Coddington Deborah: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7796] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I would like to follow up from what the honourable Minister who is now back in the chair said about half an hour ago. He answered calls from members of the Opposition who had asked for assurance that this legislation was not being passed to protect other members who have not come forward like Harry Duynhoven to declare that they have breached that Act. In answer to calls for the Minister to assure the House he said that he did not know of any other Labour MPs who were doing this. I do not know of any either. No one on this side of the House knows of any other because our questions have not been answered. We have asked and asked. We have been told that the media have asked and asked and they have not been told. They have just been told “No comment.” 
As the Hon Richard Prebble said clause 4 of Part 2 is the crunch clause. It is really appropriate that this is happening 12 months after all of us who became MPs walked into this House and felt very proud to be part of this Westminster tradition and privileged to be elected to represent people out there. We took crash courses in the unwritten constitution of New Zealand courses in select committee procedure and walked through the corridors of these buildings. I felt really honoured to be walking down the corridors looking at some of the photographs on the walls of people who had been elected to this place before. I find it absolutely appalling that just 12 months after we came into this place we are in here under urgency disregarding all of those things that we were taught by the people who work in this place who are not elected members of Parliament who taught us about the importance of public input into a select committee who told us that this was one of the only Parliaments in the world and the Commonwealth that has public submissions and where people can appear at a select committee and have their say. 
So what do we do 12 months down the track? We bring in legislation that exempts MPs from a law because one Labour MP has broken that law. I find that absolutely despicable. I am so proud at least of the fact that the Hon Richard Prebble has moved an amendment that ACT MPs not be included in this despicable legislation. No wonder the public out there have no respect for us! No wonder they think we are a bunch of ratbags! If we pass legislation under urgency that exempts MPs from legislation I can understand fully why they have no respect for us because this legislation brings this whole House into disrepute. 
 As a New Zealand MP I visited the House of Commons. I was proud to be there as a New Zealand MP and to understand more about the Westminster system and why we have the Westminster system. I can see now how far we have strayed from that system when we are so shallow that we bring into the House legislation like this. 
If the Labour Government is indeed just using this legislation to exempt Harry Duynhoven and to save him from going through a by-election why did it not agree to the amendments? It could have agreed to the amendment moved by the Hon Peter Dunne. Ideologically Labour members are opposed to the ones that National and ACT bring in but they could have easily agreed to Peter Dunne’s amendment. If they had nothing to hide and if they had no one else whom they were protecting they would have agreed to that amendment. They could have shown that they at least had one skerrick of decency left in them. 
But why are we not surprised when we see this Government use its power to abuse the Westminster system in terms of trying to overturn the Standing Orders with Business Committee dodgy deals and with a Prime Minister who signs paintings that she does not even paint and who gets rid of people in the private sector whom she does not like—people who send private emails to other people criticising the Government? This is a really sad day. I am proud to support Richard Prebble’s amendment which excludes ACT MPs.