Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to respond to two of the points that were made by the Minister in the debate on the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in which National members are seeking independent review of this legislation.The Minister in the chair Andrew Little took offence because I have been critical of justice officials. Let me be very clear about this: the Ministry of Justice has important constitutional roles that are separate to the Government of the day. That becomes very important in respect of the issue of compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. What is very unusual about this bill is that it is the first bill in more than 20 years in which we do not have access to the independent advice of officials about compliance with the Bill of Rights.Now that's pretty fundamental for Parliament. We went to extraordinary lengths to try and get access to that advice because what occurred here—and just to give a little bit of history—when a near-identical bill was passed by the Parliament 15 years ago was that the Solicitor-General provided advice that it was a breach of the Bill of Rights as a consequence of the extensions that were made quite critically from the position of a voluntary resignation of a member of Parliament to one where a member of Parliament could be dismissed. There is a power of difference between those two issues.So what we are attempting to do with this SOP is say Well OK the Ministry of Justice have turned out to be complete lackeys for the Government." Well the Minister in the chair shakes his head. Why was it that at no point were justice officials prepared to give the Ministry of Justice's view on this bill? We asked multiple times in the Justice Committee and all they repeated was "It is Government policy to do (a) (b) and (c)." Now that's just not good enough. We know what Government policy is. Why is it that the Ministry of Justice on such a significant constitutional issue was not able to provide Parliament with any point of view about this particularly contentious legislation?So what we're doing with these SOPs is saying "Well actually we're relaxed." We have confidence in the independence of the Electoral Commission we have confidence in the Law Commission and we would be happy for the Green Party—and I know the member in the House from the Green Party Golriz Ghahraman is passionate about human rights. Well why won't she take a call or participate in this debate? Why is it that the Green Party member is prepared to travel to the far ends of the world to champion human rights but takes a seat in this Parliament and is not prepared to take a call to defend human rights in this Parliament?This is what we know. We know that the Human Rights Commission says this breaches the Bill of Rights we know that the Law Society says it breaches the Bill of Rights and we know that experts from every one of New Zealand's respected universities say it's a breach of the Bill of Rights. In fact we have only one person who says it does not breach the Bill of Rights and that's David Parker and he depends on Winston Peters who wants this bill for his job. So that brings me back: why would members opposite not want to support an amendment that provides for that independent advice that members on this side of the House have been trying to squeeze out of the Government bureaucracy for nearly six months now?Here's the second issue I take real issue with. The Minister in the chair in his contribution said we were just about protecting Tory privilege. Is it really that the right to sit as a member of Parliament without being sacked by your party leader is now viewed as a "Tory privilege"? Well actually it's in the German constitution. You couldn't do this in Britain Australia or the US but somehow that fundamental right of a parliamentary democracy is written off by the Minister of Justice in charge of electoral law. If that is the Minister's position New Zealanders have everything to fear and we need a Law Commission review."