Little Andrew; Rurawhe AdrianHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Mr Chairman. I just want to take an opportunity on this particular clause of the bill to respond to a few points. I know that the member who's just resumed his seat Nick Smith in talking about clause 3 and the fact that it is acknowledging the Electoral Act went somewhat wider. Of course in his usual fashion he was fully deploying every extent of his engineering degree to leap to premises and draw conclusions that would not otherwise be sustained. He's done it all over again.So he has interpreted my remarks as putting the 1688 Bill of Rights in a historical context and perspective as somehow undermining the values of the freedom of speech of members of this Parliament and every Parliament because that is the only way that member knows how to argue: distort twist and turn into an unreality barely recognisable to those looking on. I don't want to dwell any more on that because to do so is to probably invite him to carry on doing that which is entertaining for him and even sometimes for us but is taking up a lot of this committee's time. There are three points I think that came out of the last set of contributions. The three arguments that were mounted in the last set of contributions were first of all that clause 3 should not amend any Act; secondly that it should amend several other Acts; and then finally that it should be a stand-alone bill and be its own thing—three quite contradictory conflicting arguments put forward by members opposite which kind of highlights where this debate is. It would help if members focused on what the real issues are. This bill is going to amend the Electoral Act—that's what it says it's going to do. Clause 3 requires that. It has to because if we want to make the change that affirms and strengthens the fundamental principle of MMP—that the electorate collectively decides the proportional make-up of this House—then the Electoral Act has to be amended and so clause 3 has to state that. There is no other piece of legislation that it can amend. So the Electoral Act has to be amended—the Electoral Act 1993—and the member who just resumed his seat spoke eloquently about the creation of that piece of legislation. It followed of course a political promise made by the then Prime Minister—oddly enough against his party's own policies—and none of the National MPs at that time knew that promise was going to be made. It was a promise made on the hustings that we were going to have a referendum on MMP and so we did. Of course the House then had to respond to the first of those referenda and the legislation came together. So that's the background to that. But 20 years or however many years on from the first creation of the MMP legislation and indeed after the first MMP general election of 1996 we do need to affirm that basic principle about what MMP is about. It is about the proportional share of representation within this Parliament and making sure that the actions of individual MPs do not undermine the will of the electorate. That's all this is about. I don't actually detect a lot of disagreement to that but it's being dressed up as some giant kind of federal case as if it was something else. It is not that because as we all know—and really the significance I think of things like the 1688 Bill of Rights and indeed the Magna Carta is that they all have their historical context. The Magna Carta was actually an attempt by the aristocrats to entrench their power when they saw an opportunity to push the monarch aside and also to assert even more power over the paupers and peasants and the various others whom they extracted hideous rents from. That's what that was about. But we celebrate the Magna Carta now as this great expression of human rights and it does—it does that. But it was a document used for completely different purposes as indeed the 1688 Bill of Rights was too. That was historically about the Protestants asserting their power at a time when they saw the opportunity to do so and also to push the monarch around a wee bit more because the reputation of the monarchy had been somewhat tarnished. Clause 3 is going to amend the Electoral Act because that's the only way we get to reassert this very important principle.Hon Tim Macindoe: Madam Chair—Mr Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Tim Macindoe.