Meager JamesJAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Madam Speaker thank you. Look can I just take the opportunity to congratulate the member Arena Williams for her bill. I'm only new to this House but I know how hard it is to have a bill pulled. It's not easy and it's one of the few chances as backbenchers that we have to make a contribution legislatively to our nation's democracy. So I just want to pass on my congratulations to the member: you're a passionate intelligent competent member. I'm sorry that the member cannot vote for herself in her electorate. However there is a history of a long line of Prime Ministers who also have not been able to vote for themselves in their electorate so maybe who knows time will tell about what happens in that member's future. So I just wanted to again extend my congratulations to her. I know how proud your whānau would be of your bill coming through and I hope you have the opportunity to have another piece of law come before the House in the future because sadly for the member the day for her bill to pass through the House may have to wait another day because we in the National Party on this side of the House unfortunately for the member will not be supporting this bill to progress any further. There are many reasons why a lot of which my colleagues will outline to the House over the next hour or so but I have just two key reasons that I wanted to outline to the House this evening. The first is for constitutional reasons and generally in my view it is constitutionally inappropriate to entrench legislation like this first of all through the member's bill process. I understand for the member there is no other way to get this kind of change through the House. The member was previously in Government and the previous Government didn't choose to progress the bill through their legislative time frame. So I understand that but there are still constitutional objections to progressing entrenchment legislation through the member's bill process.Beyond that there are a number of philosophical and constitutional objections to entrenching parts of legislation in general and indeed whether or not this House has the ability to entrench practically and bind a future Parliament by the current Parliament. The second reason that I will be speaking against the legislation is a practical reason. The reason I wanted to say practical reason is because I suspect some of the intentions behind this bill from the member and members opposite is to protect the interests of minorities in this country and to try to alleviate some of the disparities that we do see on a population basis between particular ethnic groups particularly for Māori Pasifika and other groups. Unfortunately I don't believe that this bill does anything to improve those outcomes. I think the time in this House could be spent on other initiatives that would much more quickly and more effectively progress the rights and the health of Māori and Pacific and all other peoples in our country who suffer the injustice and unfairness of misfortune or life or who don't have the opportunities that maybe some others of us in this House have had. So that's the second point I wanted to make later on in this contribution about the practical reasons why we shouldn't be following it along. I picked up on the member's note about it receiving a clean bill of rights vet. Now I hope the member realises that there is no stronger advocate or person who is more interested in the Attorney-General bill of rights vets than—I was about to say me in this House but then I look across and see the Hon David Parker sitting there who wrote quite a few of them. Of course the Attorney-General herself colloquially known as JC Casey to her friends and colleagues and then of course Chris Penk I'm sure would be interested in that too. But I'm glad it received a clean bill of rights vet. We can't say that for all pieces of legislation that go through the House and I'm sure we won't say that for all pieces of legislation that will ever go through the House. In fact if the Electoral Act itself was passed through the bill of rights vetting process some may say and some case law may indicate that the Electoral Act itself may not have passed a bill of rights vetting process. But I won't be commenting any further on that due to my sincere and long-held respect for the courts and their decision-making process. Of course if Parliament wanted to indicate its displeasure it could do so through the legislative process. I just wanted to also touch on another comment that the member made that this could not have been the intention of Parliament. Well of course it's the intention of Parliament. Parliament passed the law Parliament drafted the words that are in the law and in the years that have passed since Parliament did pass that law it has not been changed—not for want of trying and I acknowledge the Hon Rino Tirikatene and his contribution. However Parliament has passed this law; it is the law. By definition it must be what Parliament intended to be the law. So I don't hold much truck with the argument that it can't possibly have been Parliament's intention to have any kind of difference or disparity on that. I was at one point a public lawyer; I dabbled in the public law. I won't say it was a particularly long-held career or that I was particularly effective at it perhaps but I did have some very good lecturers at University of Otago. I just want to acknowledge the Otago alumni who are here with us tonight gathering in and around the precinct. Lots of very good lecturers the likes of public law Professors Nicola Wheen; new recruit Dr Edward Willis; and of course Andrew Geddis the I would say lead public law commentator and constitutional law expert in this country. They did teach me very well and I say that Professor Geddis taught me well although I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have failed one of his electoral law papers. So that doesn't bode very well for the rest of my argument and take that with a grain of salt. But what I did learn through my education at that fine institution—and I'm sorry the member in charge of the bill chose to go to the second-best law school in the country—was that you know entrenchment is a serious process to be taken seriously. We entrenched very very few provisions in our statute books. The member went through quite a few of them and so I won't be repeating the provisions which are entrenched regardless of how long that may take in the House. But the legislative entrenchment process is not a step you take lightly. It purports to allow one Parliament to bind a future Parliament. What it says to the people of New Zealand is that we don't trust the people of our country to make decisions for themselves in 10 20 30 years. We want to bind you to adhere to the values and systems and settings that we want to put in place now and not give you the democratic choice and freedom to change those decisions later on very easily regardless of the outcomes that they may have regardless of how the shifting sands of time of New Zealand's societal fabric may move throughout those years. That's one of the reasons why we don't have a strong what you might call written constitution in this country. Hon Member: We can do it for the South Island; we should do it for Māori. JAMES MEAGER: I actually agree with the member wholeheartedly; we have a pretty well-functioning very good exceptional constitutional system in our country. I think there's a good adage to the rule If it ain't broke why fix it?" So perhaps the member in her ending contribution can reflect on that as well. Of course I want to talk about the philosophical implications of trying to entrench a Parliament. Of course we are the masters of our own destiny here in this House. While some scholars may say it takes a 75 percent majority to overturn an entrenched provision of course all it actually takes is a majority vote in Parliament to change the Standing Orders or suspend the Standing Orders and then remove that particular piece of legislation. Because the only thing that binds Parliament until perhaps a bit of case law tells us otherwise is the fact that Parliament's Standing Orders require that 75 percent majority. So there is a very sound philosophical argument made by much much much smarter people than I and much more educated people than I that there is no possible way for Parliament to entrench itself and bind itself in the future. So I just think to the member it might be one of those occasions where we are trying to do something which actually will not work in the end. Just in my last 90-odd seconds of contribution I just wanted to touch on the fact that there are some things that we could be doing in our country which would support the plight of individuals who whakapapa Māori and who are suffering from illness or incarceration or poor education or poverty on a population basis which is at a much more disproportionate level than anyone else. I would say too generally that argument: it's not my DNA that makes me any worse off it's not what's in my genes that makes me sick it's generally the environment the context our upbringing and our backgrounds the societal conditions and I suspect poverty low education exposure to the criminal justice system which makes the biggest impact. So if we can actually focus our efforts on those areas rather than trying to drag ourselves into a constitutional debate about whether or not we can entrench ourselves I think that'd be a much more productive way to proceed. Finally can I conclude by acknowledging that this bill has been before the House before in 2018. It was before the House under a Labour Government; it failed before the House under a Labour Government under the name of the Hon Rino Tirikatene and I just wanted to pay my respects and acknowledgement to Rino for his long service in the House. He served in an electorate that I voted in 2008 and I just wanted to acknowledge his contribution on this particular piece of legislation or this bill. But we won't be supporting it and I wish the member all the best in her future."