Peters Winston: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Peters Winston: Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7777] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I cannot help but reflect in relation to the last speaker’s address that there are people out there who are dishing out indigenous passports at the moment. In the land of the Tuhoe people are actually dishing out dog licences on the basis that they have not seen the local council in a blue moon so why should they pay licence fees in the Whakatane District? 
Having been defeated on the title of the bill New Zealand First now intends to serve a writ of habeas corpus on the Labour Party. We want Labour to show us the body. We know it is not Harry Duynhoven. We want Labour to show us the people who will be protected by this legislation if it will not support our amendment that states that the only person to be protected in reality will be Harry Duynhoven and no one else. 
Dail Jones 
: More than one body? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: If there is more than one body what is it? Is it “habeas corpi”? 
The Government cannot get away with this. It has been asked now for over 48 hours about the people whom it is seeking to protect with this legislation and it will not mutter a sound a syllable a murmur nor a word. 
Dail Jones 
: Does it know? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The Government must know. It must know that other members are being protected but such is its obsession with power that it has appeared to abandon any principle just to maintain power—even the simple principle of public disclosure of the group of people who are to be protected by this legislation. 
The Government has no reason to come to Parliament with a plan to protect its colleague Harry Duynhoven and then to abuse him and the rest of us by covertly not telling us who else comes within the ambit of this legislation. More important than that I ask what sort of legislation suspends the application of section 55(1)(c) of the Act for the full term of Parliament? The day after this legislation receives the royal assent every parliamentarian with a right of dual citizenship can go overseas and apply again to become an American citizen an English or Britain citizen or a citizen of some other country— 
Ron Mark 
: Nigerian. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: They could become Nigerians Tongans or Samoans. 
This bill is so typical of this Government. Under Labour we are a nation of hyphenated New Zealanders. We are no longer one people—New Zealanders first second and third. No we are Samoan New Zealanders Dutch New Zealanders and Maori New Zealanders—anything but one people. 
Jill Pettis 
: What about Italian? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I do not know of anybody here who is of Italian extraction but I do know that every time that some people here open their mouths they remind me of an Italian fish market. It is not just the sounds but the visual appearances as well that remind me of a fish market. 
Dail Jones 
: Sophia Loren? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I know that Sophia Loren would be turning in her grave but let us not mind that. 
The truth is that a country that is divided cannot stand. A House that is divided cannot stand and nor can a country. A country with no sense of social cohesion will not be successful. No country since the Great War has entered and stayed in the First World that did not have a highly developed sense of social and economic cohesion. However here in this Parliament today Labour is passing a law that the day after it receives the royal assent will enable members of Parliament to sign up for any country they feel like signing up for with impunity. Mr Robson will be able to rejoin his Australian cousins again. The two members from Samoa will be able to rejoin the Samoan nation again. The paradox of course is that those people will all say they are New Zealanders again. It really is ridiculous. 
I ask the Labour Party to please come clean. Who are the secret members it has who have knowingly done far far more serious things than Harry Duynhoven? Why is the Labour Party protecting them? Will Helen Clark’s CV look far better when she is tipped out after the next election if she goes for a UN job as the holder of dual passports? Helen Clark has actually run this country on the basis of an advanced plan that one day she will be in a UN job. She has sold the country down the drain so that one day she will get a UN job. Is she one member who has made an application for a dual passport? 
Simon Power 
: She wants a diplomatic passport. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is right. Helen Clark’s country has become too small for her. Frankly the people will tell her all about that whenever she flies the white flag before the next election.