Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill

I do have to note with some disappointment, in speaking to clause 6 of this bill, that there has been absolutely zero contribution from the Green Party on the important electoral rights that are being tested with this bill. They’re prepared to travel to the far ends of the Earth to defend the rights of people, except to stand up in this Parliament and to stand up for the basic freedom of speech and rights—human rights—here in New Zealand. I also back my colleague, quite rightly, on the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill, who says, “Where the heck is the integrity in that, or in the lack of contribution from New Zealand First?”

In clause 6 of this bill, we amend section 133 of the Electoral Act in a consequential amendment that relates to the question of electoral petitions. It’s interesting—guess who has most commonly been involved in electoral petitions? A fellow by the name of the Rt Hon Winston Peters. When he won his electoral petition for the seat of Hunua back in 1978—the people of Hunua actually threw him out in 1981, as did the people of Tauranga in 2008, as did the people of Northland in 2017. There’s a pattern there.

But when we come to electoral petitions, there was the other very interesting electoral petition, and that was—even when Winston Peters was beat, this is a guy that will stoop to the low of the low, as he did against “Bob the Builder”. In that electoral petition, all sorts of the most vile allegations were made against Mr Bob Clarkson. Members may remember that the electoral petition was funded by a man by the name of Owen Glenn. Does that name ring a bell? Does that name ring of, or conjure up, electoral integrity? Not quite—not quite. In fact, it would be one of the biggest scandals. Owen Glenn provided the $100,000 for the electoral petition to attack the clear win by “Bob the Builder” in Tauranga.

So what does clause 6 do? What clause 6 does is say that you cannot trigger the powers to sack a member of Parliament—powers that members on this side of the House alone are championing against because they are so vile for anybody that truly believes in a parliamentary democracy. What this clause says is that you cannot administer those section 55 powers to kick out a member of Parliament who’s been democratically elected while there is an electoral petition under way. Now, I’m not going to argue that this is the biggest clause in this bill—that was certainly clause 5—but it rubs salt into the wound.

I would’ve thought that every member of this Parliament would both respect this institution and respect each other enough to say, “Well, look, I may not agree with you, Nanaia Mahuta, but I’ll defend your right to sit in this Parliament and to say it as you see it, and not to have your party leader boot you out of this Parliament.” That’s what I thought we all agreed upon, and I am astounded, Nanaia, as I am by your colleagues, that you are so lacking in backbone that you would vote for a bill that takes away such fundamental rights for members of Parliament in this House to be able to make a stand and to express a view.

I do find it absolutely vile that members of the Labour Party, who I disagree with on some issues but I assumed would agree with National about views that are so fundamental to our parliamentary democracy as the right for members to stand to speak in this House, to speak freely—I thought there would be a consensus, at least, with parties that the right for members to stand in this House, to say it the way they see it and not to be subject to the Draconian threats that are proposed in this bill, would actually bind us together.

Well, actually, the members of the Green Party do agree with us that these provisions are vile. They’ve said that these provisions are undemocratic. They’ve said that these provisions are a threat to democracy.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Oh, fiction, fiction, fiction.

No, no, well—Mr Shane Jones’ interjection says that that is a fiction. Well, no, it’s not. Word for word—word for word. Marama Davidson: “This bill is a threat to democracy.” That’s what she said. Would the Green member in the Parliament deny that is word for word what the co-leader of the Green Party said—a threat to democracy, an anti-democratic bill? That’s what Marama Davidson, Mr Jones, said of this bill.

And here’s the part that makes it even less democratic. This change, this fundamental change to our electoral law, is being made despite a majority of Parliament, Mr Jones, opposing it—despite a majority.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Ha!

He thinks it’s funny. He thinks you can rip up 330 years of parliamentary rights of free speech, and he thinks it’s funny that his party, who got 7 percent of the vote, is able to make that permanent change in our electoral law. Well, I don’t think it’s funny; I actually think it’s deadly serious. I think it is a disgrace, and the further provision that is provided in clause 6 of this bill, where we are linking that to the process of an electoral petition—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: He’s after the Oscars. Oscar award. Making it up.

Well, Mr Jones says I’m making it up. Can he answer this? I can name 23 constitutional experts from Auckland University, from Waikato University, from Victoria University—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: They’re changing their name to Wellington.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: They’ve changed their name.

—from Canterbury University, and from Otago University who oppose this bill and say it breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. My challenge for those members that are interjecting: name me one constitutional expert who supports it.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Geoffrey Palmer. Geoffrey Palmer.

Well, Shane Jones interjects “Geoffrey Palmer”. I’ve spoken to Geoffrey Palmer about this bill. He definitely does not support this bill, so Shane Jones, I ask you to try again. The silence is deafening—absolutely deafening—because members opposite cannot name a single constitutional expert who either supports this clause or supports this bill—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Boris, Boris, Boris.

Well, Boris—Boris who? So the scale of the intellectual contribution from Shane Jones to fundamental changes in our electoral law, allowing a party leader to dismiss an MP, comes down to, I think—was it Boris or Doris? Was it “Doris” or “Boris” that Mr Jones was saying? I’d be happy to name the many universities and academics that take offence at this provision. The Leader of the House and Shane Jones and members opposite think it’s one hell of a joke.

I tell you what. This bill will for ever rest on your parliamentary record as a black mark and a stain. It will be something you regret. As we celebrated last week the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage, do we think in 125 years’ time they’ll be celebrating the passage of this Draconian bill? The opposite—it will be a stain on the reputation of every member of Parliament opposite that votes for this provision that is such an affront to anybody that genuinely believes in parliamentary democracy. Here’s the challenge—and I’ll give it to Shane Jones. Zimbabwe has this law, Pakistan has this law, Sierra Leone has this law—tell me a single democracy that you’d want to be associated with that has this law, reinforcing the disgrace of this clause.

Before I call the Hon Tim Macindoe, this clause 6 inserts the words “or 55A” into section 133 of the Electoral Act 1993. It’s a narrow debate, OK.

Indeed it is, Mr Chair, and I’m grateful to you for pointing that out, and I’m very happy to speak about that and, in particular, to emphasise why, although it’s a narrow debate, it’s a very important clause. I have to say that the contributions of the Hon Shane Jones recently suggest to me that he’s been taking lessons from that well-known Australian diplomat Sir Les Patterson, because they’ve had all the accuracy and, frankly, the relevance of that particular gentleman.

Clause 6 is, effectively, a consequential amendment and frequently consequential amendments are passed through the committee stage of the whole House quite quickly. But, in this case, I want to suggest to you that this is a clause, a consequential amendment, that must be debated rigorously and must be rejected because it represents a real travesty. The reason it does is because the substantive section to which it becomes an additional part is in itself an affront to democracy. Therefore, to add this consequential amendment is repugnant.

Now, it probably would be helpful to those who may be listening from outside the House to hear that in the principal Act, section 133 is titled “No writ to issue pending election petition”, and it reads “If after a petition has been presented against the return of any member representing an electoral district his or her seat becomes vacant on any of the grounds mentioned in section 55,”—and that’s, obviously, what we’ve been debating for most of this evening—“no writ to fill the vacancy shall be issued until after the petition has been disposed of, and not then if the court determines that that member was not duly elected or returned and that some other person was duly elected or returned.” Therefore, this consequential amendment would, if adopted, say “In section 133, after ‘section 55’, insert ‘or 55A’.”

Now, I want to turn to a couple of the matters that the Minister Andrew Little has referred to that are relevant to this, but, first of all, could I, again, be positive and say that I do admire the fact that the Minister has taken a number of calls during the course of this evening, and I have considerable sympathy for the Minister. I have no doubt (a) that he is fundamentally opposed to this bill in private and is really swallowing a dead rat on behalf of the governing parties, and (b) that he must be furious with his colleagues, who have left him high and dry not only tonight but also this afternoon and, frankly, throughout all of the debate on this bill to date, because we’ve heard nothing from any of them—nothing at all, apart from a couple of rather farcical interjections and some faux outrage at times that has had no relevance.

Now, of this particular clause which, as I say, must be defeated because it is repugnant—the bill as a whole is repugnant—I make the point that, ultimately, Oppositions cannot defeat the passage of legislation where the governing parties have the numbers, no matter how controversial the legislation might be and no matter how poorly conceived it could be. But could I say to the Greens—and it’s picking up on the point that Dr Nick Smith made just a few moments ago—that if the Greens will support the Opposition in voting against this particular clause 6, they will not in any way undermine the stability of the Government. They will not prevent the substantive bill from passing but they will demonstrate what they have been on record as saying not just recently about this bill but in their long history about matters of this type.

I commented earlier on the fact that this is the most repugnant legislation to come before the House since the Electoral Finance Act, and so I say to Jan Logie, who I believe is a principled and honourable member who often takes calls on principle: join us in voting against clause 6 of this bill. You won’t defeat the bill, therefore it won’t damage the Government, but it will show that the Green Party is prepared to stand up for the principles that they have long articulated to the electorate as a whole. So I ask her to, at the very least, take a call tomorrow, as we continue our discussion of clause 6, to explain what the Green Party position is on this.

I say to the New Zealand First Party: how outrageous. What an insult it is to the House and to the country that they have failed to take any calls at all on any of these clauses, and I ask them to take a call on clause 6 because it’s only because of their intervention that we’ve got to do this.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am going to let the members know, again, that this is a narrow debate. There is not a lot in this. I’ve let both previous speakers go beyond “insert ‘or 55A’.”, but I am letting members know.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and I’m taking into account what you say. It’s a funny little clause, isn’t it, really, clause 6 in the bill. When you first look at it, you think, “Well, that’s just literally one sentence and it’s largely minutiae.” But, actually, when one turns to think about it properly, one is struck by how significant it is, because, in a funny sort of way, it undermines the very raison d’être of the bill itself. It undermines the purpose of the bill, and I’ll explain why that is.

“In section 133, after ‘section 55’, insert ‘or 55A’.”—sounds pretty anodyne, sounds pretty reasonable. It just sounds like a tidy-up phrase that’s a consequential amendment based on what the rest of the clauses in the bill do. Except—except—section 133 of the Electoral Act is to do with petitions, and not the petitions that come to Parliament and say, “We want you to do a particular thing.”, and that get considered by a committee. The particular mechanism in the Electoral Act which is around electoral petitions—very rare in our parliamentary history. Although, ironically enough, the man who is almost the sole person in the Parliament who is in support of this bill, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, made it to Parliament in 1978—40 years ago—via an electoral petition against Boorman in Hunua—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: It was against Malcolm Douglas.

Sorry—Malcolm Douglas, Tim Macindoe points out. The Boorman petition was a separate one.

So the electoral petition has a particular place in our law, and what this clause does is, basically, say, “None of the electoral integrity provisions apply until the petition’s been resolved.” Well, it’s a funny little clause, really, because the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill says that proportionality is paramount—in fact, proportionality is so important that we are going to give to party leaders—or parliamentary leaders of political parties, in the parlance of the bill—the power to determine if they reasonably believe that proportionality is being distorted and therefore remedy what is perceived to be a wrong.

So the whole bill is about the importance of political party proportionality, except for—and this is clause 6 of the bill—when there’s an electoral petition, at which point the bill says, “Oh, we can’t have any of that. We’ve got to let the petition resolve itself.” So it’s a funny, strange thing, actually, and actually when you think about it, the incentive is almost on elected representatives to arrange petitions so that they are not potentially subject to the provisions of the electoral integrity bill, which will become an Act—we hope not, but it is likely to be the case.

So just riddle me this: my friend Tim Macindoe is elected, and it turns out that Tim Macindoe is no longer in the marginal seat of Hamilton West—it used to be marginal but he’s managed to make it into some extravagantly safe seat for the National Party. If only Hutt South was like that, but anyway. Mr Macindoe gets elected and it turns out it’s a marginal seat and it’s contested and there’s been a bit of chicanery and there’s contested votes and some people have ticked both boxes and you’ve got to work out crosses and noughts, and that sort of thing. And so there’s a petition.

But, actually, at the same time, it turns out Mr Macindoe is not really a member of the National Party and—you know, I don’t want to insult him but it turns out that Mr Macindoe has got some pretty wild views out there. He’s sort of like the modern-day Gilbert Myles, or the modern-day Michael Laws. They’ve sort of come in with the tide and you’re not quite sure how that happened, and actually Gilbert Myles, I suspect, is still sitting there saying, “I’m not quite sure how I got elected in the ’99 election.”—beat Phil Goff, apparently, in the safe seat of Roskill, as it then was, but anyway.

And so the party leader, whoever it is—Simon Bridges—says, “Oh, no, I’m sick of this. Let’s get rid of Tim Macindoe, the errant MP for the marginal seat of Hamilton West.” And so the leader or the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition goes to the caucus and he says, “This guy who’s been elected in Hamilton West—we can’t have any of this. He’s out there saying all sorts of things against the party constitution and against the values of the National Party and against the manifesto that we were elected on—

Sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the Chair. The committee is suspended until 9 a.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)