The week Parliament saved our democracy

country ran structural surpluses of between 1.5 and 6 per cent of GDP every year from 1994 to 2006.

So what bureaucratic demons did the FRA unleash upon our poor democratically elected politicians to whip them into shape? Nothing, really. The Treasury was required to publish regular economic updates on where the government’s books were heading, and the government was tasked with putting together a strategy to ensure all its commitments could be met in a fiscally responsible way.

Much of this is still around. Next month, the Government will get the ball rolling on this, publishing its Budget Policy Statement (BPS), which the FRA inaugurated. The BPS will outline its fiscal strategy going into the next Budget.

The system saved democratic politics from itself by neatly setting boundaries around what is political and what is just the rules. Politicians can spend money on slushies, hip-hop tours, or flag referendums, just so long as they stick within the fiscal rules.

Those fiscal rules are themselves political, but putting them within the FRA, and forcing governments to measure and document their success or failure, made fiscal responsibility a political goal, rather than something to hide.

The Zero Carbon Bill works in the same way. Our politicians have agreed that emissions reduction is no longer a political question – they’ve even agreed on a specific target: net zero CO2 by 2050.

The new Climate Change Commission will set emissions reductions budgets for the Government, but it will be up to politicians to devise ways of meeting them, and selling those plans to the public.

Whereas before each party would protect its sacred cows in the same way that they once made unrealistic spending and tax promises, now they will be forced to find compromise in the interest of the wider goal of emissions reduction. National will still protect the interests of farmers, Labour will protect the interests of urban workers, but only to a point.

Politicians often welcome these restraints. Many want to do more, but feel restrained by the politics. Now they have an excuse. Get used to hearing forms of the following: ‘‘Don’t blame me for making you cut your emissions, blame the Zero Carbon Act.’’

Now, there’s a less optimistic scenario.

ACT, for example, campaigned to get the Productivity Commission established. The commission publishes regular reports on how to make the country more productive, which the government tends to respectfully ignore. The Climate Change Commission will be different. Unlike productivity, there’s strong public momentum behind climate change action.

There’s another problem with the analogy. The FRA was just about managing government accounts, the Climate Change Commission will be responsible for all emissions, whether they come from a Crown limousine or a dairy cow.

But the bill is a good start and, as the FRA shows, the pace of change can be remarkably quick when political consensus has been achieved.