Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): This bill is a constitutional affront. It's not just me who says that. It's not just my good colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith who says that. Academics from around New Zealand say that human rights experts from around New Zealand say that and the Green Party leaders from yesteryear say that. The only party in Parliament that has consistently voted against constitutional affronts like this bill is the National Party of New Zealand.I want to canvass three things in my contribution to this afternoon's debate and I want to start with the Green Party. I want to start with the extraordinary contribution made by Golriz Ghahraman to this debate. Frankly her speech was a disgrace to her party and an embarrassment to her predecessors in the Green Party. Let's dispel once and for all the myth that the Green Party is obliged to vote for this bill—they are not. We know that because of leaked Cabinet Office advice that has come from ordinary hard-working grassroots Green Party members that specifically says the Greens are not obliged to vote for this bill. What does their co-leader say? She says We are doing this because the confidence and supply agreement holds us to do it." That is wrong. We know that is wrong. The Greens should have the courage of their convictions and listen—and listen—to their former co-leaders. They can and they should vote against this legislation.What else did we hear from Miss Ghahraman? Well we heard a lot about child poverty and I think neo-liberalism—the bête noire of the left—was mentioned about 45 times. We heard a lot about oil and gas. We heard a lot about housing and poverty. I'll tell you what we didn't hear much of: not much about the bill—not much about the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. Golriz Ghahraman is a human rights expert. She is fond of telling us she's worked around the world on human rights matters and she's got a constitutional law degree and all sorts of things. Heaven knows we've heard a lot about that in the last nine months. She could not mount a single proper argument in favour of this legislation other than to say "We've done a deal and we've sold our soul. We are unprincipled and we are going to vote for this legislation."The third point I want to make about the Greens is they will not even come down to this House and promise that they will amend the legislation or attempt to amend this legislation when it gets to the committee of the whole House stage. If they were serious about putting through this bill and making it a serious bill they would try and amend it. My colleague Dr Nick Smith has a whole series of amendments. There were loads of amendments suggested to us by the New Zealand Law Society and by lots of groups during the select committee process. None of those amendments have been made or recommended by the Justice Committee so there's plenty of opportunity to discuss them.There is plenty of opportunity for us to amend this bill in the committee of the whole House stage. I note that there are constitutional scholars on Twitter and others in the public who have said they're very happy to work with the Green Party to improve the bill. One amendment for example—I'll just throw this out there during this speech. One contribution could be to amend the retrospectivity because as the Law Society pointed out in their contribution to the select committee members in this Parliament were elected with this law not in place and if it passes in this Parliament it will essentially retrospectively amend the law as at 23 September 2017 when the last election was and say that members who are not elected under one system of our government will then have to be subject to a different system. That is constitutionally repugnant as well.The Greens could get rid of that easily. The New Zealand National Party—I'm not the spokesperson but I am confident in saying because my colleague Nick Smith's nodding at me—we would support that. Another thing that we would support is the ability to give judicial review and that brings me to the second part of my speech which is about human rights.Why is judicial review important? I'll tell you why. It's important because one of the reasons why the Attorney-General has certified to Parliament that the bill complies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is because there is the ability for judicial review to be taken. The New Zealand Law Society rightly pointed out in their contribution to the select committee that the Attorney-General's New Zealand Bill of Rights Act analysis says that members can be not " 'subject to a capricious or unreasonable exercise of the measures they are not left without remedy' as they could apply to the High Court for judicial review."Judicial review is very important. Basically it's the only reason why the Attorney-General has concluded that the bill is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. However the Law Society also made a number of very serious points to the committee. It is very doubtful that judicial review is actually available. Why do they say that? Well in the only case decided under previous iterations of this legislation—Prebble v Awatere Huata—three judges in the Supreme Court expressly left the question open as to whether or not judicial review applied. Now the parties in Prebble v Awatere Huata assumed that judicial review was available and so the court therefore didn't have to decide it. They just accepted that it was available. But the Chief Justice expressly noted that it was at least arguable that such a decision was not reviewable or was only reviewable on limited grounds. Justice Gault said it was difficult to see the content of a notification under section 55D as reviewable and Justice Keith made similar comments—three judges out of five that's a majority.Why else is it arguable? They also expressly left open the question of whether or not parliamentary privilege prevented the courts inquiring into what goes on in Parliament and the courts—in the case of cases like Prebble v Awatere Huata and in the cases that may be yet to come—would have to consider voting records. They may have to consider caucus deliberations. They may have to consider what goes on in this place. In this Parliament we are jealous and we are keen to protect our privileges.The other point to make about parliamentary privilege is that Prebble v Awatere Huata was decided before the passing of the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014 which has significantly tightened the law around what the courts can and can't inquire into in this Parliament. The Law Society made all these points. They are important points because if judicial review is not available then the remedy that mitigates the harm done to a member's rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not dealt to. Therefore the harm accrues to the member and makes it an unjustified limit on the rights that he or she enjoys.What rights am I talking about? I'm talking about freedom of association and freedom of speech. It was a former justice of the Supreme Court in the case of Hosking v Ranting that made the point that freedom of expression is the first and last trench in the protection of liberty. It is in some ways one of the most important rights that we enjoy. It is particularly important for members of Parliament and particularly electorate MPs to be able to express freely and frankly the concerns of their constituents because their mandate does not belong to party leaders. This is the critical point. The mandate that is given to members in this House does not derive from their party leaders; it derives from the people and it derives from their votes. So human rights are extremely important in this debate. The analysis that I'm putting forward to the House that the Law Society offered is very important.What engagement did we have with this on the select committee? Well we attempted to get to the bottom of this very important issue. We asked the Ministry of Justice to provide legal analysis. That was declined by Labour members. We unanimously resolved to invite the Attorney-General and Crown Law to come to the select committee and explain but that never happened. The Human Rights Commission expressed grave concerns about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act content of this bill and various other legal experts did as well. I'll tell you something very interesting. If you go to the Crown Law and Ministry of Justice websites you will find the underlying legal analysis in relation to section 7 reports that have been made or not made by the Attorney-General to Parliament. The only example you will find of a section 7 underlying legal analysis being replaced by the Attorney-General's own interpretation is in relation to the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. That says everything about this bill."