Samoa and New Zealand Parliaments will work together to improve parliamentary processes and procedures following discussions between parliamentarians from both Houses.

New Zealand Speaker of the House, Adrian Rurawhe and members of his delegation are on a three-day tour of Samoa and the first agenda for their visit was to hold discussions with Samoa's Legislative Assembly Speaker, Papalii Lio Masipau and deputy chairs of the parliamentary committees on Tuesday.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer at the Taumeasina Island Resort on Wednesday, Mr. Rurawhe said they enjoyed their discussions with Papalii and delved into some of the challenges that parliamentarians in both countries faced and how they can be overcome.

"We had a great meeting with the Chair [of the House] and some of the Deputies of the Select Committees and we had a discussion around what are the things that are challenges to you. It turns out some of the challenges are the same so okay can we work together on helping each other," said New Zealand's Speaker.

According to Mr. Rurawhe, his takeaway from their one-on-one discussions with their Samoan parliamentary colleagues was the need for more collaboration aimed at improving parliamentary processes and procedures, and there was an appetite for improvements.

"My takeaway from the discussion is that we are very keen to work together on improving parliamentary processes and procedures, which is a two-way street. We had a brief discussion on some of the challenges of running a parliament. 

"But I think the important part is that there is a willingness to work together to improve the way that we do things. Of course one of the things that I see is, just because there is a way that we do it in New Zealand, doesn’t mean say you can transfer to Samoa, because there is no one right way to do something. But you have to find the right way for you, am very much aware of that."

The New Zealand Parliament already has programmes that Samoa's Parliament can tap into with the Kiwi Chair of the House of Representatives pointing to the Tai a Kiwa Program, which he said is run by the Clerk of Parliament in New Zealand. 

Mr. Rurawhe said the program can enable the exchange of staff between the two Parliaments, including Members of Parliament, and as an example talked about a conference scheduled for next month in New Zealand for all women Members of Parliament from around the Pacific.

"And so we’ll pay for accommodation and travel to New Zealand so that all of the women across the Pacific MPs can get together and have workshops, talk about the issues that are affecting them, even opportunity to get to know each other and of course all of the New Zealand women MPs."

The visit by New Zealand's House of Representatives Speaker, said Mr. Rurawhe, is an opportunity to build on the Samoa-New Zealand historical relationship and their three-day visit gives recognition to the ongoing friendship.

He said the New Zealand parliamentary delegation, which he is leading to Samoa, initially wanted to visit the country last year during the 60th Independence anniversary celebration but they decided to postpone to this year.

"We originally wanted to come during the 60th-anniversary celebrations but there were so many visits from New Zealand and the rest of the world. But between Samoan Parliament, we decided to leave it till later and so basically we wanna build on the historical relationship that we’ve had," he said. "We wanted to give recognition to that ongoing relationship, the Treaty of Friendship that New Zealand has with Samoa is unique. 

"Samoa doesn’t have any others and neither do we so that elevates the relationship to a quite a high level. And then the other factor is that the number of Samoan people that live in New Zealand, particularly probably Auckland and but throughout the whole country we are all from."

The delegation led by Mr. Rurawhe also compromised Kiwi parliamentarians: Lemauga Lydia Sosene (Labour List MP), Teanau Tuiono (Green List MP), Tangi Utikere (Labour MP for Palmerston North), and Todd Muller (National Party). They return to New Zealand on Thursday.