:  the direct email address of her executive assistant, and an invitation to email her if the matter was urgent.

I felt that showed a degree of caring and political responsibility that was worthy of note.

MP for Panmure–Ōtāhuhu, Jenny Salesa

Top marks to Salesa's "Senior MP Support" staff member, Michael Clatworthy, who took exactly 25 minutes to respond, personally:

Morning Jordan

Thank you for emailing, I can confirm on behalf of Jenny that all electorate correspondence is acknowledged and responded to in a timely manner.

Ngā mihi, Michael Clatworthy

A great person to have on your team if you're a busy MP that cares about your constituents. MPs, take note if you're looking for a senior support staff member of that ilk. Very impressive.

MP for Rangitata, James Meager

And from another MP support staffer well worth any MP on the market for one, watching out for . . . a prompt, polite and useful response promising to take the action that she was capable of taking, as relevant to my email:

Hi Jordan

Just acknowledging your email and will make sure that James receives it.

Kind regards

Judy

Judy Cunningham

Team Coordinator

List MP, Damien O'Connor

Obviously a man that doesn't waste words, O'Connor took a moment to respond to me personally:

"Always tried."  (In response to my question as to whether he'd offer greater respect and communications performance than my local MP.)

Read Receipt Courtesies

The following MPs (or their staff members) at least had the professional courtesy to return the automated "read receipt" request I assigned to my email to them.

A small consideration, but one that - in my estimation - demonstrates a decent degree of professionalism:

Rt. Hon. Chris Hipkins, Laura Trask, Andy Foster, Rima Nakhle, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Tracey McLellan, Hamish Campbell, Mark Cameron . . . and someone from Chloe Swarbrick's office actually read my email, in addition to my above mention, because I received the read receipt on my email to her, in addition. (A belated addition to this list is Celia Wade-Brown, whose read receipt came in some days later, and I missed it when initially collating responses.)

As For the Rest . . .

(With apologies to any Minister or Member of Parliament who did respond and whose response I have inadvertently missed) . . . the rest of the current New Zealand political set either ignored my email, or my email to their inbox generated the most useless, almost-universally-identical auto-responder.

If you've ever seen that (again, almost carbon copy auto-responder), I'll paraphrase the way it comes across to me:

"Yeah, look, would you mind buggering off. We get LOADS of emails from the likes of pesky constituents like you, and - unless you've got a speaking engagement offer of significant political value to me - not interested. Ta ta. Have a good day."