Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Indeed it is Mr Chair and I'm grateful to you for pointing that out and I'm very happy to speak about that and in particular to emphasise why although it's a narrow debate it's a very important clause. I have to say that the contributions of the Hon Shane Jones recently suggest to me that he's been taking lessons from that well-known Australian diplomat Sir Les Patterson because they've had all the accuracy and frankly the relevance of that particular gentleman.Clause 6 is effectively a consequential amendment and frequently consequential amendments are passed through the committee stage of the whole House quite quickly. But in this case I want to suggest to you that this is a clause a consequential amendment that must be debated rigorously and must be rejected because it represents a real travesty. The reason it does is because the substantive section to which it becomes an additional part is in itself an affront to democracy. Therefore to add this consequential amendment is repugnant.Now it probably would be helpful to those who may be listening from outside the House to hear that in the principal Act section 133 is titled No writ to issue pending election petition" and it reads "If after a petition has been presented against the return of any member representing an electoral district his or her seat becomes vacant on any of the grounds mentioned in section 55"—and that's obviously what we've been debating for most of this evening—"no writ to fill the vacancy shall be issued until after the petition has been disposed of and not then if the court determines that that member was not duly elected or returned and that some other person was duly elected or returned." Therefore this consequential amendment would if adopted say "In section 133 after 'section 55' insert 'or 55A'."Now I want to turn to a couple of the matters that the Minister Andrew Little has referred to that are relevant to this but first of all could I again be positive and say that I do admire the fact that the Minister has taken a number of calls during the course of this evening and I have considerable sympathy for the Minister. I have no doubt (a) that he is fundamentally opposed to this bill in private and is really swallowing a dead rat on behalf of the governing parties and (b) that he must be furious with his colleagues who have left him high and dry not only tonight but also this afternoon and frankly throughout all of the debate on this bill to date because we've heard nothing from any of them—nothing at all apart from a couple of rather farcical interjections and some faux outrage at times that has had no relevance.Now of this particular clause which as I say must be defeated because it is repugnant—the bill as a whole is repugnant—I make the point that ultimately Oppositions cannot defeat the passage of legislation where the governing parties have the numbers no matter how controversial the legislation might be and no matter how poorly conceived it could be. But could I say to the Greens—and it's picking up on the point that Dr Nick Smith made just a few moments ago—that if the Greens will support the Opposition in voting against this particular clause 6 they will not in any way undermine the stability of the Government. They will not prevent the substantive bill from passing but they will demonstrate what they have been on record as saying not just recently about this bill but in their long history about matters of this type.I commented earlier on the fact that this is the most repugnant legislation to come before the House since the Electoral Finance Act and so I say to Jan Logie who I believe is a principled and honourable member who often takes calls on principle: join us in voting against clause 6 of this bill. You won't defeat the bill therefore it won't damage the Government but it will show that the Green Party is prepared to stand up for the principles that they have long articulated to the electorate as a whole. So I ask her to at the very least take a call tomorrow as we continue our discussion of clause 6 to explain what the Green Party position is on this.I say to the New Zealand First Party: how outrageous. What an insult it is to the House and to the country that they have failed to take any calls at all on any of these clauses and I ask them to take a call on clause 6 because it's only because of their intervention that we've got to do this."