ACT Publishes Most Effective MPs

Monday 20 Oct 2003 Richard Prebble Press Releases -- Other

The ACT party today published on its website the list of the most effective backbench Members of Parliament.

ACT Leader Richard Prebble said today the list shows that ACT's Rodney Hide is the most effective backbencher and National's Clem Simich, the least effective.

"The Sunday-Star Times, two weeks ago, published what they claimed were the ten least effective MPs and ACT realised that in order to do this, the paper would have had to discover the most effective," said Mr Prebble.

"We have had the parliamentary library collate every MP's performance this year using the criteria advanced by the Sunday-Star Times - the number of questions in parliament and the number of media releases. It showed why the paper did not want to tell their readers who the most effective MPs are. Five of the top eleven MPs are ACT MPs. The ACT backbenchers put together are more effective than 53 MPs combined - that is more effective than almost half of parliament.

"ACT's research did uncover a very disturbing piece of information - the Sunday-StarTimes story was seriously wrong. MPs were included on the list of `least effective' who are, according to the paper's own criteria, good MPs. The paper included Jim Peters as one of the least effective MPs. It seems to us just because he's parliament's oldest MP. Our survey shows that he is actually the 13th most effective backbencher. Three other MPs were included on the list who did not deserve to be there," Mr Prebble said.

ACT party has published the research in this week's The Letter and put the full MPs' rankings on the website at (http://www.act.org.nz/mps).

ENDS

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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