Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. This is a sad day for our Parliament that we are yet again enacting at the behest of one man a stupid piece of legislation that will be reflected upon overseas as a Draconian anti-democratic piece of legislation. When National is returned to Government we will repeal it and I will be proud to stand in that Government that repeals it. Let me run through the reasons why this bill should not pass. Number one: there has as yet been no attempt by any Government member to actually outline any real problem that demands this bill be passed. Usually when we pass legislation in Parliament we look for what's known in the law as a mischief. What is the mischief? Why are we here? What is the point of the legislation we are debating? There is no mischief when it comes to proportionality in Parliament. MPs who dissent from their parties and leave those parties and are seen to have done so in an unjustified manner are thrown out at the next election. Taito Phillip Field was kicked out of the Parliament when he left the Labour Party. Gordon Copeland was binned from the Parliament when he left the United Future party. Likewise those MPs who are seen to do so for good reasons—Tariana Turia and others—are returned. There is no mischief. The democratic process can handle MPs leaving political parties. This point was made repeatedly by numerous submitters to the select committee including by the Law Society. This point has been utterly ignored by members opposite. The second point: the bill is illogical and I'll explain why it's illogical. By-elections change proportionality during parliamentary terms but by-elections are allowed after the passage of this bill. Winston Peters and Andrew Little the Minister of Justice like to go on about the sacrosanct principle of proportionality as determined at an election time except by-elections change proportionality between elections. The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill is utterly silent about the changing of proportionality because of by-elections. Winston Peters in 2015—sadly for the people of Northland—for two years won the seat of Northland. National went down one seat in Parliament. New Zealand First went up one seat. I did not hear the Rt Hon Winston Peters campaigning up and down the country to have a list MP from New Zealand First taken away from him and another list MP given to the National Party to restore proportionality as at the 2014 election. Why? Because he doesn't actually believe that proportionality is some sacrosanct principle. The reason we are passing this law is because he cannot control his caucus and he wants to be able to give himself the force of a quasi-constitutional statute to control his caucus. It is a disgrace. The bill is illogical. Thirdly the bill is unconstitutional. I don't mean unconstitutional in the sense of it violating some written constitution—we don't have one of those. I mean it's unconstitutional in a number of respects but I want to emphasise how it's unconstitutional in the sense that it is not being passed with bipartisan support. As my colleague Nick Smith has pointed out on numerous occasions there is a convention in Parliament that when we make changes to electoral law it is done on a bipartisan basis. We have an unwritten constitution in this Parliament. We have a Parliament that is sovereign. Parliament sets the law for how elections should be held. We subcontract out a little bit of it to the Representation Commission but actually we write the rules. The Justice Committee conducts an inquiry Parliament considers how elections should be held in this country and we determine when electoral vacancies occur. Because of that enormous power Parliament needs to reflect and consider very carefully when it changes things like the Electoral Act 1993. It is a constitutional statute yet here we are again considering a radical change to our electoral law and it is being forced through by a bare majority of three parties one of whom we know does not support the bill. We are in this extraordinary situation where the Greens openly admit they do not support the legislation yet they will vote for it anyway. So we have a majority of Parliament opposed to a constitutional statute but we are passing it anyway. It is a constitutional outrage.The fourth point: this bill violates human rights—in particular freedom of speech and freedom of association. There was no section 7 report issued by the Attorney-General on this piece of legislation. There should have been. Let me make it clear for the House. The Attorney-General failed in his responsibility to issue a report to Parliament advising that the bill violated the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. We had this curious situation where the legal advice that he relied upon was refused to be released. For many many years Attorneys-General have released the legal advice provided to them by Crown Law or the Ministry of Justice and made it freely available. The Attorney-General has waived privilege in making that advice available. That did not occur in the case of the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. That is a disgrace. It should have been. The advice that the Attorney-General told us about was that the issue was finely balanced. Well finely balanced" is the understatement of the century.What this bill does is arrogate enormous power to party leaders and it has an enormous impact on the free speech of MPs and the freedom of association of MPs. That point was made repeatedly by constitutional experts to the select committee. Throughout the process the Minister has disparaged them. He has treated those concerns with contempt. He has described them as only self-described experts—people with PhDs in human rights and doctorates of law from universities all around the world including the Alma Mater of the list MP for the Green Party sitting in the Chamber Golriz Ghahraman. He has disparaged them in a quite unfair way—I think in a disgraceful way.This bill does violate human rights and I want to briefly touch on the issue raised by the Law Society because one of the points the Attorney-General did make was that the bill is justified and consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act because the judicial review is available and we're not taking away the power of MPs to seek review through the courts like Donna Awatere Huata did—except as the Law Society made comment repeatedly to us in select committee that is actually disputed. If you read the Prebble v Awatere Huata decision three of the judges on the Supreme Court expressly doubted in their comments in the judgment as to whether or not judicial review was available. They also expressly doubted whether or not parliamentary privilege could be overridden in investigating why an MP could be booted out of Parliament.The reason why Prebble v Awatere Huata actually proceeded was because all parties agreed to essentially set those issues aside so that there could be some resolution but the point remains none the less. And of course that was before the passing of the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014 which puts in place much more restrictions on the invigilation that the court can conduct when it comes to judicial review.So there is a real issue about whether or not judicial review is available. Have we had any engagement on that point by Government parties and by Government members? No. Did they support any amendments that were put up by the National Opposition to make sure judicial review was available? No. The self-proclaimed human rights expert for the Green Party Golriz Ghahraman turned up to the select committee for a good couple of hours and didn't bother with the rest of it and yet she has not taken a call throughout the debate. The human rights experts in the Green Party and all of the people she corresponds with around the rest of the world will hang their heads in shame.The fifth point: the bill is not supported. It's not just not supported by the Parliament; it is not supported by those who know what they are talking about. We did not hear one submission in favour of the bill on the select committee. We did not hear one quality submission in favour of the bill at the select committee; quite the contrary. We heard the former co-leader of the Green Party Jeanette Fitzsimons come and speak to the committee and talk about what a disgrace it was. We heard constitutional scholars that the Minister likes to disparage come and tell us in no uncertain terms that the bill should not proceed.We are here only because of one man and because a supine Green Party has decided to put their lust for power over their principles that they like to bang on about so much. Well the next time the Greens get on their high horse and tell us about human rights—tell us about how New Zealand must stand up for human rights internationally—we will laugh. We will scorn them. We will treat those remarks with the contempt they deserve because on this day more than a year after the election of the Government we are sitting here in a Parliament and we're going to pass a tawdry unconstitutional obnoxious piece of legislation because of one man and one supine party. It is a disgrace."