Franks Stephen: Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17274] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I hope that Mr Power gets another call because I can see that he has a lot of explaining to do of the National Party’s position on the provisions of the bill we are debating which essentially tell local authorities to get their sticky fingers off free speech during elections. But I go back to the other provision that he addressed very well which is the reversal of the Duynhoven amendments. 
Part 1 reasserts the importance of loyalty among members of Parliament. Most of us thought it was elementary that New Zealand voters are entitled to expect that when they elect members of this House those members will owe allegiance to New Zealand to the Queen in right of New Zealand and to the people without a conflict of interest. It was pretty straightforward and it has been in our electoral law as long as anyone can remember as well as being in the electoral law of other countries. Now this bill is reinstating it with a minor qualification. It states that there can be a residual loyalty or association with the country of place of birth from which a person came and that one may renew a passport issued by that country before one took office without being deemed to have signed up one’s loyalty to another country. 
Do members recall the scorn that the Prime Minister placed on the Electoral Act’s requirement that people not swear allegiance to a foreign power? She called it an anachronism—an “antiquated technicality” I think the words were. 
 That shameful episode when the Speaker of this House failed to carry out a statutory duty and delayed declaring the vacancy to enable the Government to rush through the legislation that Mr Power has just described probably hid a multitude of people who had signed up allegiance to other lands. I do not think there is anyone in Labour who would still be so blind as to have signed up to the Comintern or to the Communist Party as one might have expected not so many years ago but undoubtedly there must have been more than poor Harry Duynhoven who had signed up allegiance to a foreign power. 
I have no doubt that in the panic they were in if he was alone they would have let him swing at that time. There must have been others to cause them to do something as constitutionally offensive as changing the Electoral Act to get rid of a loyalty requirement and now to reinstate it—because funnily enough it proved not to be an antiquated technicality. Funnily enough when the Justice and Electoral Committee was looking at this provision we were all of one mind that it was important that people not have divided loyalties that it is significant when someone signs up to a foreign power and that it could be relevant to the New Zealand voters that someone has a citizenship that gives them a bolt hole so that they could muck things up here and then disappear to go and live somewhere else because they do not really care. 
It is perfectly open to New Zealand voters to elect a foreigner to this Parliament if they wish as long as they have New Zealand nationality but they need to know what they are doing. It is perfectly rational that the Electoral Act should say: “If you sign up to another power then give the voters a chance to reconfirm your mandate or decide that they would rather have someone who had undivided loyalties.” So to reinstate this under the bland heading “Electoral Matters Bill” means it is a very sad day for something as boldfaced as this. I thought the Government would have been more imaginative. I thought it might have come up with some other changes to the citizenship requirement. For example if this Government really wanted to suddenly assert loyalty why did it not overhaul the dreadful provision that allows non-citizens to vote in New Zealand? In my opinion citizenship should be a privilege. 
This bill instead of simply reinstating the law before the Duynhoven amendment with a minor modification for citizenship from one’s country of birth should have dealt with the offensiveness I see when non-citizens can come here and vote for our Parliament without having any necessary allegiance to this country. They can preserve all their options vote and go back home again leaving a shambles behind them or vote for benefits that they have never had any part in producing. I believe we do not take our citizenship strongly enough and it is time to change that.