Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I rise to support the idea of these reviews in the Supplementary Order Papers in the name of Chris Bishop. They are really just a selection of options for that review body.Before I move into that I just want to make some comments on the last contribution from the Minister in the chair Andrew Little. He started off by suggesting that there is already an avenue for review after each election through the Justice Committee. There are a couple of problems with that and that is that the terms of that review are broadly speaking subject to the will of the members of that committee. So there's no way of mandating that this legislation or the provisions that would be enacted through this bill would get reviewed at any of those post-election reviews.The second point is actually the purpose of those reviews and leads to a question for the Minister. In those reviews the purpose is to review the previous general election and potentially local body elections. Yet the provisions that this bill would enact are not about elections. They are about what transpires between elections. They are not about the electoral process itself and not about a general election campaign or the administration thereof or even promoting voting within the public; they are about treatment of members of Parliament once elected. So quite frankly the Justice Committee is not the right vehicle to entertain a potential review of these provisions.The other point that Mr Little made was an attack on my good colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith for some comments he allegedly made about public servants. Mr Little claimed he failed to defend those. Well that's incredibly ironic given that this bill does nothing at all to defend the members elected to serve New Zealanders. It does nothing to defend their rights their freedoms and indeed the will of the public of New Zealand at all. It takes away those rights. It minimises them. It places them potentially under the yoke of a despotic party leader.When they were making those comments Mr Little made the point that in opposing this bill we were just showing Tory privilege". Well if that is the case and that was deemed parliamentary to make that claim then I think it is only reasonable that we could look across at members opposite and the Minister whose name this bill is under and say that the provisions of this bill are seeking to apply Stalinist democracy to New Zealand.Now on to the point of the review: I actually think the reviews are an extremely good idea given that the numbers would indicate that this bill is probably going to pass. The question then becomes what body should do the review. I have been swayed by some arguments I've heard today about the Electoral Commission being the right body to do that because principally they're an independent government entity and their whole reason for being is around the electoral system and confidence in the system. It would be very easy I think to accept and have confidence in the work the commission might do in the review of the provisions that this bill would enact on a periodic basis.But I'm not convinced that they are of the choices that are available to Parliament the best of the bodies to do that and that is because principally as with the point I made earlier around the Justice Committee and their post-election reviews every three years the Electoral Commission is primarily responsible and interested in the electoral process itself and administering how elections are conducted. It is not or does not tend to comment on the behaviour and actions of members once elected—so between those respective general or by-elections.So I would actually contend that the Law Commission would probably represent a better body of expertise and wisdom which obviously has a much broader remit. I would argue that it would be in a better position to take a very holistic and broad view of the provisions of the bill and how they have played out over the previous three years how they might have worked in practice and the perceptions they may have instilled—particularly amongst the public—about how they affected members' behaviour over the term. Was there an apparent silencing of members? Did they seem reticent to put forward their own views perhaps for fear of the action that a party leader might take against them? So I would argue that the Law Commission rather than the Electoral Commission would give us a broader and more holistic and deeper view on how the provisions were operating in practice."