Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to new clause 7. We have a number of proposals for a new clause 7. Several of these are out of order, but there are some that I’ve accepted as new clauses, which are therefore separately debatable. I will deal with those shortly, but first I will advise the committee of which amendments are out of order.

Firstly, Chris Bishop’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 89 is out of order as it is contingent on an amendment already negatived. The Hon Dr Nick Smith’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 91 is out of order as being out of the scope of the bill. Members, we will debate clause 7 in three separate areas, starting on the debate on party rules. So, members, we now turn to the debate on clause 7. The first part will be the debate on party rules.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think it would be helpful for the committee if the chair was able to quickly inform us of the amendments—I tell you where I’m a little bit unclear, Madam Chair. In one breath you said that the amendments would be debated separately—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Yes.

—and then you said some provisions would be taken together. Is it possible to clarify for members, so that we do remain within your orders around speaking to the amendments, as to the numbers or content of the Supplementary Order Papers that we are now debating, please?

On the new clauses 7 debate on party rules, we will be debating with specificity to Supplementary Order Papers 69, 70, and 71. Then, at the conclusion of that, we will debate the new clauses 7 review of the Act—specifically Supplementary Order Papers 76, 77, 79, and 78. At the conclusion of that debate, we will debate new clause 7 with regards to the Gazette notice, and that is specifically Supplementary Order Paper 72.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Thank you, Madam Chair. The first—

Are you seeking the call? I call the Hon Dr Nick Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak to new clause 7, which is actually very important in the context of this bill. The unusual new electoral law that we will now have is one in which a political party removes a member’s membership and, consequential to that, they can now be dismissed from this Parliament. Previously, whether a person was a member of a political party was not critical to their membership of the House, and this goes all the way back to our deep traditions where a member was a member of Parliament first and a member of a political party second. So the important amendments that National is wanting to advance in new clause 7 relate to ensuring that political parties have democratic rules. If you think this is merely an academic question, I’d ask the committee to reflect on the rules of the New Zealand First Party that are a matter of law right now: a New Zealand First member has to sign a contract for $300,000—effectively, the equity of about half a home—in the event that they fall out with Winston Peters.

I don’t think there is a member of this House who does not view with contempt that rule in New Zealand First. Far from there being a redundancy payment, where, you know, if you have a blue with your boss and you get laid off—and I hear Labour members say that you should have a redundancy payment in the event that you’re dismissed—what New Zealand First has is the opposite, and that is: if you leave the New Zealand First Party, you have to pay the party $300,000. And to give this Parliament some idea of the lack of integrity—so ironic given the name of this bill—by the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, in one breath he says every one of his MPs has signed the contract, and a month later he says that none of his MPs has signed that contract. I’d love the New Zealand First member who’s in the Chamber to provide clarity around that.

Why does that matter? Because the rules of political parties are now far more important in terms of our democracy, because if any member of this House loses their party membership, they’re on exit, out the door, and are gone from this Parliament. So, in clause 7, we are saying that it should be a new requirement for parties to have a proper process if they are going to remove a member of Parliament’s party membership. Why should we do that? Well, I have to say that you need only look at the conduct of the New Zealand First Party to give you the willies about the way in which—

💬 Jamie Strange: What?

Indeed. The member may not have been here when Brendan Horan was thrown out of New Zealand First. Actually, I could give you a long list of MPs—

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

Well, isn’t it interesting. Members opposite think this is a laughing matter. They think our values as a democratic country and the right to sit in this Parliament are a laughing matter. Iain Lees-Galloway thinks it’s all a big hoot. That’s the value that he puts on our democracy. He thinks that if a party leader like Winston Peters wants to dismiss one of these New Zealand First MPs, well, what the heck? We on this side of the House take a very different view of the seriousness and the importance of our liberal democratic values, and we want to ensure that the rules of political parties have some facet of democracy if parties are going to exercise these new powers. I would love the Minister in the chair, or a member opposite, to argue why we should not require a political party to have fair and democratic rules before they go down this Draconian road of removing a member from this House.

Now, the specific amendment simply adds to the requirements that political parties have when they register their rules with the Electoral Commission. I was able to find out from the Electoral Commission—not from New Zealand First; they don’t have their party rules up on some website; no, no, no!

💬 Chris Bishop: The website’s not even up online.

As my colleague points out, the openness and transparency of this Government is so great that the pivotal party in this Parliament doesn’t even treat New Zealanders with dignity by having their own website and making that information publicly available. So the provision in new clause 7 requires a party not only to have fair and democratic rules around when they want to kick someone out but actually to disclose those rules. If this Government is going to stand true to its values of being the most open and transparent Government ever, where is there a more important place for that openness and transparency than in the way in which members of Parliament may be booted out?

The Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, has made the point that “Oh, look, there are some other countries that have provisions.” In fact, in question time, the Minister in the chair made reference to Japan. Here is the key difference, though: in Japan, if a member voluntarily resigns from the Japanese democratic party or the liberal party, they’re required to resign from Parliament. But this bill goes a lot further. In this bill, it’s not a matter of whether someone voluntarily resigns; if they get forced and frogmarched out of their party, then they are dismissed from the Parliament.

Do you know which countries around the world have the provisions that are in this bill? Well, let me list them. The officials provided the advice. They have that law in those wonderful democratic countries—fellow members, you know those countries that you dream that New Zealand was like! Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and Pakistan are the only three countries.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: “Serra Lone”?

Now, Mr Iain Lees-Galloway thinks it’s funny. He think it’s funny that we are passing a law that will align our Electoral Act with countries like Zimbabwe.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Don’t forget “Serra Lone”.

Yeah, that’s right. So why doesn’t the member take a call and defend these electoral laws rather than having some joy and some fun around pronunciation? You see, those are the values with which those corrupt members opposite—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Order!

—view the democracy of this country.

💬 Simeon Brown: They don’t like that, do they?

They don’t like that, do they?

💬 Darroch Ball: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think it’s quite obvious what the point of order is. That member can’t be saying that we’re corrupt on this side of the Chamber.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Yes, I agree with the member. We were tracking quite well until that point. Could you please withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.

I say to that member opposite—I say to him—why are we passing an Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill that aligns our democracy with a country like Zimbabwe? I say quite openly: Zimbabwe is a corrupt country. It is a disgraceful country. It is a country where members of Parliament have been dismissed from their House of Representatives for—you know what?—holding a press conference without their leader’s permission and for raising questions of financial propriety within the Zimbabwe Government. That’s the sort of law that members opposite want to put on our law books. They wonder why we are debating with passion these issues this morning: because those things matter, Iain Lees-Galloway, and I ask you to have a look in the mirror—have a look in the mirror—around the anti-democratic provisions that you are putting into our Electoral Act that are a disgrace and need some checks, as we are proposing with clause 7.

So my challenge to the Minister in the chair is: now we’re giving the power to political parties to be able to remove members of Parliament, why is it not proper that there is some transparency and some openness about those rules that those political parties should have to operate before they initiate these Draconian provisions of removing a member from this House? If we are going to have this sort of provision on our law books, at the very, very least we need to know that a political party has registered with the Electoral Commission a proper process, a fair process, for that member of Parliament to be able to contest, and to provide some check on these anti-democratic and Draconian powers that are being asked of our Electoral Act.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am delighted to have this opportunity as we look at what I would suggest are some very sensible, pragmatic, and, I would hope, widely acknowledged provisions for new clause 7. Could I thank you, Madam Chair, for setting out the parameters of the three debates, because it was going to be quite difficult without that guidance from you, and I am grateful.

In what I hope will be at least a couple of calls on this, I want to explain as clearly as I can to Government members why, even if they are determined to carry on down this path of enacting this outrageous piece of legislation, there are some provisions that would help to improve it. That’s what the Opposition members are here this morning trying to do: to try to improve it. It’s a bad bill, but we can make it a little bit better, and I have two Supplementary Order Papers relating to the rules that would apply under this new law that I genuinely believe would help to restore elements that are vital to a functioning democracy.

I want to thank that highly regarded constitutional commentator Graeme Edgeler, who was a frequent submitter to the Justice and Electoral Committee of the past, and frequently has comments that are recognised with respect on both sides of this House. I don’t know what his political affiliation is, but I do know that he is a person who takes a very close and intelligent interest in our constitutional provisions. In a post that he made last month, and I hope that I may quote from it, he was referring to the fact that we’re getting to the final stages of consideration of this Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill, and made a plea for New Zealand First, Labour, and Green MPs to consider some minor amendments. I was very pleased that he picked out mine on this new clause 7, amongst others. I do in particular urge Minister Little to think carefully about this and to respond. I also want to acknowledge the fact that the Minister in the chair has been responding, and I thank him for engaging in this debate. It’s not easy for him, because his personal feelings must be a million miles away from what he is having to do, carrying the can for the Government.

Mr Edgeler makes the point that the bill is going to pass, and much and all as I wish that were not so, clearly the numbers are in favour of it—sadly, because the Green Party is voting so fundamentally in opposition to their long-held view. But Mr Edgeler makes the point that “it is not too late for Parliament to make some minor changes to the bill to make [it] slightly better, and to slightly better protect principled opposition within Parliamentary parties.” He endorses Mr Penk’s Supplementary Order Paper 69—I commend that to the Minister. “In a similar line”, he writes, “is Tim Macindoe’s proposed amendment in supplementary order paper 71. This would require that those rules would have to be provided to the Electoral Commission and available for public inspection.” That is what this is all about.

Now, we have the outrageous situation where a bill is being considered where we know the Greens are hotly opposed to it. We know that Labour members don’t like it, but they’ve just sort of accepted that they’ve got to put up with it because it was written into their coalition agreement. New Zealand First MPs presumably support it, because they wouldn’t dare oppose their leader. He is, after all, the one who is driving this forward. And yet what have they said to support it? What have they said to justify or defend it in this committee?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Zero.

As Dr Nick Smith says, not one call. That’s outrageous. Fancy putting forward the most offensive change to electoral law since the Electoral Finance Act of 2007 and then not even defending it—not explaining how members of that party came to that position. I say to Mr Ball, who is here this morning: please, take a call and explain how your party has reached a position where they will support, frankly, the paranoia of one man in putting into law this objectionable bill, but then are not even willing to come to the committee to defend it.

But, back to Mr Edgeler, in urging the parties opposite to support my new clause 7 on Supplementary Order Paper 71—it would require that the rules “would have to be provided to the Electoral Commission and available for public inspection.” The current law as it is drafted makes no such provision, and that is outrageous. He goes on to make the point that “Parties are already required to have public rules around two specific things: party membership, and candidate selection.” Any member of the public can go and find those two important provisions as they relate to any party quite easily, because it’s obviously fundamental to a democracy that members of the public are encouraged to consider putting themselves forward for selection. We need the very best people to put themselves forward to be members of Parliament. We want to have a cross-section that represents the diversity of this wonderful nation, and therefore it is absolutely right that those rules and requirements are publicly available.

But here we have provisions in a new bill that do not meet that requirement and do not give the sort of notification that the public can rightly expect. So that is why Mr Edgeler is making the point that the two amendments do not require anything in particular in the rules. One party could leave the issue completely up to caucus, and other parties might involve the party council, etc., but the rules of each party should be a matter of public record, consistent with other aspects of the electoral system. So I say to the Minister in the chair: please consider that. Please respond to that. It is not too late for the Minister to adopt that provision.

I have known the Minister for many years—knew him a long time ago back at university. I believe that the young Andrew Little would have upheld this fundamental principle. I believe that he would have wanted to do everything he could to protect and preserve our fine democratic traditions. Well, Minister, this bill undermines those. Minister, you know that this bill undermines those. I hope very much, therefore, that even though you have been wanting to tell the House and the country for some time now that all of the commentators, including Mr Edgeler, are wrong and you’re the only one who’s right—and that’s an extraordinary position that you’ve adopted, but you have, and that’s a matter of public record—here you can say, “Well, even if I wasn’t going to do it before, I agree with Mr Edgeler. I respect his knowledge and integrity and experience in these matters, and I will make this change.” It will not stop the bill from passing. We don’t want the bill to pass—I think that’s blatantly obvious—but at least it will improve a bad bill, and so I ask the Minister to take it on board.

Now, we’re talking about the rules, effectively, of the electoral game, and it is absolutely fundamental, surely, that the rules must be fair to all parties. Imagine a netball game where it’s pretty close: two teams are in a hard-fought competition; they’re getting near to the end, and the team that’s losing is staging a fightback, and, suddenly, it becomes possible to change those rules, to increase the height of the goalposts or to widen the sidelines, to put more players on, to double the number of points—you could think of all sorts of extraordinary things that could happen. Wouldn’t that be outrageous?

So part of what I am arguing here is that these rules should, if they are going to be brought in, not apply during at least the term of the current Parliament, because we’re under way. Let’s have a chance to push these out beyond the next election so that the public may give their verdict on this. They won’t have a referendum on this bill, but if they feel strongly about this, they can cast their votes at the next election to say, “We don’t like this.” You can be absolutely certain that on this side of the House, we will be campaigning to get rid of this legislation, and I have no doubt at all that the public, from the feedback I’ve been receiving at least, in my electorate of Hamilton, will welcome that.

I say to my good friend Mr Bishop—who seemed to imply for some considerable period of time, both last night and this morning, that I’m one of the world’s leading mavericks—that I am a former senior whip of the National Party. I don’t think I’ve ever crossed the floor. I think I’ve probably been the most loyal member of the party in the whole time I’ve been here. I thank you for the acknowledgment of Hamilton West, but for those who are listening, I can assure you that I have no intention of going out and breaking the rules. But I did appreciate the point he was making about electoral petitions.

But here, as I say, we’re talking about important rules, and they are vitally important. Make no mistake, this bill is vile. It’s an affront to democracy. It’s a travesty, and it should be rejected in its entirety, but if it’s not going to be, at the very least, please, would the Government consider adopting these amendments for new clause 7, because they will help to improve it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the member who’s just resumed his seat, Tim Macindoe, a member for whom I have immense respect and even agree with sometimes. I am somewhat intrigued by his boast about having been the most loyal member of Parliament for the National Party who would never think of crossing the floor, as against the assertions by his colleagues in the last 16 hours of debate on this bill that every member must reserve the right to cross the floor on a whim to maintain their conscience and their fealty to their constituency.

But, putting those inconsistencies aside, there is another aspect in which I agree with the Hon Tim Macindoe, and that is my respect for Graeme Edgeler as a commentator on constitutional and electoral matters. He is an authority on those matters, and I have seen his commentary on this bill and his suggestions for improvement, but I disagree with him and, indeed, on the need for these three Supplementary Order Papers, because the things that they would provide for in an amended Electoral Act are already provided for. So, for example, section 71B of the existing Electoral Act requires registered parties to lodge their rules with the Electoral Commission, and then every time a registered party changes those rules, there is a further requirement that those changed rules are provided to the Electoral Commission within one month of those rules changing.

But there is a balance to strike, and we see this in, for example, the Incorporated Societies Act. When we have legislation governing the private affairs or the affairs of private organisations, there are some minimum requirements that we would expect and that this House would expect to be required to have the protection of statutory rights and privileges. But there is a point at which you can go too far, and the fundamental principle of freedom of association, as it applies in this case to political parties, is political parties must be free to make their rules how they see fit and to govern themselves how they see fit. It would be wrong for us to start legislating, whether for political parties or any other grouping of people, incorporated or unincorporated, on how they should associate amongst themselves. That is the freedom of association principle.

I know members opposite are very, very keen on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act at the moment and the principles and the freedoms that are contained and protected in that Act, in that piece of legislation, but they apply here as well. So I think it is absolutely right that in the Electoral Act as it currently stands, section 71B requires political parties to lodge their rules with the Electoral Commission and to have them available for public inspection. The statute requires them to be available for inspection between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. I don’t know what that means in the internet world, whether there’s some sort of device that cuts them off at 5 o’clock each weekday and then you can’t see them on the weekend. I don’t think that’s how the Electoral Commission works, and I think that they take a large and liberal interpretation, so inspection of political party rules is available pretty much 24/7, which is fantastic, and if those rules change, those changes are also available.

Do we legislate for specific aspects for political parties? There is already requirement in section 71 that their rules for selection of candidates be democratic. There is already provision in section 55 for those private actions that will disqualify a member from continuing in Parliament. Those things are all there. This will add to that through the changes represented in new sections 55A to 55D. That’s all there. Nothing further is required. There are basic requirements of transparency and electoral integrity contained within the current Electoral Act, and they are supplemented by what is in this bill. These three Supplementary Order Papers—69, 70, and 71—do not add anything to what is currently in the Electoral Act.

Madam Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity to take a call. I’m going to traverse some of the things that the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, has just covered, but before I do that, I think this is a very dark day in the New Zealand Parliament. We have a Government that wants to be perceived as being open, transparent, caring, and compassionate. Well, this bill is the complete opposite to what they want to be perceived as doing and trying to achieve in society in New Zealand.

This bill is an anti-democratic bill, and when I look back and read all of the submissions that went through the Justice Committee, there were no changes as a result of hearing all those submissions. From memory, there were 43 submitters, and 41 opposed the bill. Even the Clerk of the House opposed it. In the 13 years that I have been in the Parliament, I have never known the Clerk to submit on a bill. So I find this bill an affront to democracy and I’m going to come to the important part, which is new clause 7, a new part, and all of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs)—the three that the Minister has just alluded to in his address—in a moment. But it’s very important that in my first contribution to the committee I say this is a very, very dark day that the Government is not prepared to hear from anyone with an opposing view.

I feel for Andrew Little because I don’t actually think that he agrees with this bill. He’s having to ram this bill through because of New Zealand First—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Is this to the SOP?

—and I’m going to come on to the SOP in a moment.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): It has been nearly two minutes, so I’d appreciate it.

What is really important on clause 3 is covering off—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): We’re not on clause 3.

Sorry, clause 7 and those three SOPs—in particular a very good one from Tim Macindoe, SOP 71. I want to cover that off in some depth because what it says is that it ensures that the party has rules governing the process by which the party leader can expel a member of Parliament, and it goes on to say that the secretary of any political party must register these under the Electoral Commission.

That’s very important and when Andrew Little gets up he says, “Oh well, they’re already in place.” But I listened to his language intently because he appeared to soften after he’d said that and he’d dismissed the three SOPs, because he said there is a point at which you can go too far, and parties must be able to be free to make their own rules. So what he’s appearing to say is, “Oh, don’t worry. It’s already in play here. We don’t need it.” But hold on, a member of Parliament of a political party is selected under those rules, but it’s OK for the leader to sack the individual MP. Importantly, this new clause inserted by this SOP of Tim Macindoe, I think, actually goes some way to strengthening up what is a dog of a bill. For the Minister to stand up and just dismiss these three Supplementary Order Papers I feel is really disappointing.

And when he also talked about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—how it applies to these three SOPs already—it was interesting listening to some of the debate last night on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Effectively, the Attorney-General had to sign off this bill, and David Parker said that it is finely balanced and it could have a chilling effect. So for the Minister to stand up and say, “Oh well, it’s all fine here with the Bill of Rights.”—in essence, David Parker, when he signed it off, his hand was shaking because he knew this could have a chilling effect.

The Minister also talked about the rules for selection—that they need to be democratic and that they’re actually already in place. That might be so to a degree, but it’s not so when a party leader can, effectively, sack an existing and sitting MP, and I have real concerns.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. As this debate resumes today, the body language and the pain on the Government’s faces passing legislation they don’t agree with have got no better. As we debate this, my colleagues have mentioned how sad a day it is for New Zealand democracy: potentially this legislation is about to put us in the esteemed company of a country like Zimbabwe.

I rise today to debate new clause 7 because, as an Opposition member absolutely opposed to the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill, this Opposition has a duty to attempt to make this legislation better. We’re going to have to, at the end of the day—as indeed the Minister in the Chair, the Hon Andrew Little has had to do—swallow a dirty big rat to satisfy the inadequacies of Mr Peters’ interpersonal skills with his own caucus—that is what this is about.

We attempted last night in clause 5 to put a sunset clause on it. To allow this legislation—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Look, I apologise for interrupting the member. I would require us to come back to the specificity.

And I’m about to do that, if I get a chance.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you, that would be great. We’ve gone a minute and a half.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was attempting to point to Madam Chair that we have a responsibility to attempt to make this legislation better. I was attempting to point out we had tried to do that last night with an amendment to clause 5 but had been voted down. And now what we have is new clause 7, which attempts to put in place the requirement that rules be developed by a political party and that those rules be transparent. We heard the Hon Andrew Little, in his contribution a minute ago, saying political parties must be free to make their own rules. I agree with Mr Little, but where I think I disagree with Mr Little is, having developed those party rules, they should be known to us all, they should be clear, and they should be transparent. This is why this legislation, this amendment, is so important.

The reason this is important is because New Zealand First had some rules that were published and available on a website requiring a member like Darroch Ball to pledge $300,000 if he was at any time tempted not to remain a loyal member of the New Zealand First caucus. What that means is that Mr Peters put in place a rule whereby he ensured the complete cooperation of Mr Darroch Ball on any issue at all, so that Mr Darroch Ball’s conscience was, in effect, transferred without question to his master—an absolute puppet clause. Then, when it got Mr Peters into trouble, suddenly that rule has disappeared from the website and, despite Mr Peters saying—despite Mr Peters saying—that Mr Ball had signed that particular enforcement notice, Mr Peters then changed his mind and said, no, no member had.

That’s why I think new clause 7 is a genuine attempt—a very genuine attempt—to improve this legislation. If we’re going to see this dreadful legislation pass, that puts us in the company of Robert Mugabe of all people—puts us in the company of Robert Mugabe—let’s see if we can make it better. This clause advanced by my colleague Chris Penk, in Supplementary Order Paper 69, is a very well-worded clause. It is simple. It simply says parties must develop the rules by which membership is covered, and also the expulsion of a member from a party membership is clearly exposed.

I think that would make bad legislation better, and therefore I implore members on the other side of the Chamber—the Greens, Labour, and New Zealand First members, who I think mostly, actually, deeply oppose this legislation, but they’ve been whipped into line. We know the trade-off between the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill and the mining bills: the Greens got the mining ban; New Zealand First got this waka-jumping bill agreement through. That’s the trade-off, but I do say to members of the Government, at least as we go through the final stages of this debate, consider new clause 7 carefully.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to follow up on the excellent comments of the previous speaker, David Carter. So what we’ve got here is a new clause that we’re debating, clause 7, which would, if it is indeed the will of this House to pass this legislation, which we, of course, are strongly opposed to because it undermines so much that’s so precious to us as New Zealanders in the parliamentary system that we have with individual responsible MPs—if this bill is to be passed, then this clause, new clause 7, which sets out an obligation for parties to have clear, transparent, and open rules about how members could be expelled, is at a minimum what this Government should be considering. I do call upon the Minister to give a better explanation as to why he wouldn’t support this and why the Government wouldn’t support this.

We have heard from the Minister that the fundamental principle that he asserts is that freedom of association shouldn’t be interfered with within political parties and that they should be able to do whatever they like and arrange rules however they like. That’s fine, and yet he wants to legislate—that same Minister—to allow leaders to throw MPs out of this Parliament if they deviate from whatever particular view that leader and the majority of that caucus has at that particular time. How that intermeshes with freedom of association, I am not sure. The question is: what process do a party and a leader go through in order to expel an MP? Naturally, we’re worried, given the very strange permutations we’ve seen in recent times around New Zealand First’s rules, and it’s absolutely right that we focus on New Zealand First, because they are the drivers of this bill. Nobody else in this Parliament would be pushing this bill if it weren’t for New Zealand First. We’ve heard reference to the $300,000 bond that members were asked to sign. Apparently, they signed, and then apparently they didn’t sign; so there is all sorts of confusion about that. That is an example of the vagueness and strangeness of the rules.

The fundamental issue that we’re dealing with is that this bill, in the absence of any clear and transparent rules, weakens the individual power of members of Parliament, and that’s the fundamental core debate that we’re having today: will this bill further enhance the power of parties in dominating the political sphere of New Zealand—and who dominates those parties could be leaders; they could be leaders within the party but outside Parliament. If you’re strengthening the power of those parties vis-à-vis the individual power and responsibility and control of individual parliamentarians, then I think that’s a dangerous path to be taking, because it is an essential part of the effectiveness of this institution that the 121 individual people in this Parliament have the ability to stand up for what they believe in and not be crushed by the great clunking fist of the power brokers at the back of party organisations.

So whether it turns out that what we want in the Parliament of New Zealand is five parties that determine what happens on every issue and if there’s any deviation from it, individual MPs can be thrown out, or whether we have the system that we’ve grown accustomed to, where that power is shared and individual MPs can assert themselves against a caucus from time to time in extreme circumstances, I personally think that the collective wisdom of the 56 MPs in the National Party, for example—all slightly different views and slightly different outlooks—is its strength. If we move to a situation where—

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: One of them has got a different view. I know one’s got a different view.

Well, Mr Faafoi might, but I can understand Mr Faafoi’s frustrations, being given a new portfolio every week and he’s still outside Cabinet and still, for some reason, does not fall within the confines that the Prime Minister—[Time expired]

Before I give the call to someone, I would just like to encourage members to be relevant and non-repetitive. These are three quite specific Supplementary Order Papers.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Acknowledging what you said, I would like to make a series of contributions, and I want to go through Supplementary Order Paper 69 and Supplementary Order Paper 70.

Supplementary Order Paper 69 is slightly different, and it’s a very good amendment proposed by my colleague Chris Penk. I do want to make this very serious point for the committee and for the Minister: very seriously consider this amendment, because noted public law commentator and electoral law commentator Graeme Edgeler, who the Minister has previous adverted to having great respect for, has urged the Parliament to consider this amendment. Now, we don’t necessarily—well, we don’t agree with the bill at all, and many members in the House don’t, on this side of the House. But he has urged the Parliament to consider this amendment very seriously, because what the amendment does is provide a new section 71AA for registered parties to have expulsion rules.

Why is this important? Political parties occupy a curious position in our constitution—they really do. They are largely unregulated. There’s an open question, I think, as to whether or not they are capable of judicial review. It’s perhaps not an open question; they are capable of judicial review. The rules are certainly capable of challenge, in the same way that the rules of incorporated societies are open to challenge, and members will recall the celebrated case from 1985 when the New Zealand Rugby Union was stopped by its own rules from sending a rugby team to South Africa, an official All Blacks rugby team. So I think that’s without dispute, but the law is generally pretty silent about how political parties run themselves.

The Minister earlier talked about the requirement in the Electoral Act 1993 for the selection of candidates to be democratic. The other thing is that there are various requirements around membership rules, and the courts have seen fit in—I mean, the National Party doesn’t like to remember it; the case of Roger Payne down in Selwyn, which was an expensive undertaking for the party. No one likes to be in the courts, but the courts will enforce membership requirements when it comes to selection and things like that, and that actually relates to candidate selections. But it is true that political parties occupy a curious place in our constitution. So that’s the first point.

Then you apply that curious position to the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill, which will change the Electoral Act. It’s fair to say, I think, that, without being too political about it, it is going to be a curious part of our electoral law. It’s not unique internationally. In fact, many countries have provisions like this. As my colleague Nick Smith has pointed out on numerous occasions, they’re not countries that we would typically like to be associated with when it comes to electoral law matters, but other countries do have it. In the sort of spectrum of Western parliamentary democracies, a provision like this will occupy an odd place, a strange place. OK, if that’s the will of the Parliament—we live in a democracy in which Parliament is sovereign. I have the entire judgment of Fitzgerald v Muldoon in my office, on the wall, in a painting, to remind me every day, when I go into my office, that this place is sovereign and that the elected democratic will of the people dictates what laws we have in New Zealand.

So I am a great believer in parliamentary sovereignty. If Parliament passes this law, it will be the law of the land. But because of the strange place parties have in our constitution, and because they are largely unregulated, and because this bill arrogates to the party leader of political parties enormous power, I think it is reasonable for the Parliament to say, at the same time as they pass this law, “At the same time, you must have rules governing the expulsion of members.” That does not seem unreasonable. It seems totally, eminently feasible to me for the Parliament to say, “At the same time as the Parliament enacts a law around how members can be expelled from the House, there should be similar provisions within party rules about expulsion.” That is totally logical.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I’d like to take a call to speak in favour of Supplementary Order Paper 69, in the name of Chris Penk, which is to include, after clause 6, a new clause which includes a requirement for registered parties to have expulsion rules.

I would like to just start by making the point that this bill seems to have all the characteristics of having been written up in the Green Parrot. It has none of the checks and balances which are required in good legislation, and it needs a whole lot of fixing, and that’s why we, on this side of the House, are continuing to make very—

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Drafted in the Green Parrot after midnight.

Yeah, probably in the Green Parrot after midnight, as the Rt Hon David Carter says. We are continually trying to make good suggestions that the Minister should be taking up and listening to so that we can improve this bill. And we haven’t heard a single call from the other side. There hasn’t been a single disagreement. There hasn’t been a single point made. They’ve continued to sit there in silence while we continue to take calls to try and urge them, on behalf of New Zealanders and our democratic institutions, to improve this piece of legislation. And we see that they continue to try to close down the debate while important points continue to try to be made, and they are continuing to ignore them.

So let me speak in favour of this important Supplementary Order Paper by my colleague Chris Penk, which requires registered parties to have expulsion rules. Now, we’ve heard the Minister try, in a sense, to weasel out of actually taking into account these Supplementary Order Papers, but there is a clear need for these rules to be transparent and there is a clear need for the public to be able to have access to them. And the reason for that is because it is the public who elect members of Parliament to serve in this House. It is the public who elect and create the proportionality of this House, and therefore the public should have some transparency and open accountability over what is actually happening inside the party rooms.

We have seen, and we have on record, that the New Zealand First Party already has some pretty hazy rules around how they treat their members if they are to, in any way, attempt to act in a way which may distort the proportionality of Parliament. We’ve seen that their constitution includes a requirement on their members of Parliament to pay $300,000 to the party if they are to in any way act in a way which distorts the proportionality of Parliament. Winston Peters said they’d signed it; then he said they hadn’t. But I think they probably did, because that is why they still refuse to take a call. I think it’s going to cost them $300,000 just to stand up and take a call, because that’s probably what Winston Peters considers an act which will distort the proportionality of Parliament, because he’s scared of one of his MPs taking a call. Even if it’s a call in favour of this bill, he would still see that as an act which would distort the proportionality of Parliament, because he’s told them, “It’ll cost you $300,000 to stand up and do so.”

The point here, and the point of this Supplementary Order Paper, is that there should be rules required in a party’s constitution so that party members understand what the rules are, so that members of that party who seek selection know what the rules are if they are to act in a way that might distort the proportionality of Parliament, and so that the public understand what the rules are which are being used when a party leader decides to get rid of a member of Parliament who may be acting in a way which he or she thinks is distorting the proportionality of Parliament.

This Government came to power saying, “We will be the most open and transparent Government that has ever been in New Zealand.” Well, adopt this Supplementary Order Paper and show that—demonstrate it; put some actions to the words that this Government has. Put some actions to the words that this Government has, because actions speak louder than hollow words, which this Government continues to show. Adopt this Supplementary Order Paper and show some action. And I call to the Green Party, who should be standing up for openness and transparency: adopt sensible Supplementary Order Papers which are endorsed by constitutional experts. Listen to what they have to say, put them into the legislation, and let’s make this bill a little bit better.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 70, in the name of the Hon Tim Macindoe. I think it’s an excellent SOP, which states, “After section 71B(1)(c), insert: (d) any changes referred to in paragraph (c) that alter rules relating to the expulsion of members of Parliament by the party leader cannot apply in the same term of Parliament in which they were changed.” In other words, it shouldn’t be retrospective. I think it’s interesting that the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, seems to be champion of retrospectivity when it comes to legislation.

There’s generally a great reluctance for any retrospective laws that should come in, for very good reasons, and I think it’s interesting that it’s been mentioned about the New Zealand First caucus signing up to $300,000 worth of indentured servitude in their terms of serving in Parliament. I well recall—as I’m sure my colleagues will—when they signed up for the National Party, reading very carefully what it was that we were signing up for. You’d expect, when someone puts themselves forward to be a legislator, that they’d actually worry about the details—that they would look at the details of what they were signing up for and what their obligations are in terms of the party—and, in particular, you’d have to consider “What happens if I transgress these rules, and how would the party go through the process of kicking me out?” And I think anyone who votes for you when you put yourself up as a legislator would expect you to cover off those sorts of details.

So we have an instance of New Zealand First, who have these clear rules with the $300,000 indentured servitude clause in their particular party rules. When they were asked about it—the members—some knew about it and said that they vaguely remembered it and that, yes, they signed it; then, of course, magically, when Mr Peters waved a wand, they hadn’t signed it. So we don’t know. Clearly, they hadn’t looked at those rules. So it’s really important that we have those rules in very clear language in the public domain, as is in Mr Penk’s SOP, but I think Mr Macindoe’s SOP is also vitally important.

We should not have anything that can have a retrospective nature. If you sign up for something and then they change the rules half way through, I think that that is not natural justice. That is retrospective in nature, and, in this case, it’s not justified. I just wonder how the Minister, as the Minister for Courts and the Minister of Justice, actually looks himself in the mirror in the morning, when he is sponsoring a bill that is so badly out of line with natural justice principles and putting this up.

I think it was mentioned before by someone: I’ve seen more detailed members’ bills than this one, and I’m not sure whether it was written in the Green Parrot after midnight and paid for with roubles—I’m not sure.

💬 Simeon Brown: It probably was.

It probably was.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: With a single malt.

Ha! Yes, a single malt. In fact, you can probably see the stains on the bill. It is very poorly drafted, it has huge implications for the legal structure in New Zealand, and it has a major impact on democracy and the democratic principles. It’s ironic that the Labour Party of all parties, which stands up for workers’ rights, is sponsoring something that we have seen, with New Zealand First, the actual promoting party in behind, is a champion of indentured servitude. That should be anathema to the Labour Party. Why are they doing this? Well, we all know why they’re doing it, but I’d like to hear from them. Why don’t they stand up? Mr Little has been up and down a bit. Why doesn’t someone else get up? Kieran McAnulty has been handing around lollies to try and soothe the taste of the dead rats. Why don’t you get up, and let’s hear your rationale for supporting this?

Now, I know poor old Darroch over there is looking rather ill, but he’s hoping this $300,000 is magically going to be lifted off his balance sheet, because it’ll be on his balance sheet. He is looking rather worried.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: He’s just had a call from his bank manager!

Yeah, that’s right. Is it gone by Monday?

I move, That the question be now put.

I will take another call, but can I just tell members that the constant references to asking members to take a call on it and other references are not part of this bill.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. In debating new clause 7, I want to engage the Minister in this quite serious debate around the extent to which Parliament and the law regulates the activities of political parties. Now, the Minister, in responding to the very sensible amendments that have been put forward by my colleagues Chris Penk and Tim Macindoe, has said that, no, he doesn’t support them, because it involves Parliament regulating how political parties do their business. My simple challenge to him is the double standard, because the Electoral Commission, right now, has rules that say that parties must have democratic processes for the selection of candidates. So if it is justified for Parliament to require that registered political parties have democratic procedures on the way in, how can he possibly argue against Mr Macindoe’s amendment that they should have democratic procedures on the way out? I fail to understand, Minister, how you can justify one and not the other.

So if the academic political party—let’s call it New Zealand First—wants to have a rule in their party that says that Winston Peters decides whether you’re a party member or not, that we leave it entirely at Winston Peters’ discretion as to whether you’re a member of the party—well, I didn’t care too much when a member’s right to sit in this Parliament was not conditional on their New Zealand First Party membership. It wasn’t nearly as important, because if Winston Peters, in a fit of anger, dismissed a member, as he has a history of doing—take Brendan Horan, most recently; Brendan Honan still had the right to sit in this Parliament and to represent his views.

So the very significant change that we’ve made in clause 5 of this bill that now says that if you’re out of the party you’re gone from the Parliament means this Parliament does need to take a very serious interest in the rules of a political party about how they might expel a member from that party, and it is absolutely reasonable for this Parliament to say that those procedures should be democratic.

Then we go one step further, with the amendments that are proposed, and say that there should equally be an obligation to disclose those rules to the Electoral Commission. I have to say, I was stunned four weeks ago when, on a Friday evening, I received an anonymous phone call from a disgruntled New Zealand First former member saying that they had that Draconian rule of the $300,000. I think all New Zealanders were aghast that we in a democratic country have a party political rule that says that there is a $300,000 personal bond on the head of a member of Parliament if they have a falling out with their leader. It’s just disgraceful. But here’s the part: I only found out about it because of the anonymous call. You wouldn’t find it on any website. And so what my colleague’s amendment says is that not only should parties have to have rules; those rules should be disclosed.

So I say to the member opposite: why, Mr Patterson, would you not support the open disclosure of democratic rules in the New Zealand First Party if somebody is going to be dismissed? What’s his argument against those sorts of rules? You’re standing in a Government that trumpets around the country that you’re the most open and transparent Government, and you come down to this Parliament and you pass the most Draconian, Zimbabwe-type laws to take away the basic democratic rights of this institution, which have been fought hard for for 330 years to provide for the democratic values.

I remind that member to take a look around the walls of this Parliament—at the people that have sacrificed their lives for the democratic rules that exist in this Parliament. So why would he and the colleague sitting next to him want to scourge, want to blacken, that democratic record by not supporting this amendment that provides for some basic democratic rules if you do have a leader—a Mugabe-type leader—who simply wants to dismiss a member of Parliament? So I urge members to support these amendments.

Mr Chair, thank you. I rise to take a call on these Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), in particular Nos 69, 70, and 71, and I want to step through them carefully to look at both how they work individually and how they would improve the bill as a whole. Of course, we find ourselves in a position where we would rather this bill didn’t exist at all; we would rather we didn’t need to bring these amendments to the committee. But, faced with a bill that is so intolerable, we are trying to amend it to make it operate at least a bit better and to ensure that the process for removing a member of Parliament from this Parliament is at least fair and identifiable.

Let us look first at SOP 69, an SOP which is in the name of Chris Penk, who has made many contributions to this debate and has thought deeply about this bill. What SOP 69 does is simply require that a party must in fact have expulsion rules around the process they would use to expel an MP. In this debate, we have had an argument from the Minister that it is improper for Parliament to reach and delve into party affairs in this way—that it is improper for Parliament to dictate in any way what rules a party is required to have. I have to say that, on the face of it, I have some sympathy for this argument that says we should be careful, as a Parliament, before we get into the affairs of individual parties. However, I think this case is distinctive because what we are talking about here are matters that go to the very heart of what it is to be a representative democracy—that go to the very principle of what allows a member to be in this Parliament and to remain in this Parliament. When it comes to matters as grave as a party expelling someone from this Parliament, I’d argue it is appropriate—and we argue on this side of the House that it is appropriate—that a party be required to have clear rules on this process.

Of course, this statement is something that has been set up by the Minister’s own requirement. New section 55D(d)(i) and (ii) require a statement from the parliamentary leader stating that requirements imposed by the rules have been satisfied and that there are no other requirements in these rules that have not been satisfied. So, in setting up this provision in the bill, we think it is incumbent, therefore, to also ensure that parties do in fact have these rules. And, of course, I’d also like to draw your attention to the fact that this is consistent with other aspects of our electoral system and that this should be a matter that is similar to the requirement to have rules around membership and the requirement to have rules around candidate selection. In their essence, these are requirements that are designed to protect the representative nature of our democracy.

I want to move now to SOP 70. I think it’s appropriate that we consider SOP 70 in relation to SOP 69. Of course, what the fine member Tim Macindoe’s SOP does is say we should be clear that rules can’t be changed quickly to suit the whim of the party at the time—that rules that are changed should be able to be applied only in the term following. Of course, this is a sensible protection, because what it anticipates—and we must, in this Parliament, anticipate worst-case scenarios from time to time—is a scenario in which a dictatorial leader says, “Oh well, I’m going to change the party rules to suit me so that I can more easily expel this member.” And, of course, that would be an abhorrent thing to happen. So what SOP 70 does is deal with that potential, and it says, “Actually, if you’re going to change the rules, you have to wait until the next term for them to apply.”

This SOP also has the helpful consequence, of course, that it would mean that, within this term of Parliament, no MPs could be expelled, because, in order for that to happen, rules would have to be changed within this Parliament. I’d suggest to members that that would of course be a very good and principled effect, if we were to ensure that this law wasn’t able to apply this term and outside of the electoral period, that voters went in good faith to the ballot box and voted for members of Parliament, fully expecting that they would be, under our parliamentary laws, able to serve a full term of office. And changing the rules halfway through the case is not appropriate.

Finally, I want to turn to SOPs 69, 70, and 71, requiring that rules provided to the Electoral Commission—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I’ll take this opportunity to respond to the last few contributions that have been made by members opposite. Nicola Willis, the member who has just resumed her seat, made a similar point to that made by Stuart Smith in relation to the alleged retrospectivity of this law. I really think that that argument exposes the National Party for what they really stand for, because their argument is, effectively, that this particular law being considered by this Parliament, even if passed by this Parliament, should not take effect until the next Parliament—until some other future time. That is about good old-fashioned Tory privilege protection. You see, they don’t think that a law willingly passed by a majority of this Parliament should apply to them. They want to be excluded because they love the privilege of not having to be properly accountable to the political system that we’ve got.

This law is not retrospective. This law will apply to members of this House, like pretty much every other law that this House applies to every other New Zealand citizen. The reality is that when this House passes a law, it usually changes the status quo, and every citizen has to buy into that. Those who do their tax planning—for example—not contemplating a change in tax law and then find that tax law changes have to cop it, because that’s what Parliament does when it changes the law: it changes the status quo. The argument that, somehow, changing this law that will affect all members of this House is retrospective is absolute bunkum. It is not correct—it is not retrospective.

Can I respond to the submission by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who asked the question: how do I justify, as the Minister in the chair, the current law in the Electoral Act requiring democratic selection processes by a registered party with the fact that we don’t agree with this Supplementary Order Paper that would require a particular rule about expulsion of a member of a party who is a member of Parliament? The answer to that is very clear. First of all, the current rule in the Electoral Act requiring democratic procedures for the selection of a candidate is in principled terms only. It doesn’t specify how that must be. It simply says that the selection processes must meet a democratic standard.

The rules about the potential expulsion of a member are laid out in this bill. Two-thirds of the caucus must support it, there must be a process that entails a 21-day process and all the rest of it—it’s all laid out there in the bill. Nothing else is required, and that meets, I think, the very important principle that this House has always observed when coming to regulate private organisations. Limited liability companies are a little bit separate because they get massive statutory protection. But for incorporated societies and for political parties the principle of freedom of association applies that they must be free to make their own rules. When they participate in our political system and in our electoral system, there are minimum standards required.

That is right. That is the balance, and this bill sets out in a very balanced way the laws that apply to sustain the very important principle, which we know members opposite don’t get, and it was really highlighted by the submission by Paul—no, it wasn’t Paul Goldsmith; it was one of the other contributors who asserted—oh no, it was Chris Bishop, who said that political parties occupy a curious place in our constitution. A curious place? In MMP, the party is fundamental. The party vote in our voting system determines the make-up of Parliament. Parties occupy a curious place? They occupy the central place in our political make-up and in our constitutional make-up.

I was intrigued by Paul Goldsmith’s submission that, you know, he didn’t think that members should be subject to the great, clunking fist of party power brokers. He is the beneficiary of the great, clunking fist of Peter Goodfellow and others in the National Party. He is the most obvious example of the great, clunking fist of party power brokers. How dare he?

Now, it is time for members opposite, in my submission—my respectful submission—to put aside the predictable rhetoric and to understand the basic principle of MMP: the party is vital.

If there was ever an example of how convoluted logic could be used to change a political position, we just heard it from Andrew Little. To suggest, somehow, that empowering—part-way through a Parliament—political leaders to disrupt the vote, or the choice in the vote, of electors at a previous election is not retrospective is simply unbelievable. What it leads me to speculate, of course, is that that’s why no one can trust that the current Government won’t bring in a capital gains tax before the next election. You’d simply say, “Well, actually, we think that we’ve got the right to do it, and if we pass a law that gives us the right to do it, then that makes it perfectly acceptable.”

I think the whole point here about, particularly, Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 69 is that it does require in an MMP environment—and remember that the big proponent of this bill, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, has repeatedly said that it’s because of MMP and because of the party structure that is now so dominant in the New Zealand electoral system that we need to have a law that enables the leaders of a party to ensure that they keep a representation that is most representative not only of the party but those who elected it. Except that—except that—when a person elected by electors comes to the Parliament and finds their party doing something that they do not believe the electorate elected them for, then they should have a right to be able to speak freely without the fear that the axe is going to come down from the one person, the leader, who speaks entirely for a political party.

Look, history in this Parliament is littered with people who have been at odds with their party for various reasons. I’d ask the Labour Party to consider the situation of John A. Lee, a First World War hero who suffered the loss of a limb for his country. He came to this party extremely socialist and, as I would say, left in his views—so left that he found himself at odds with the Labour Government, post-1935. So he was expelled from the party inside the caucus.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: No, no.

But if the party itself had had the opportunity—well, Andrew Little’s corrected me and is saying the party expelled him.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The conference.

I beg your pardon?

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It was the party conference that expelled him.

The party conference expelled him. Well, that is exactly the point I’m trying to make, because the party itself—not the leader, but the party—decided to expel him. They didn’t, of course, have the power to boot him out of Parliament, but his political career was somewhat limited from that point on, and that’s an obvious thing that happens to people in these situations.

A more modern example that the Labour Party won’t like would be the situation with the Dunedin North MP Brian MacDonell. Now, there is no doubt in my mind that Brian MacDonell could see what was coming in the form of the Lange Labour Government. He could see the coming influence of Sir Roger Douglas, and he decided to take a stance against that and found himself ostracised by his colleagues. He didn’t get selected in his seat—it was organised so that he didn’t have a seat to stand in—and he didn’t come back to the Parliament, but was he right? Absolutely, he was right.

While I might agree with some of the changes that Government made to the New Zealand economy and the way that New Zealand itself operates in an economic sense, Brian MacDonell had every right to stand up for what his constituents had elected him for. There’s still, of course, ructions inside their party over those particular years and some degree of embarrassment, but it should be a greater embarrassment that they’re here supporting a bill that is entirely designed to give authority to a party leader—and, in particular, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Look at New Zealand First. Why did it fall apart in 1998? It fell apart because there was disagreement within the party over a particular course of action—a particular course of action. And while those MPs decided to exit New Zealand First, under this provision Mr Peters could have simply expelled the whole 12 of them—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: And appointed 12 others.

—and sent them down the road and appointed another 12 to come in to prop them up. He could have expelled those 12 members and simply appointed another 12 to come in to replace them. Now, tell me that that is not institutionalising the concept of dictatorial behaviour. No one says a word, because that’s what it does.

If we look at the situation that developed just in the last Parliament, with a gentleman called Brendan Horan—Mr Horan was accused of all sorts of things, and Mr Peters set himself up as the judge and jury and decided that he was going to ostracise him once again, and forced him to become an independent member in the House. Mr Horan was then subject to quite a significant investigation as to the rights and wrongs of the accusations made against him, and there were no charges brought against him. He was, effectively, exonerated after the sort of whispering campaign that had been run against him. But under this provision, Mr Peters would have simply said, “On your way. You’re out of here. We don’t need you being part of this party any more. I want to bring in someone who is far more compliant and willing to do the bidding that I’ve put in front of them.”

Of course, interestingly, post the last election, we can see the result, where a number of people—quite legitimately, in this case—were put on the New Zealand First list in a position where they were going to be pretty lucky to come back to Parliament. So Mr Peters got some of his handmaidens, his chosen, who’ve come into this Parliament as new MPs, and we all know that they’re there because they will do exactly what he tells them to do on any particular day. So what this, effectively, is doing is narrowing down the pool of influence over New Zealand policy.

I see Andrew Little there shaking his head and waving his hands and carrying on. Actually, he’s got them together and he’s wringing those hands because deep down he’s a fundamentally decent bloke who knows that someone who is sent to Parliament should be able to stand up and say what they think for the people who elected them, without fear that someone else is going to have a guillotine facility over the top of their head, because that’s what this does.

So Supplementary Order Paper 69, that’s in front of us—I’d like to hear from the other side why they think the party, in an MMP environment, should not have to express its views using the rules that it must have, if this is passed, in its constitution to call to account an MP who is, effectively, taking a different line to the party line.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: You’ll be lucky to hear from them.

Well, let me tell you that I’m asking the question: why can’t we hear from them? In a democracy, the idea is that people can speak freely; that people at no point feel like they’re constrained other than by the normal rules of decency and legal sorts of restrictions that come on anyone. Why can’t they come to this Parliament and say what they think?

It is considerably worrying that we’re going to have a bill—without this SOP added to it—that, effectively, ignores party constitutions. Simply, by that act, those who vote for this bill reinforce the concept of the leader of the party being totally in control of what anyone in that party says, and, frankly, in control of whoever is in the Parliament to represent that party. That, of course, ultimately, means that you are destroying the contest of ideas that is so central to a democracy. Every leader of every party brings something new to that party’s outlook, to its public presentation, and to the policy mix it puts in front of people. But if we’re going to say that that can never be contested by anyone who is in a position to support those ideas, then we simply hand over to a Parliament that may as well meet periodically with just the nice group of leaders—a little bit of a club, rolling the dice, seeing who gets to do what, and making all the decisions for all those perfunctories out there to perform on our behalf. That is not democracy.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: That was the previous nine years!

Well, there you see—I feel sorry for Mr—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Faafoi.

—Faafoi, who sits over there. He’s the most capable Minister that they’ve got available for elevation to Cabinet, but he’s not going to get there.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill, particularly to speak to new clause 7 and the three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that underline it. I have grave concerns for this bill, and these SOPs go some way to remediating the damage which I’m quite certain this bill will do—the damage not only to us domestically, but I’m also very concerned about the damage that it will do to our international reputation.

We’ve heard some of the countries offshore that we’re being likened to—Rwanda, Uganda, etc.

💬 Hon Member: Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, indeed. So concerned am I with what this bill will do to our international reputation that I met with Transparency International a few weeks ago, because I was interested to see what the impact of this bill would be on the Corruption Perceptions Index that New Zealand so proudly leads every year. We are so proud, all of us across the House, that we rank at the top for having minimal corruption. So if we pass this bill, what will be the impact on the Corruption Perceptions Index that Transparency International produces each year? Well, I met with them, and they said to me: “Look, this is mostly about public servants, Shane. So probably there is no great impact, but we’re clearly strongly in favour of democracy and democratic societies.”

Now, earlier this year, the Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty produced a very interesting index—an international index—called the World Electoral Freedom Index, that talks specifically to what this bill is all about. So I wrote to them and sent them a copy of this bill, and said, “What would be the implications for New Zealand on your publication of the World Electoral Freedom Index?” The secretary-general, from Madrid, Juan Pina, wrote back to me. In his discussion, he said this: “Any new rule which objectively increases the power held by political party apparatus would most likely weaken the MP’s individual standing as a representative of his or her constituents.” He concluded: “This, and any distortion of the voters’ will, is seen as a regression by the World Electoral Freedom Index standards, and will certainly reflect on the country’s performance”—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Why don’t you talk to the SOP?

—“will certainly reflect on the country’s performance in upcoming editions”—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The Minister in the chair does not interject from the chair or control the mute button. OK? That’s not to happen again.

Good, thank you, Mr Chair. If I can just complete that sentence that was interrupted. “This, and any distortion of the voters’ will, is seen as a regression by the World Electoral Freedom Index standards, and will certainly reflect on the country’s performance in upcoming editions.” That’s a threat to us. That’s a threat that when the World Electoral Freedom Index is published in January next year, New Zealand will be ranked down because of this bill. That’s what we’re being told. Our international reputation—by an objective independent body—will suffer if we pass this bill.

There are substantial implications for us. What will happen to interest rates? What will happen to our standing in various other international environments—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And if the member could relate those points to party rules, that we’re debating—

Thank you, Mr Chair. I bring this back, then, to new clause 7 and the three SOPs to make the point that we’re seeking to remediate with some sorts of democratic processes the damage that this bill will do overall, and I’m making the case that our international partners and international people are seeing that damage as well.

So I strongly support these amendments and these SOPs. Thank you. I seek leave to table the letter from the secretary-general of the Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty, talking about the World Electoral Freedom Index and the implications for this bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. Thank you.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I move, That the question be now put.