Barker Rick: General Debates 
Barker Rick: General Debates 
[Volume:606;Page:3568] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. The Standing Orders are a very important part of this Parliament. Without them there would be chaos. I want to refer members to Standing Order 35 “Notification of party details”. It states: “(1) A party must inform the Speaker of—(a) the name by which it wishes to be known for parliamentary purposes (b) the identity of its leader and other office-holders such as deputy leader and whips and (c) its parliamentary membership.” 
At the beginning of this term the ACT party would have written to Mr Speaker advising that Richard Prebble was the leader and identifying nine people as its party constituents. When it said that it was going to have nine members it was claiming resources from Parliament resources from the taxpayer for nine members. It was going to take obligations for nine members and account for those nine members at approximately $110000 a head. 
There has been a dispute within ACT and Mr Speaker you have ruled on it. You have said that whilst Donna Awatere Huata is suspended from the ACT caucus she is to be included in the party vote totals cast for ACT unless she votes to the contrary. I was stunned and amazed yesterday to hear the ACT party cast eight votes. It is very interesting that yesterday we had three confidence resolutions. No confidence was expressed by the Greens and 119 votes were cast; no confidence was proposed by New Zealand First and 119 votes were cast; no confidence was proposed by National and 119 votes were cast. The only party whose vote was down was the ACT party; the ACT party cast eight votes. 
Mr Ken Shirley said that how the ACT party votes is entirely its business and that that is the end of the matter. I say that is not the case. The public voted by 145000 votes to give the ACT party 7.14 percent of the vote and nine seats in this House. The ACT party has to account to the public to those 145000 people as to why it cast only eight votes. It could be that it decided not to cast a vote for Donna Awatere Huata or it could be that in fact three of the ACT caucus were absent from this building. ACT is allowed to have two absent members but once the number goes beyond two its vote has to go down one. We have the prospect that a third of the ACT caucus was absent from this House at the time of a confidence vote. Two million voters want to hear from the ACT party as to why it is receiving funding for nine people and doing the work of eight. The ACT party has to account to this House for why it is taking funding for nine people and doing the work of eight. 
I want the ACT whip and its other members if they are doing the work of nine people to say where the other three members were. All members know that the most important resolution in this Chamber is a confidence resolution. Every party was here in full quota as the parties always are but the ACT party the lazy ACT party could put only six people in the Chamber—or else it simply did not vote on behalf of Donna Awatere Huata. I want to know what explanation Rodney Hide—the so-called perk–buster—has for why his party is taking the money for nine members but delivering for only eight. 
It seems to me to be an old-fashioned rort. ACT is taking money for something but not delivering on it. The ACT party has campaigned in the past about it being about values not politics. I want the ACT party to explain to us the values behind a party that receives money for nine members but delivers for only eight. I want to hear the values that are behind that. I do not want to hear the politics of it; I want to hear the values. 
I also want to hear from the ACT party which started off as the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—so-called to defend the rights of consumers and taxpayers—how it can justify pay for nine people going to the ACT party when it can deliver for only eight. How is that doing justice for taxpayers? I also want to hear from ACT members why they are deliberately distorting the proportionality of this Parliament. The ACT party by consistently voting down is distorting this Parliament. The public—2 million voters—did not vote for 119 members in this Parliament; they voted for 120 members. If the ACT party does not want all its members or all its votes it can give some to the Labour Party.