Sowry Roger: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Sowry Roger: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7751] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) 
: 
 I want to start by saying a couple of things. Firstly I hope that during the coming hours those who are in the Chair will have full regard to the fact that this bill has not been to a select committee. There is no chance for anyone to make submissions on this legislation. We want to spend some time on working through the individual parts of the bill. I also hope the Government does not carry forward the approach it has taken so far today which has basically been for its members to sit there—apart from the Minister with responsibility for Auckland issues who sits and knits— and ignore the issue and not to take calls other than to use up a little bit of time. [ 
Interruption 
] I welcome the Minister with responsibility for Auckland issues taking a call later on when she has de-tangled her wool. 
The title of this bill does not reflect what it really does which is save one particular member Mr Duynhoven. We are changing the law to ensure that Mr Duynhoven is deemed never to have broken it. Nor does this title reflect the fact that there is another Labour MP who is caught by this. Parliament has not been given the courtesy of knowing who that is but we know that the Labour whips have steadfastly refused to state in the House that every other Labour MP is clean and that no other Labour MP has carried out the same offence that Mr Duynhoven has been found to have carried out. So one can only draw the conclusion that there is another Labour MP in this situation. The senior Government whip knows it and he is part of the code of silence in this Parliament on this issue. I hope the journalists in this country put some effort into finding out who the other Labour MP is. We can guarantee that every National MP is clean but can the Labour whip guarantee that every Labour MP is clean? No he cannot— 
Simon Power 
: He won’t. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: —and he will not because he knows that that is not the case. I flag that we will be voting for the amendments put by other parties that limit this bill to being for just Mr Duynhoven although we will of course be opposing the bill. Given that the Government will have a majority to force the bill through—which is outrageous in itself—the bill should at least in those circumstances apply only to Mr Duynhoven. I hope that if the Government keeps this bill as wide as it is other parties will in the course of the debate decide that it would be best if this bill were not passed in its current form—in fact not passed at all. A number of amendments will be put by the National Party as well as by other parties as we work through the process and we will certainly be looking for opportunities at the appropriate time to talk on those issues. 
I want also to pick up the issue that this bill effectively pre-empts a decision that has been required of the Speaker. It would be far better if that were also referred to in the title of the legislation—that this bill is pre-empting a decision that we believe very very strongly should have been made independently of this process. The ability to make that decision has been there for about 24 hours. We regret with a huge amount of sadness that that decision has not been made.