Seymour David: Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4747. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I have been waiting for this bill for some time. Unwrapping the Order Paper has been much like a game of pass the parcel hoping each time that Mr Lees-Galloway’s bill would finally be up for debate. Tonight it is. The reason why I have relished debating this bill is that often in politics and public policy there is actually legitimate cause for debate and valid points on both sides but in this case the Opposition is so wrong on every count that it is a delightful case to prosecute.Richard Prosser: Spot the vested interest.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well we will address that. Let me start with a little bit of history. We have an electoral system that has two tests for whether or not a member or members can enter Parliament. One is that they must win an electorate—win the majority of voters within a geographical area. The other is that their party must win 5 percent of all the votes. The objective of this policy—that is to balance proportionality with stability of Government—is something that this bill is seeking to change. They decided back in Germany post-World War II when this particular system of electing representatives was designed to have two tests: one was to win some geographical areas and the other was to win 5 percent of all votes. Why? Because they were concerned as it happened that ethnic Danes who were concentrated in certain geographical areas but who had brethren represented around the rest of the country might be fully represented by passing not just the one test but actually both. So what that achieved was that the proportionality of Parliament could be enhanced while also having a clear test for stability and that nobody would be elected unless they could persuade the majority of a particular geographical area to vote for them.Fast forward to 1986 when our own royal commission on the electoral legislation actually contemplated that Māori and Pacific Island peoples who might be concentrated in a particular geographical area—Carmel Sepuloni is really thinking right now—would be able to elect members and also enhance the proportionality of Parliament through representation being proportional to their brethren if you like in the remainder of the country. Interestingly as it comes to pass in this House today the sole beneficiary of the coat-tailing rule that this bill is seeking to remove is actually one Marama Fox. I do not know what the Labour Party could possibly have against Marama Fox because she is a fabulous member of this House. But let us be clear: the only net effect on the current House of changing this Act would be to remove Marama Fox from it. Why does the Labour Party hate Marama Fox? That is the question that I would like to be answered tonight. It is certainly not clear.We heard earlier in this debate a superb contribution from one Judith Collins and she recited the history that in 1996 it was indeed the Labour and Green parties who strategically elected Jeanette Fitzsimons to Coromandel in order to take advantage of the coat-tailing rule. My earnest friend here the Rt Hon Winston Peters had his political skin saved in 1999 by the people of Tauranga and New Zealand First via the coat-tailing rule. But let us be honest about the real motivation for this bill on the part of its proponents and that is that if you take the entire history of MMP for a period the coat-tailing rule benefited the left and then it benefited the right. There is no more to it than that. There is no more sincere motivation on the part of the proponents of this bill other than the fact that it has politically disadvantaged them recently. The Rt Hon Winston Peters knows that he has been kept away from the cross benches at least twice in the last three elections by this Act. For that reason he is very angry about it too and I understand—I understand. Time is running out. None the less I will be opposing this bill because there is no sound principle—only self-interest on the part of the proponents of this bill. Thank you.