O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I stand in support of the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. Given the discussion around integrity which has gone at a relatively low level can I bring the discussion up a little? This whole debate is about the integrity of this House in the eyes of the public the very people who we are here to represent.During question time we welcomed a Korean delegation which I was privileged enough to address last week. They were fascinated by our MMP system. The old adage is that the best way to learn is to teach and I found it a very valuable exercise to explain our system to them. They were somewhat incredulous particularly around our list members coming into this House and the fact that people can be here holding important positions who haven't won an electorate. As someone who does hold an electorate I felt quite empowered to explain their value and the essential nature of list MPs to this House. What it does is it brings skills to this House that we may not have otherwise. It brings a minority or a representation a cross-representation to this House that we wouldn't have otherwise. And it was quite fascinating albeit through the quite laboured skills of an interpreter to actually see the look on the faces of these Koreans as they started to understand how MMP works and the value of it.This brings me to this legislation. Winston Churchill often is quoted in various ways around his description of democracy so I did take time to find out what he did actually say and what he said is Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe."—sin and woe something that the members opposite seem to be wallowing in as I stand here. "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except [for] all those other forms that have been tried from time to time;". So it behoves those of us who are here who are at the core of our democratic system as elected representatives whichever way we come to this House to do all we can in our power to preserve that democracy.We are now in the 22nd year of MMP which includes eight elections and the fact that the new Government has broken new ground in the formation of this current coalition Government just shows how we are evolving MMP how we are developing an understanding and as my Korean counterparts—colleagues—there understood in its basic form we are operating at another level. I'm not worried that no other Parliament in the world has this system because no other Parliament in the world is as evolved or developed. I suspect that many of them will have this very legislation in time to come because it is good legislation.We are talking about the integrity of this House before our public—before those who send us here those who look to us. Treachery of the type that has often been seen here—there's an old saying; I was looking for the source of the saying. It's said that often those who love the treason hate the traitor so those members over there in Opposition would encourage this sort of treachery. They would love to see this traitor but they would have nothing but despite for such a traitor.In fact I'm reminded as I was looking through for quotes that actually backed this up—for those who may be familiar with "The Frogs of War" in a confrontation Argit: "Attea don't shoot me. We had a deal." Attea as she shoots him: "You had a deal. I had a whim." And that is the sort of whim that this legislation is intended to stop from happening. And the core of this legislation is to preserve the integrity of this House. The strength that we bring to our parties we come here from different places and we bring—it's the strength of the combined talents we have that is the core of our talent and when we take away a part of that we lose something. So I commend this bill to select committee and hope the select committee sees the wisdom of it. I look forward to seeing it back before this House and I believe that the majority of New Zealanders watching this will love to see this pass. It will give them the integrity that this House deserves."