Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Yes thank you Madam Chair. Thank you very much. When I had the call last night I was talking about the errant MP from Hamilton West Tim Macindoe—in the formerly marginal seat of Hamilton West now a very safe National seat. But I was speculating in a hypothetical way about what clause 6 of the bill does to the sacred inviolable—apparently—alleged principle of proportionality. The strange thing about clause 6 is that it actually says that electoral petitions are so important they supersede that principle of proportionality that is given effect to by the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. I was talking and I was using Mr Macindoe as an example of how the bill creates a weird incentive for MPs to essentially use electoral petitions to get around the provisions of the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill that may see their removal from Parliament.I was talking about Mr Macindoe; I was taking the example that he was elected and then it turned out that he was a bit like Gilbert Myles—and I've had some correspondence overnight in relation to that but I do wish to make clear to the committee that I'm not besmirching Mr Macindoe's honour or indeed Gilbert Myles' honour. But it turns out we were speculating about him coming into the Parliament and essentially voting with the Opposition on a few occasions and being a bit scurrilous with his behaviour and the Prime Minister or the leader of the day going to the caucus and saying I want Mr Macindoe removed from my caucus. I've had enough of this. This is violating the principles of proportionality. He's not really a National MP." And I was speculating about how the incentive would be for Mr Macindoe from a marginal seat background to use the electoral petition process to call a halt to the provisions laid out in the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill because this is what clause 6 does. This is very important. Clause 6 essentially provides that electoral petitions trump all else and they say that electoral petitions must be resolved before parliamentary leaders can invoke the provisions in the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. So to take the example of Mr Macindoe that would provide incentive for him and some of his colleagues and his good friends and Hamilton West to arrange for a petition to be presented in order for that to be heard. As we know in the case of the Rt Hon Winston Peters himself in 1975 in Hunua and in the case of various other electoral petitions they're rare but they take a long time to resolve. And in the interim Mr Macindoe might have restored his mana and his pride in the National Party and decided to vote again with the National Party not cross the floor on numerous collections as I know he is often wont to do. Mr Macindoe hasn't done any of that—[Interruption] Yeah exactly; he's a former whip—but I use that as an example of the perverse incentives that actually clause 6 of the bill puts in place on elected members.I'll just repeat again: the perverse incentive it provides is for members to use the electoral petition process in order to subvert the principle of proportionality that the rest of the bill gives effect to. In fact the whole purpose of the bill is to raise above all else proportionality as determined at the election. We've already had the debate on the inconsistency of not taking into account by-elections.I'll go back to where I started at the start of my contribution. You look at clause 6 and you think well it's just a tiny little consequential amendment but actually when one stops to consider it and you think about the consequences like with a lot of things we pass through this Parliament—particularly when it comes to electoral matters that are not done on a bipartisan basis—there's been no outreach from the Government on this to National to try and get them to support it because we would never do it. So this is not a multipartisan bill. This is not a bipartisan piece of legislation. This is a piece of untrammelled political expediency by the coalition and when that happens you get unintended consequences and this is an unintended consequence. I want to know from the Minister in the chair Andrew Little what he is going to do about the unintended consequence of the perverse incentive of electoral petitions being allowed to subvert the principle of proportionality."