In New Zealand’s Parliament, the fate of legislation rests within a humble biscuit tin.
A battered, decorative metal container, bought from a Wellington department store by a Parliament staffer in the early 1990s, rattles like a bingo drum under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience.
The ceremonial lottery at Parliament, where bills are drawn randomly from what’s known as “the biscuit tin” in local parlance, is a way to ensure every New Zealand legislator, even those with minority viewpoints, has an opportunity to bring their proposed laws forward.
When a rare empty slot opens on Parliament’s agenda, the battered metal cookie tin is produced from a glass case and its solemn and silly rite is hastily arranged.
Inside the faded vessel with a peeling label might be an ambitious social initiative considered too risky for partisan support, a sensible but dull measure to tweak a statute, or a lawmaker’s controversial hobby horse that their party wishes they’d stop talking about.
The tin doesn’t judge.
The quaintly patterned container might seem like a gag, but the ritual selection of bills from it is a serious affair.
Where decisions governing which bills are debated by legislators in Parliament are often determined by backroom brokering and subject to political gatekeeping, the cookie tin strikes an egalitarian note.
“We ate the biscuits, got some bingo tokens numbered one through to 90, I think, and that is the way that the random numbers are drawn now, rather than any kind of computer system,” said David Wilson, the Clerk of New Zealand’s House of Representatives.
“Which has become quite an iconic part of our democracy.”
Most laws that pass through New Zealand’s Parliament need never enter the ballot. They’re part of the government’s legislative agenda, advanced by senior legislators from ruling parties who already know their proposals will succeed by vote.
But on one day each fortnight that Parliament sits, bills drawn from the cookie tin are debated. On Thursday, with spaces for three new bills suddenly available, Wilson presided over a ballot in Parliament’s library.
A small crowd of staffers and lawmakers watched as the clerk’s colleagues tipped numbered bingo tokens representing each bill into the cookie tin with a flourish, shook the vessel, and drew. Spectators could find out by email which bills had won the lottery, Wilson said.
“I just think they quite like the performance of it,” he said.
