Brownlee Gerry: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7772] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 The last two speeches from Peter Dunne a supporter of the Government and the Minister Rick Barker show just how tatty this whole process is and how disgraceful and despicable it is that the process of this House has been drawn into something that should never have happened. 
In discussing Part 1 I call the Committee’s attention to  
New Zealand Parliamentary Practice 
 written by David McGee. A number of people have said in the course of this debate that David McGee is recognised as the best Clerk in the Commonwealth. He says that the House and its members are subject to the law of the land as promulgated by Parliament in the same way as everyone else in the State and that they must comply with any statute that applies to the House’s proceedings notwithstanding any Standing Order or practice of the House to the contrary. Well we are seeing a practice of the House that is contrary to all the things about our parliamentary democracy that are good. 
Peter Dunne stood up and said this bill flows from the report of the Privileges Committee but that cannot possibly be true because the report of the Privileges Committee has not been dealt with by the House. So what are we expected to believe: that the Privileges Committee’s report which was tabled at 1 o’clock yesterday was raced off in some haste to the drafting office which without reference to anything Parliament might have said produced this bill and had it ready for its introduction at about 8 o’clock last night? It never happened. 
This bill is all about a Government scrambling to protect one of its own. The Government is scared witless at the possibility of a by-election—no matter what it says about Mr Duynhoven’s huge majority. As has been pointed out by other members by-elections throw up strange results. This just happens to be a seat surrounded by seabed and foreshore—by foreshore in particular. New Zealanders think they can walk freely over foreshore but the current Government is about to excise that freedom. 
This bill has a reasonably generous provision in it that from the commencement date of this bill till its expiry will allow members of the New Zealand Parliament to consider their options and possibly take up dual citizenship and get a passport for another country and to do so quite lawfully. It has absolutely nothing to do with a desire to protect Harry Duynhoven alone. It is all about Labour having a number of members in its caucus who are being a bit sneaky about this and are not telling us everything they might about their circumstances; Labour wants to protect them and it also wants to cover Harry Duynhoven because it wants to avoid a by-election. So the idea is to make the bill much bigger than just Harry Duynhoven; to open it up and tell the whole of Parliament that here is an opportunity for members to turn their backs on the privilege of being elected to this House of standing in this House and speaking and swear an oath of allegiance to another country. 
I see the Chair suggesting that I narrow the content of my speech. Perhaps the Minister in the chair will tell me if I am wrong. If the intention behind this bill is not as I expressed it perhaps the Minister will say why the commencement and expiry dates are so far apart. Why could there not be some compromise? Why would the Government not make it a “Save Harry Duynhoven’s Seat Bill” rather than the huge electoral vacancies bill that it has turned out to be which lets every MP have a go at getting dual citizenship? 
Another point of interest will be some of the provisions that are suspended during that period of time. Although we should not stray into those now I tell members that that will be a very long debate because I think the Government has made a quite significant number of mistakes here. 
This is a sad sad little exercise on the part of the New Zealand Parliament. If this bill were truly a bill to cover the situation Mr Duynhoven finds himself in the period covered by the dates would be much narrower.