Robson Matt: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Robson Matt: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7814] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I congratulate the Green speaker on that contribution earlier. It was a rational speech and took us to the issues. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: It reminded me of the words of Pierre Bourdieu a French scholar who said —[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
:—that it will be a great day for Parliaments around the world when they act like scholars and actually look at the facts. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Right through the Hon Bill English’s speech there was a constant barrage of interjections made by five or six members of the Government. It was constant. You did not raise a murmur. Matt Robson started on his speech I interjected in a way that was rare witty and interesting as did Bill English and you shut us both down. That is wrong. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. It was wrong to speak in the second person. Members are perfectly entitled to interject in the third person. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: I hold the opinion that if we had many more dual citizens in this Parliament it could lift the level. 
I heard Mr English call me a parrot and I think that sort of ad hominem attack is exactly what is wrong with much of the debate that I have heard in this Parliament in the time I have been here since 1996. I have been insulted in terms of the level of intelligence and the low general level of debate in the New Zealand Parliament. I rarely yell out to people; I try to listen to the arguments. But frankly if I went through the  
Hansard  
I would find that the level of debate in the New Zealand Parliament is one of the lowest that I have experienced in many Parliaments around the world. I say that having visited about 10 other Parliaments and having been particularly impressed when I was in the German Parliament by the fact that its members actually spoke to the issues. 
If members want to be given an argument for dual citizenship I would say that some of those people who have argued in this debate in terms of their patriotism and who have beaten themselves on the chest while saying how strong their feelings for New Zealand are possibly hold only New Zealand passports. But many of the people with dual citizenship who have served in this Parliament going back over many decades have clearly made an enormous contribution. It is not an argument to say that because someone has dual citizenship he or she does not give allegiance to New Zealand. That has been reflected in the very liberal attitude of this Parliament and of the country which recognises that people can be New Zealand citizens without having to eschew their origins. There is a fallacy in the argument that if one takes a foreign passport one is somehow or other shifting allegiance or giving it to a particular Government. Where does it state that because a person is a citizen of a country he or she has to support the aims or objectives of a particular Government? For example we have many American citizens in this country. They live here because they do not like the policies of the Bush administration. I have a problem with the Australian Government because it did not like me saying as a Minister that it was acting as the deputy sheriff for the United States. 
My criticism of previous New Zealand Governments—particularly National Governments but also Labour administrations—was that they gave away their adherence to New Zealand’s best interests in two ways. One was through the sale of State-owned assets. As far as I know it was New Zealand passport-holders who sold New Zealand’s public assets and they became very rich. They gave that benefit to many New Zealand passport-holders who now live overseas—Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite are but two of the people whom New Zealand First has attacked over the years and quite rightly. Holding a passport does not mean a person gives allegiance to a country; what one needs to actually look at is what people do in their day-to-day lives. 
We are told that the Privileges Committee is a rubber stamp. I first went and saw the Privileges Committee under Paul East a former National member for whom I had quite a high regard. It was an absolute disgrace. There was no procedure or order. The committee acted like some of the worst select committees I have seen—not good ones like the one chaired by Brian Donnelly which I read about in the newspaper yesterday. He is very strong in his chairmanship but some of the select committees in this Parliament have been disgraceful. The Privileges Committee that I saw under the previous National Government was like that—and talk about a rubber stamp! The issues in the Alamein Kopu case were predetermined because Alamein Kopu was going to provide a vote for the National Party. That was a disgrace. 
Two particular sayings sprang to mind when I heard this debate. One is that patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels and I think people should reflect on that. I have often found in life that those who beat their breasts about patriotism are the biggest scoundrels of all. The second saying is that this is not the crime of the century; in fact there is no crime. Harry Duynhoven was entitled to apply for his Dutch nationality to be restored—there is no crime in that. We encourage that in New Zealand because dual citizenship is allowed. The question then becomes one of interpretation. Having been successful in doing that does that mean his seat should be vacated? That is not a crime either; it is a question of interpretation. Harry Duynhoven is not sitting here as a fraud. There is a difference between a crime and an action a person is entitled to take that may have consequences flowing from it. 
The Privileges Committee quite properly looked at that issue. Anybody who goes to the Privileges Committee will see that I as the chair my deputy chair John Carter and the committee members are determined to make the Privileges Committee act properly in a semi-judicial way. It is not a judicial committee in the sense of being set up by the courts or by legislation but it must act in a judicial way. We have plans to make sure that the committee will set down rules that will particularly allow for the principles of natural justice to be followed. It was not helpful for the committee to have Mr Richard Prebble say he had made up his mind as to what should happen before he had heard the evidence. That was not helpful at all but under the rules we could do nothing about it. What the Privileges Committee did was to look first at the narrow question and by seven to three members it said yes it looked as though there was a vacancy. 
I was one of those members so at that stage I was neither a parrot nor a lapdog if that is the next ad hominem insult to be thrown at me. I acted in accordance with what I believed having looked at the matter. The three members who voted against that were entitled to take a fair large and liberal interpretation. That shows the difficulty we had because this matter has thrown up many unanswered questions and that meant we had serious matters to argue for. 
This bill before us now gives us the space to clear up the ambiguities and the mess. It is a sensible step to take.