Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to speak on what is not a very pleasurable bill at all the Electoral (Lack of Integrity) Bill". I think it's a shocker quite frankly. I think one of the premises that this bill has been drawn up on is to maintain the representation of Parliament of the Government and of the election result. But I suspect and in fact I know that when you get out and talk to people in your electorates if you're an electorate MP—and I wonder if this is why New Zealand First in particular is promoting this bill. I look across there—are there nine of their members? Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes.STUART SMITH: Nine members. How many—what proportion of that caucus—are actually electorate MPs?Hon Members: None.STUART SMITH: None. This is I think what's driving them because if they were subject to the will of their people that elected them they would not be doing this. When I go out and talk to my people in my electorate they often talk to me about various issues and ask what my opinion is and if I start to sound like I'm just merely repeating party talking points they say "No no no. I want to know what your view is not what the party's view is." I say "Well actually that is my view." They expect me to have a view and I think they would also expect me to cross the floor on something that was vitally important to my electorate. I think when we think back to Nikki Kaye who did have a different view on mining on Great Barrier Island she went against the best Prime Minister this country's ever had—great leader; a great leader in John Key—and John Key he accepted that. He didn't want to drum her out of the party. He accepted a different view. It actually reflects on leadership itself. Real leaders don't lead by force—that's dictators. They either do it by the power of the gun or the power of a bit of legislation like this. That's the only way they can control power and can control people: by fear—either fear of losing your job or fear of losing their life or fear of their family member losing their life—whereas an effective leader has people who follow them. They follow them because they believe in them. Good leaders also know that they don't have an ownership on all of the good ideas. In fact they are more like a conductor than the soloist. Unfortunately when we look at the promoting party of this it is all about a soloist not a good leader.I think that's a great shame and it's a shame for the people in the party over there that haven't stood up and taken a call and told us what they think about it. I really believe that the Kaikōura electorate should be exempt from the provisions in this bill because my electors anyway expect me to represent them. I suspect most members on this side of the House will be in the same position because we're connected to the people that voted us in. For the New Zealand First members a bit of advice: get out of your office and walk around the electorate you're based in and talk to people. Find out what they think about this shameful piece of prospective legislation. I doubt that you'd find very many people that support it. I certainly don't in my electorate. I talk to people about it and they just think it's terrible and they can't understand why it would be happening. But when I talk to them about the history of the political party that put this forward then they start to understand that we have a leader who can't control the members of his caucus. In fact he has a track record of being in Hunua and in Tauranga and in Northland. In Northland it took less than three years for them to decide they didn't want him any more. Why is that? Don't blame the people that voted you in. Don't try and change the rules so that you can stay in the game. Just get in the game and deal with it the way it is. If you're a good leader if you've got good ideals and if you've got things that people will follow you with you don't need legislation like this. You could be like that fine leader the best Prime Minister we've ever had in John Key who was man enough to accept that a member of his caucus could have a different view. He was better for it and we were better for it."