Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): I'm actually really delighted to take a call on this bill the Electoral Integrity Amendment Bill—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Shame on you.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —no—because I'd like to set straight a lot of the scaremongering and the bluff and the bluster that we've heard from members on that side of the House. They've talked about how they're staggered. I think the member Chris Bishop mentioned that about 10 times—that he's staggered at this bill. Others have mentioned that they're ashamed or that we should somehow find this bill shameful.What I'm staggered by is the level of scaremongering and as the last member I guess to take a call on this bill I'm going to set them straight. I'm actually going to give those who are watching this at home a little bit of a summary of all the fairy tales that have been told by members opposite and then go into a little bit about the bill actually because I wonder whether any of those previous speakers from across the House have actually read the bill. I'm going to go into what the purpose of this bill is because it's been reduced by that side of the House into pro - freedom of speech versus anti - freedom of speech and that's absolutely not what this is about.So let's begin with what we've heard so far—a quick summary because really we haven't heard much of much value from that side of the House. But anyway what we've heard from the member Chris Bishop for example is that this breaches human rights; that it disincentivises people from speaking out about matters of conscience which it absolutely does not do; that it's not a Parliament of parties as though we are a Parliament of about 120 Independent members which we're absolutely not; and that it's about freedom that it's the bastion of freedom of speech and that this bill is actually going to somehow change that.We've heard from the member Amy Adams that MPs—electorate MPs she said—are here in the House first and foremost to serve their communities and that I agree with. We are all here in this House to serve our communities: the New Zealand public the voters who have put us in this House to serve them. Let's not forget that. Let's not make this out as though it's breaching the human rights of members of Parliament—which is in fact what one of the members opposite said—because it doesn't.It's actually here and I get into now what this bill aims to do. The purpose of this bill is to uphold public confidence in the integrity of this Parliament as the name suggests. It's about the integrity of members of Parliament and of the system the very system that has elected each and every one of us. Let me put some of the members—actually most of the members—who've spoken from the Opposition benches straight. If they actually think that they won their electorates on their own steam not because they were aligned with or members of a party that has a particular philosophy that is supposed to have specific values that they uphold then newsflash I have some information for them: they probably haven't read it although it's throughout this bill but they can actually come back and be elected as Independent members of Parliament. So there is recourse for them. This bill does not stop anyone—any one of us—from speaking our mind. We have conscience votes for that particular purpose. It does not allow some sort of mythical dictator to throw us out of Parliament at his or her whim. It does not do any of that.The member Judith Collins mentioned in her speech that this bill will give a party leader the right to throw out a member if that member crosses the floor in a vote. That ladies and gentlemen is scaremongering. The member Matt King talked about backflipping on this side of the House—Government members backflipping on this legislation. That was the one point perhaps that he made that I'd like to call him out on. We have been absolutely consistent on our position on this bill because it also enhances and it maintains the proportionality as members on this side of the House have said. It's about MMP. Perhaps if members on that side of the House actually understood how MMP worked they wouldn't be on that side of the House. But that's a debate for another day.So what is MMP for those who are watching? In our Parliament a party's share of the seats in this Parliament roughly mirrors its share of the party vote. So what that means is the people the New Zealand public who are electing us to office and electing parties into Government who have the final say as to what this Parliament looks like in terms of proportions also have the right to know that that proportionality will be maintained throughout the term of Government. That is what this bill does.How does it do it? Well actually before I go into that why is this even important? It's important firstly because it's a matter of accountability as I've already said but it's also important because when the proportionality of a Parliament changes the degree of influence that that party has in this Parliament also changes and it changes in a number of ways. For example the number of oral questions that a party has allocated changes when the proportionality changes. Funding to that party—parliamentary funding of parties—is dependent or based on proportionality of that party in Parliament. The leader's budget per-member funding that is allocated to parties—all of that changes and all of those are important components of the amount or degree of influence that parties have in this House.Now I mentioned that I was going to actually put some of the members straight in terms of calling out the scaremongering and actually maybe going into a little bit about what the bill says in terms of how this will happen. So what is the process that's outlined in this bill for when seats become vacant in the House? There are two ways that this can happen. The MP's party leader or the MP themselves who's leaving the party can decide whether to activate the power—and that's the other point that's quite important in this bill actually: it doesn't automatically trigger. It needs to be triggered and it will be triggered only when the proportionality of the Parliament is in jeopardy. The way that happens is that either the party leader or the MP who decides to leave can trigger that by writing to the Speaker. The MP's seat becomes vacant when they have notified the Speaker in writing that this will happen.In order for the party leader to use this power—and again we've heard from members opposite that at a whim or at the drop of a hat a party leader can stand up and throw a member out. That's not how it happens actually. It's quite clearly laid out in the bill that firstly the party leader in order to use this power has to reasonably believe that the member of Parliament has acted in a way that distorts and is likely to continue to distort the proportionality or party representation in this House as it was determined at the last election. They've got to give the MP written notice and the member then has 21 working days to respond probably to put their case forward and to discuss it. The party leader also has to have two-thirds of that MP's party agree or the caucus agree that that member in question should be removed if it comes to that. So there are actually quite a few safeguards that are listed in this. There's also a point where the leader has to have complied with party rules as well.The other point that I'd like to make—and this is specifically to the member Nick Smith I believe it was who mentioned that there are no Parliaments in the world that have such legislation. Well I have actually been at a number of events with members from the National Party speaking to members of our very strong Indian community in New Zealand where they have waxed lyrical about how India is the world's largest democracy probably in an attempt to win over some of these communities. Do they then realise that India has an anti-defection Act which came into play in 1985 and is actually very similar to the bill that we're discussing today? So perhaps if this is something that you're so vehemently opposed to don't go out to our Indian communities in New Zealand and pretend that you think that the country that they whakapapa to that they come from is the world's largest democracy and is all things good. Maybe let's not have that hypocrisy.