Smith NickIn CommitteeClause 1 TitleHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): In my 28 years as a member of Parliament I have never witnessed a bill that is so inappropriately named. To call a bill the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill when it is not even supported by a majority of the House is a true disgrace. I want to remind the Minister in the chair Andrew Little that in Opposition he made two particular points about electoral law. The first of those was that there should not be changes made in electoral law unless there was a broad support across the Parliament and a supermajority. In this situation we have something far far less than that. We have a party that has received only nine of the 120 seats securing only 7 percent of the parliamentary vote making fundamental changes to traditions in our Parliament that go back 330 years—notionally the key part of this bill giving the power of party leaders to dismiss an MP.But the Minister in the chair went one step further. The Minister in the chair said that not only should bills have in the electoral area a supermajority; he also said they need to come through an independent process. Now we've had four reviews of MMP. Three of those four reviews have directly assessed this issue of when members of Parliament change party. Every one of them—every one of them—concluded that it was inappropriate. So on the issue of integrity we have the Minister of Justice directly breaching his own integrity by supporting an amendment that does not meet the two key tests that he applied.But it's even more serious than that and I must turn to the Green Party. The Green Party have said that this bill is undemocratic.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Speak to the title.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: They have said that this bill is a threat to democracy. How can you possibly have a bill where the majority of Parliament say it is undemocratic say that it is a threat to democracy and give it the title of (Integrity)"—can members opposite possibly say something more offensive? Now my colleagues have come with all sorts of far more honest answers in terms of what this bill should be titled and we could spend a good 30 or 40 minutes debating that but I've got a deal. I've got a deal for the Minister in the chair. My amendment simply requires in my name that this bill be called the "Electoral Amendment Bill"—nothing more nothing less. Remove the word "(Integrity)" that members on this side of the House and actually of the Green Party find so offensive. And I say to the Minister in the chair: accept my amendment remove that offensive word remove the word that 21 constitutional experts say is wrong and we can get on and debate the substance of this bill. But to keep trying to pretend that this bill has got an ounce of integrity is an insult to this Parliament and its 120 members—it is nothing but integrity. It is against integrity when you have the party that determines whether this bill will become law being totally opposed to it in terms of process in terms of policy and in terms of principle.Now I could think of many better names. This is a bill that is about limiting freedom of speech. We could call it that. We could call this bill a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We could call this bill the "Undoing 330 Years of Parliamentary History Bill". We could call this bill actually the "Brendan Horan Memorial Bill". He's the only MP that switched parties in the last 10 years and the resentment for that still runs deep with Mr Peters. We could call it a bill that says "Let's Copy Zimbabwe's Electoral Law Bill". We could call it that because there are only a very few countries—I've asked the Minister in the chair to cite similar countries. We could cite and give this bill the name of "Ignoring the Lessons of History Bill" because when we look around this grand Chamber we see the memorials to those who fought in World War II. And here's the fascinating part: after World War II New Zealand had a role in writing the constitution and the establishment of MMP in Germany. You could call this bill "Ignore the Lessons of World War II Bill" because this bill ironically breaches the very constitution—the very constitution—that the Allied powers insisted that Germany have. Now doesn't it prod the conscience of members opposite that we are passing and proposing legislation that would breach the constitution? In Papua New Guinea they tried this and it was thrown out by the Supreme Court so we could call this bill "Let's Make our Democracy Worse Than PNG Bill". We could call it that. We could call it a more modest title and that is "A Bill to Turn MPs into Party Robots" because this bill will make members of Parliament more subservient to their party leaders and less advocates for their constituents.All of those titles would be appropriate but the least appropriate title for this bill is to somehow pretend that it's got anything to do with integrity. You see if you look up the definition of "integrity" in the Oxford Dictionary it says "Doing what one says and staying true to one's principles." Does the Minister in the chair think that the Green Party is staying true to its principles—a foundation principle of what is required by integrity? I can even look at the gloomy face of Green MP Eugenie Sage. Everything on her face says to me that she recognises that the Green Party is acting with everything against integrity in supporting this bill and I hope they will support these amendments that may reduce the dark stain against the integrity of the Green Party.Others of my colleagues have tabled amendments that say that this bill is actually an undermining of history because what members opposite seem to ignore is that the founding members of the Labour Party changed parties. In the Parliament in 1915 members of the Social Democratic Party of New Zealand and members of the union party merged to form the New Zealand Labour Party. Is the Minister in the chair saying they lacked integrity? Is any other member of the committee claiming that those founding members of the Labour Party lacked integrity when they switched parties to form the great party that has provided so many reforms for New Zealand?If I look at the history of my own party I am deeply proud of the members of Parliament who changed parties in 1936 to establish the New Zealand National Party. And do I think those members that left the Reform Party and the United Party to form the New Zealand National Party in 1936 lacked integrity? I say not. I say they were heroes. I say they established one of the great political movements that has been able to provide stable and good government for this country for years.I equally say to members of the Green Party: do they say that Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald lacked integrity when they left The Alliance and formed the Green Party of New Zealand? I say they acted—and I say to Marama Davidson—with huge integrity. So why would you pass a law that stains the history of your party in effectively saying that Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons lacked integrity?That's what the title of this bill says. It says that those members of Parliament who change parties lack integrity. I indeed think that is wrong and I invite the Minister to take up my invitation and remove the word "(Integrity)" from the title of this bill so that we can get on and debate the substance."