Prebble Richard: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Prebble Richard: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7786] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 We are coming to the operative clause of the bill clause 4 which states that section 55(1)(b) and (c) of the principal Act—that is the Electoral Act—do not apply to any member of Parliament. That is a remarkable clause when one thinks about it. It just says that those parts of that section of the Act do not apply. What is that section? It is the section that says a member of Parliament cannot swear allegiance to a foreign State. I have a series of amendments. I will quickly go through them because I think the Committee ought to study them. 
The first one is to replace “any member of Parliament” with just “Hon Harry Duynhoven”. Then we would be doing exactly what New Zealand First wants because the bill would apply only to that member. I think the Greens ought to look at that. 
I really do ask the Committee to support the next one. The ACT members of Parliament do not want to have this exemption; we want to remain bound by the law to give allegiance only to New Zealand. So we have asked that every ACT MP be exempted from this bill. I am asking Parliament not to apply it to us. 
Then I have amendments listing a number of MPs who it is rumoured are the MPs concerned who are affected by this law. Why have I chosen those MPs? Because they are the ones about whom rumours are going around. There might be others. I want those MPs to know because they have an interesting question: if it is not them then they should make sure they do not vote for this clause. I have started off with the Rt Hon Helen Clark then Tim Barnett Dr Ashraf Choudhary Michael Cullen Taito Phillip Field Hon Mark Gosche Winnie Laban and the Hon Jim Sutton. Then as the Greens seem to be quite extraordinary in their support for this bill I have Sue Bradford and Nandor Tanczos. There may be others. I invite other MPs to put them up. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What about Keith Locke? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: No I think Keith Locke is actually a New Zealand - bred Kampuchean supporter. Let me make this point. I have been listening to people who are not on the Privileges Committee saying that the National Party and the ACT party turned down the Privileges Committee doing a survey. Not so! Those members should go and look at the minutes of the committee. They will not see any proposal to do a survey. It was discussed and we realised that as a select committee we did not have the power to do it. My party and others said that we would do it through the whips and we came back to the committee. I gave such an undertaking having taken this issue so seriously that I had gone back to every member of our party—although I did not contact Donna Awatere Huata because I know where she comes from; I wish this bill did catch her but it does not. The National Party came back and made its statement. Mr Peters said at first he had not done it but when he came back to the next meeting he had. Every single party except the Labour Party gave an undertaking to the Privileges Committee many of which have been repeated here under privilege. The only party at the Privileges Committee that would not state that it did not have members of Parliament who have sworn allegiance to foreign powers was the Government—the Labour Party. 
I find that quite extraordinary. It is unprecedented—frightening—that we have a Government putting through a change in the law and it is not prepared to be upfront with this Parliament. Government members are so arrogant that they do not think they have to answer and they are apparently telling the media and the public of New Zealand “No comment.” That is not good enough. I want to see whether Helen Clark is prepared to vote in this House to exempt herself from the law. I want to know that our Prime Minister is not going to travel overseas on a foreign passport and I want to know that members of Cabinet are not travelling around the world on foreign passports. 
I would like to hear from every one of those MPs I have named. Let me apologise to any of them who are not in that position but their names have been put there by their own party. In fact if one of them gets up here and says in front of the whole Committee—so that it is subject to privilege—that he or she is not in that position I will withdraw the amendment applying to that member. That is a pretty fair offer. Having questioned them in this way I say that that is what I would do; I would be taking a point of order and saying that I do not have an overseas passport that I give my allegiance purely to New Zealand. In fact I have had members call out to me and ask me that and I have repeated that I give my allegiance to this country.