Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I'd like to raise some of the issues that—the Minister in the chair Andrew Little says he's answered them all. Well the question that I have is if we're talking about acting in a way that has distorted or is likely to continue to distort the proportionality of political party representation—I think what the issue is is is there an expectation of iron discipline within parties? That seems to be the underlying theme of this as if to say that we now expect that if you're elected as a member of the National Party or the Labour Party or the Green Party somehow there is an expectation that you must vote always with them and there is iron discipline imposed upon those parties. The question is: if a member was to vote against that party for a particular issue would that be distorting the proportionality of political party representation by doing that?That is a serious issue that we have to wrestle with as a country as if to say—because there's been many examples through history where individual members of Parliament have crossed the floor on issues. If we looked at the issues today if you asked what would happen if one of the Greens members for example stood by their conscience and decided not to support this bill and crossed the floor. Would that be distorting the political party representation of Parliament by doing that? There is an argument that looking at this bill the answer would be yes. So somehow without really debating the broader issue we are now sort of saying that MPs are automatons who when they are elected—the only thing that we're doing in a general election is deciding on parties and the MPs are irrelevant; they just have to vote like robots for that party in iron discipline at all times and if they don't they risk being chucked out because according to this clause they will be distorting the proportionality of political parties.There are many other examples. You might say that if a member of the Labour Party decided that they didn't support the anti-immigrant stance for example and voted against that—would we be saying that they would be distorting the proportionality of Parliament? So we're left then with the conclusion that somehow this country has moved to a state where the only thing that matters is the great clunking fist of the party and that is the Holy Grail of everything that the parliamentary system stands for and anybody crossing the floor or disagreeing with their party in a major way it seems to me is exposed by this bill to expulsion because they would distort the proportionality of the political party.I think it raises a broader question: our general elections are not simply about electing parties because we have two votes—we have a party vote and we have an electorate vote. So there are two elements to the election going on where we're electing parties and we're also electing individuals particularly in constituencies. The Minister said every MP is equal but you can only draw the conclusion that like in Animal Farm some MPs are more equal than others. I look across the Chamber at that Minister and it worries me—me as a list MP I feel like I'm one of the little piggies who isn't as equal as some of the others. I don't think that's true.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No one wants the runt.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: That's right. So the two questions I have are: is the Minister through this legislation somehow establishing a new principle that there needs to be iron discipline within parties and that any deviation for that is cause for expulsion because of disrupting the proportionality of political party representations; and is he also saying that the fact that individuals in New Zealand get to vote—[Time expired]