Robson Matt: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Electoral Act—Hon Harry Duynhoven 
Robson Matt: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Electoral Act—Hon Harry Duynhoven 
[Volume:610;Page:7835] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Chairperson of the Privileges Committee) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of the report of the Privileges Committee on the question of privilege referred on 23 July 2003 
. I am pleased to report to the House as chair of the Privileges Committee on the matter referred by Mr Speaker to that committee and about which of course a large amount of debate occurred last week resulting in legislation to amend the Electoral Act. The question was referred to the committee because a matter of privilege as Mr Speaker ruled was raised by the fact that the Hon Harry Duynhoven was possibly in breach of section 55(1)(c) of the Electoral Act. The matter concerned his Dutch citizenship and the effect that its restoration had on his right to sit in this House.  
First of all I assure members that the Privileges Committee acting on behalf of the House in this matter took the issue extremely seriously. Of course as is shown in the report that has been tabled a number of views came out of the committee’s deliberation. But those views—first of all on the question of whether the seat of Mr Duynhoven was vacant and then on the question of a recommendation to the House on what action should or should not be taken—reflected the complex matters before the committee. It was not necessarily the case that there was a right or wrong answer to each and every question that we considered but it was a matter of ensuring that when coming to particular conclusions members paid attention to the evidence before them—the sets of facts that were agreed to—and then drew their conclusions. 
The Privileges Committee is not a judicial body in the sense that a court is but it is charged with paying accord to the law and also with acting in terms of natural justice. Natural justice in particular is important when any member of the House or the public is requested to appear before the committee requests to appear before the committee or in some cases—which was not the case here—is summonsed to appear before the committee. 
The background to the case is set out in the report. I want to say at this point that the question of breaking the law which has been alleged and spoken of many times in this House in relation to this matter was not an issue. Mr Duynhoven applied for the restoration of his Dutch citizenship and that was a legal right. He breached no law in doing that and no member of the committee said that he did. It is a fact that he did not breach the law. The question of whether the action that he took then made the seat vacant is also not a question of a breach of the law. The question for the committee for the House and of course for Mr Speaker who makes the final determination under the law was whether that action of Mr Duynhoven’s once established made the seat vacant. That in particular was the major question of interpretation before us in relation to the Act. 
 The committee spent some time in debating that. We heard evidence directly from Mr Duynhoven and that was extremely useful in the sense of establishing a chain of events. We also heard from his counsel Sir Geoffrey Palmer on his interpretation of the law in relation to the taking of Dutch citizenship. We ourselves as a committee had the benefit of the evidence of the Solicitor-General and also of advice from the Clerk of the House. Added to that was other material that came to the committee—for example the views of Professor Joseph of Canterbury University. [ 
Interruption 
] The point I make is that we had written comment by Professor Joseph; I give that by way of an example. So the committee drew on a number of sources plus direct evidence from Mr Duynhoven. 
Then the committee deliberated on whether a vacancy existed. On that question as members will know from the report there was a division within the committee over the question of interpretation. In my view as the chair of the committee the seven members who decided there was a vacancy because of the actions taken by Mr Duynhoven interpreted the law much along the lines of the advice of the Solicitor-General. But the right to make a decision means one does not necessarily have to follow the advice of one person or another but one has to listen carefully to the advice that people put forward. Three members of the committee quite properly used their right to say they had arrived at another interpretation. 
For the record I say to the House this law is ambiguous in terms of its interpretation. As with the interpretation of any Act there is a right—in fact a legal duty—to consider whether it requires a fair large or liberal interpretation. The majority view was that the Act triggered a vacancy in the seat and a minority said that they disagreed with that. From those positions that members had come to—which were still only advice to the Speaker of the House—the committee then looked at its recommendations. A majority was in favour of some legislation. Members can read the committee’s report and understand from it the basis of the views of those who favoured passing legislation. 
Within the majority of the committee that favoured passing legislation there was a majority and a minority position. The majority position within that majority was that the legislation should be for the term of this Parliament and should cover all members who were either dual citizens or faced actions flowing from having dual citizenship so that they would not make their seats vacant or in the case of lists member they would not have to resign and the next person on the list come in. A minority within that position Winston Peters and Peter Dunne held that while there should be legislation it should be much narrower and take account only of the position of Mr Duynhoven. If I can summarise their position fairly they accepted his position was one where the consequences flowing from his action—which I stress was not a breach of the law; it was not an illegal act—were out of proportion to what was fair and right. 
The minority on the committee took the view that there should not be any legislation and that the seat was vacant. They made it quite clear that they attributed no ill will to Harry Duynhoven in relation to the act he had taken but they believed that the law should follow its course and the seat should be declared vacant. In summary the findings of the committee on that point of recommendation to the House was a split one with the majority being in favour of some form of legislative action and a minority saying that no we should not enact legislation. 
In conclusion the Privileges Committee took the issue very seriously and went through its deliberations carefully. There was pressure from outside to reach a decision earlier than we did. The reason that we could not do so was that every member was going through the issues in a painstaking way in order to arrive in my opinion at a conclusion that they felt comfortable with in terms of both the facts of the case and the law. Lastly I believe that a service has been done to this House because the debate on this case has opened up an area of law to public discussion with regard to what our policy should be on dual citizenship what that means in terms of sitting in this House and what we consider to be allegiance to New Zealand or to a foreign power. In my opinion the Privileges Committee did a good job in advising the House. It is up to the House or rather to the Speaker of course to make the decision. But the Privileges Committee in terms of the reform of the Act has now left that in the hands of a select committee which now will be able to look closely at the Act and to consider what is good law in relation to election to the Parliament of New Zealand.