O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Mr Chair. I seem to have disappointed a number of my colleagues. But look we are here talking about a new clause 3A amending the interpretation of integrity. Look if we are talking about integrity it is once again important to define the word but in fact I'm not going to spend too much time on that. As I'm sure the Minister in the chair knows integrity" actually initially came from the Old French "intégras" which ultimately is linked to the Latin—to bring to integer to be intact.But what's really fundamentally important is if you're going to define integrity it has to be defined within the context of the Parliament. Most years I give a post-graduate lecture at the university around the nature of what it means to be an MP. It'll be interesting in recent times whether or not I'll be allowed to return to that university to speak but if we're going to define integrity one has to define it in the context of what an MP does. An MP is a person who wears effectively four hats. Our integrity is exercised as a parliamentarian it's exercised in my case as an electorate MP and it's exercised in terms of a party that I work in—and of course my integrity is exercised in who I am myself.So if we're going to redefine integrity—and as it's done here it's saying "(a) working in such a way that decisions reflect the democratic will of the people; and"—in particular—"(b) that [a] member … of Parliament act[s] consistently with the principles on which they were elected". I posit through you and to the committee that to understand integrity we have to understand those four hats. I think the problem that this bill runs into amongst many levels is that it only relies on say one of those four hats—saying that one's integrity as a member of Parliament in this House can and is solely to be executed judged by the party alone. Your integrity as an electorate MP your integrity as a parliamentarian and your integrity as an individual is subservient to second to below and in fact trampled upon by the integrity alone to the party.I would suggest to the Minister in the chair that it not only makes us as members of Parliament—[coughs]—croaky in the voice with emotion but no is turning members of Parliament not into people who are intact integer but who are automatons of a party structure. The importance of integrity as a parliamentarian is that first and foremost we work for the greater purpose of democracy. The Minister himself from the chair earlier talked about the whole demos the people—that is what we are as a House of Representatives. Our integrity as it should be defined by this new clause 3A is to work for the benefit of all the people.The funny thing about people is that they are weird and they are wonderful. They are strange in their diversity. In fact that's where if not a paradox of thinking the integer the integrity that kicks in is that we as a House of Representatives must reflect that. In terms of an electorate my electorate is different from those of others. That's why mine is called Tāmaki and why there are 60000 within that space and I do my best. According to what this new clause 3A suggests particularly new paragraph (b) I must work consistently with the principles of integrity as a local constituent to reflect them. What the members of Tāmaki think will be different to what the members of the Coromandel think to what Ōhāriu thinks to what Pakuranga thinks or to what Rongotai thinks. That's where the integrity comes about.Where we're running into major difficulties is as I've suggested without defining and understanding integrity properly we are solely—via this bill and by the current structure which we must amend by approving this Supplementary Order Paper 73—judging integrity by party. We all know—we've heard it from some examples being given; sadly only by one side of the House—that if integrity alone is judged by the party we are actually making the individual MP subservient to the group. That is an affront to all the basic democratic principles which have evolved over time.It is becoming de rigueur at the moment that group rights trump the individual. We hear it day after day after day that people define themselves by their age or their gender or their sexuality or their ethnic group—not on who they are as an individual but by the parties they belong to. As it would be no surprise to this House I don't actually give a tinker's cuss what group—"