Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to take a call on these. I'm going to talk to all four of these Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the name of Chris Bishop. I want to direct my questions directly to the Minister in the chair and I want to acknowledge that he has in all fairness to him been very good at standing and responding to the issues that we put forward. Now we haven't had clear answers to all of them but at least he's given it a good crack and I acknowledge the fact that I don't believe actually that he does support what is an atrocious and offensive piece of legislation that has been brought to New Zealand's House of Representatives.If we go back to and if we accept that the argument originally is round proportionality and the proportionality that's delivered to the House of Representatives at the end of the general election cycle—and this is why I think a select committee process is going to be very important because the one group of people that we don't talk a lot about in the House who haven't really been part of the discussion is the people of New Zealand: the voters. So I just want a couple of questions answered. I think that why these SOPs are important and it's drawn back into the SOPs is because at least this gives us a chance to do a genuine review of the legislation to see how it's going. But the two questions are these and the Minister has put the proposition to us that it is about proportionality and it's about the proportionality of our Parliament as delivered at the general election. That proportionality in this House is delivered through one vote and that's the party vote and we have a system in New Zealand under MMP where you have two votes. You have one vote for the MP or the person or the individual that you would like to see represent you in the House of Representatives and you have a party vote for the party that you feel is probably most aligned with your own personal values and belief systems and that's how it works.The proportionality of the Parliament is delivered through the party vote not through the electorate vote. So if I were to come to this Parliament as a member of the National Party and my own party was going to try and implement a policy that was deeply unpopular and as a result of that I was going to be ejected from the Parliament then the argument is that we go back for a by-election. But the by-election is not decided through a party vote. So how are the party votes that were made that went to form the proportionality our Parliament—how are those people that went along to the general election in good faith and made a party vote—how is the proportionality protected? How are their views how are the voters' positions protected with this bill in terms of the proportionality in the House? Because you're transferring that from the party vote to the electorate vote and the electorate vote is very different. So that's why I think that a review of the legislation as it's been brought to this House is going to be a critical part in being able to actually give the voters a voice and allow them to actually tell this Parliament what they think about this bill.How are the voters' views going to be represented and this is another question to the Minister. What if the provisions of this bill are triggered by a party leader supported by two-thirds of the caucus and the MP is going to be expelled from this Parliament who was voted in here as an electorate MP—how do the voters have a say on that before that happens?Rt Hon David Carter: They don't.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well I think you're right. They've got no say. So the power sits with the party leaders. So the party leaders effectively can override completely the wishes of the voters that were made at the polling booths at the general election. How is their voice heard? How do they make representations? How do they let the Parliament know that the person they voted in is the person that they want to continue representing them here in this Parliament whether or not they are part of a party or whether they choose to have a membership to a party or not? How do they stop their member of Parliament from being ejected from Parliament.The other point I want to make clear is: tell me for the people that made the party vote—that actually went to the polls and made a party vote which directly relates to the proportionality in this Parliament—how their wishes are protected. Because if you have a by-election whereby that proportionality is now going to be distorted because the electorate vote has overridden their party vote wishes how are their interests actually going to be protected?