Dean JacquiHon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you Madam Chair. It's always good in a difficult debate such as this to go back to the fundamentals and to the departmental disclosure statement to just really revisit perhaps the general policy statement and the measures that Cabinet and this Government went through in bringing forward this piece of work. My colleague Nick Smith has talked—oh I'm sure he hasn't finished because he'll have some other points to make around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the advice around that. But I want to start with the general policy statement. It is part one of this paper. I want to unpick what proportionality of political party representation really means because in questions in the House the Minister of Justice's stock answer to any question around this bill this waka-jumping bill has been: It preserves the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament as determined by electors." That's it—that's the answer. That's the only defence. That's the only reason. So what does he mean by "proportionality"? Well we know—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member—Hon JACQUI DEAN: —what is meant by proportionality. It means that a number of people—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I just apologise to the member taking the call. Are you speaking to clause 4—Hon JACQUI DEAN: Yes. CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): —which is directly about political party membership? Hon JACQUI DEAN: Yes I am. Thank you Madam Chair. Yes indeed I am speaking to clause 4. Maybe I was perhaps traversing a meandering path to get there but indeed I am speaking to clause 4: how a member ceases to be a parliamentary member of a political party for which she was elected. Perhaps I was being a little too obtuse so I will track back from that to the proportionality aspect of that clause to say that proportionality is indeed determined by the electors. That is how the likes of me as a constituency MP and others who are list MPs get to be in this House. We understand that very clearly about proportionality. What I don't understand is how the ability for the leader of a party in collusion with his or her caucus can remove a member of Parliament in the name of proportionality because that is clearly a sham. It is a weak excuse for giving the power—to get rid of an outspoken MP from that leader's caucus. And that's all it is. So this argument about proportionality is nothing more than a smokescreen in order for a leader and a proportion of the caucus to get rid of a member of Parliament who has indicated—or maybe the leader even thinks that that member may be proposing to leave the party. How that happens is very very unclear. So is the member who is dissenting—how does the leader know that that member is planning to leave the party? Is it a Chinese whisper situation? Does that not put all of us in peril except for those of us in the National Party? But does that put us or members of New Zealand First New Zealand Labour and the Green Party—does that not put all those members in peril of impure thoughts? So is that what it's going to come down to? Is it going to come down to a thought in the mind of a list or an elected MP which is not totally aligned with the leader of those parties and therefore the leader can surmise or guess that that member is about to leave the caucus and so pre-empts him by going to the Speaker and saying that this member is going to distort the proportionality of Parliament? What a sham—what a sham. How can the Minister of Justice stand in this House day after day and advance that argument because the simplest of unpicking absolutely undoes it."