Power Simon: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Power Simon: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7789] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill raises some very interesting questions. When we listened to the Hon Jim Sutton doing his best impersonation of John Wayne it was clear that he does not understand what the bill means. He does not have a clue. He was sent down here by someone on a floor above him and told to get in there and fight for Harry Duynhoven but he missed the point completely because the bill is about more than just the Hon Harry Duynhoven as my colleagues have pointed out. 
If this bill were designed to protect Harry Duynhoven only clause 4 would state: “Section 55(1)(b) and (c) of the principal Act do not apply to the Hon Harry Duynhoven.” But that is not what it states. What it states is: “... the principal Act do not apply to any member of Parliament.” As my colleague Gerry Brownlee has pointed out nobody on this side of the Chamber asked for it. In fact I do not believe that anybody in the Chamber at all apart from Labour Party members has asked for this particular clause and it seems to me that the whole issue would go away if each member of the Labour Party stood in the Chamber and said: “It’s not me.” At that point we would not have to worry any more about it and we would be clear that the bill was about the Hon Harry Duynhoven. 
The most disturbing thing about Jim Sutton’s comments was that he would have clause 4 amended to state: “Section 55(1)(b) and (c) of the principal Act do not apply to any member of Parliament provided their majority is approved by the Hon Rick Barker.” That scares me on many levels but the first level on which it scares me—and let us be fair Harry Duynhoven does have a large majority but I am a bit concerned that Mr Barker would not be able to count that high—is that members of the Government have risen in this Chamber today and said that this measure should not matter because of the size of Mr Duynhoven’s majority. That is just ridiculous. Would the same rules apply to David Parker who sits on a majority of about 680 or 690 from memory? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Let him go. 
SIMON POWER 
: He would be gone. 
Darren Hughes 
: I’ve got a great majority. 
SIMON POWER 
: Darren Hughes pipes up. He should just get up and declare that he clearly has dual citizenship of New Zealand and some African nation and tell the Committee what the story is and be done with it or alternatively he should stand now and deny his citizenship of an African nation. It is pretty clear to the rest of us that that possibility exists. He should get up and take that opportunity. 
The Hon Roger Sowry in his initial remarks raised the point as to why on earth we would include the date of 14 August 2002 as part of the retrospectivity of this legislation when Harry Duynhoven in his own evidence to the Privileges Committee said that he applied for citizenship of the Netherlands this year. Why is that? That date is the date on which the writ was returned after the last election but why would we be bothered about having the legislation take effect from that date if no one other than Harry Duynhoven has broken the law? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Someone else has applied. 
SIMON POWER 
: Someone else has applied. So we get back to the same central point that was raised with regard to the title and to the way in which Part 1 was put together. Members on this side of the Chamber are interested to know which member of the Labour Party is hiding. It would be very straightforward simply to say: “It’s not me”. I cannot understand why the media in this country are letting Dr Cullen get away with “No comment” when every other party in Parliament has declared straight up that none of its members have breached those rules. This is a dual standard. It is a very simple and straightforward matter to rectify. I say to those who believe that an exemption should be made just for Harry Duynhoven that if members opposite believe that he is so worthy of special legislation why was he not put in Cabinet straight away? Why has Harry Duynhoven become indispensable now? It is a very odd trend considering the record of that poor old member under the current Prime Minister.