A survey of the career backgrounds of MPs has shown that their most frequent employment before coming to Parliament was in the world of politics and government.The survey by government relations specialists Senate Communications showed that nearly a quart
A survey of the career backgrounds of MPs has shown that their most frequent employment before coming to Parliament was in the world of politics and government.
The survey by government relations specialists Senate Communications showed that nearly a quarter of MPs had worked primarily in government or local government -- an increase from 15 percent in a similar survey six years ago.
It also showed one third of MPs had worked in a political or bureaucratic role at some time in their lives.
Senate's government relations partner, Mark Blackham, said the results showed that for an increasing number of MPs the world of government was their main life experience.
"The days are virtually over where people enter politics to fix things they find wrong in ordinary life," he said.
"Now, they are more likely to enter government or party politics at a young age as a career move."
Mr Blackham said MMP had strengthened the ability of political parties to keep their preferred MPs in Parliament, which meant MPs could choose to make politics a lifetime career.
After government and politics, the next most common career before Parliament was business with 16 percent falling into that category.
That was similar to the last survey and was dominated by National MPs.
However, as National now has more MPs than six years ago the actual proportion of business backgrounds in the National caucus dropped from 38 percent to 25 percent.
The most common qualification was related to law with 16 MPs, spread evenly across parties, who had trained in law.
The second most common qualification was in teaching, with 14 trained educationalists. That was the same as six years ago.
Mr Blackham said countering the trend toward more MPs "soaked in government experience" was a parallel growth in jacks-of-all-trades.
"Sixteen percent of MPs have had such a wide variety of jobs that it is hard to categorise them as having one dominant career," he said.
"This number has almost doubled over the past two elections."
