Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I do feel a bit sorry for Labour members because frankly there are very few arguments in favour of this legislation. Ms Andersen I think put probably the best case she could which is that if you ask basically a person in the street Do you think if you're elected to Parliament and you leave your party that should be banned or not allowed?" probably quite a few people out on the street would say "Yeah that seems fair enough to me." That's about the best thing you can say. Weighed up against that is the Bill of Rights 1688 freedom of speech the history of our democracy Winston Churchill the Attorney-General Dr Nick Smith and almost every political academic in New Zealand whether they be a constitutional scholar or a legal scholar or a political historian all of whom say this bill is a crock and they've said it for 20-plus years. But yet here we are. It's baffling that the Government supports this legislation and it's baffling because it's only on the statute book because of a mistake. It's basically an accident that we have it. Winston Peters as part of his price to put this Government into office after the 2017 election said to Jacinda Ardern "Well I want the old waka-jumping law back." We know why he wanted it back: because he was concerned about his crop of new MPs: Darroch Ball—well actually Darroch had been there before. Mark Patterson a former National Party member—in fact I think an electorate chair—who got elected for New Zealand First. He looked at Mark Patterson sitting there on the backbench of this new Government led by Labour with the Greens and went "Hmmm I don't think old Mark Patterson's going to be too keen on this Government having just been a member of the National Party. I know! One way around making sure he can't leave—or if he does leave I can boot him from Parliament—is I'll make it part of the coalition negotiation." Of course because Winston Peters had all the power and it was costless for the Prime Minister to agree we have it. Here's the mistake: the Greens didn't negotiate properly. The Greens just said "OK we'll let that one go through to the keeper." and then they found themselves on the floor of the Parliament very quickly in 2018 having to vote for something that successive Green leaders had made repeated invocations to Parliament to not pass. But the Greens had to vote for it anyway. Wasn't it deliciously sweet when David Carter's bill got pulled from the ballot at the tail end of the last Parliament and it was pretty clear that the tide was running out on New Zealand First and Winston Peters and the Greens voted to send it to a committee? I think everyone assumed that that having been done—as the new Parliament comes back in and the Government's got a stonking great majority—this would go through. No one likes this legislation. The Labour Party didn't like it in Government last time; they only did it because of New Zealand First. We don't like it. The Greens hate it. The ACT Party hates it. There was never a majority in the last Parliament—as Dr Smith points out—if you actually do the votes honestly. So everyone assumed we'd get rid of it. But now we find bizarrely and quixotically the Government's decided to support it for reasons that are baffling—they are just baffling. Ginny Andersen said that proportionality is sacrosanct—except it's not. If there was a by-election tomorrow if someone resigned—I don't know say the member of Parliament for Rongotai decides to resign because he's been elected the Mayor of Wellington for example. Just as a random example I just draw from nowhere—Hon Dr Nick Smith: And National wins the seat. CHRIS BISHOP: —and National wins the seat. It's pretty unlikely to be fair but you know that Mount Vic Tunnel—we need that one through. The election could turn on the Mount Vic Tunnel—who knows? If National wins Labour would go down a seat and National would win a seat. Labour wouldn't get a supplementary list spot to make up for Paul Eagle having lost; National would gain that seat. So proportionality isn't sacrosanct. The 5 percent threshold distorts proportionality. If you get 4.3 percent—Colin Craig knows all about it. Don't be too mean to him but if you go and ask him about it he'll tell you all about it. On 4.3 percent he's not in Parliament. Proportionality changes from time to time and it changes during parliamentary election terms. In fact Dr Nick Smith tells me there are five examples in the Electoral Act that breach proportionality. So it's not this sacrosanct principle; it's important but it's not sacrosanct. The other point I want to make—and it's very important—is that the voters sort out bad behaviour. They can smell an opportunist from a principled politician a mile off. That's why Jami-Lee Ross is not an MP any more. He left; he got turfed and he got thumped by my good mate Christopher Luxon in Botany and we welcome that. Gordon Copeland a former candidate in Hutt South on two occasions ran against me—he left United Future. The public saw through him. He got turfed and he didn't make it back. Brendan Horan was elected to Parliament as a New Zealand First MP—that's another example as to why Winston wanted it. I just reminded myself as I make the point: Brendan Horan was elected to Parliament he ran as an Independent at the next election and he was turfed. Alamein Kopu—no longer an MP. But of course then you've got the other examples. Jim Anderton a principled person was re-elected and formed a new party: Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition. In fact we've got a former member on the Labour front bench who is a former member. She wasn't elected as a Jim Anderton's coalition member but is a former member. Tariana Turia left the Labour Party—again principled dispute over the foreshore and seabed legislation—and formed the Māori Party now called Te Paati Māori and was of course re-elected and served a distinguished career as an MP for Te Tai Hauāuru and then also as a Minister in the last Government. The public know what they're doing here. The opportunists the unprincipled people who are just out to rort the public—the public kick them out at the next election. I want to also talk about the argument around the chilling effect on members. Now Ms Andersen said "Well we don't have any examples of that." but of course the whole point about the chilling effect of something is that you can't measure it. You can't measure what people don't say because they don't say it so we don't know. That's the whole point about the chilling effect. The prefatory point here that's very important is that we have an extremely party disciplined system. The whipping in New Zealand is extensive and vast—some would say too vast—but we really enforce party discipline. You ally with that the fact that we have very large executives drawn from quite small legislatures. Half the Labour Party caucus is a member of the executive. It's about 50:50 and it's no different across Governments—I'm not making a party political point. I'm saying that's the constitutional nature of it and we have list MPs. Members in this House will know that whether we like it or not there is a bit of an incentive—and I'm speaking frankly and honestly—when you're a list MP to not step from the party line. Why is that? Because it's the party that dictates where you are on the list. If you're a troublemaker the odds that you're going to be high enough up on the list to make it back are not that great. That's just the simple political incentive. So we have list MPs who have an incentive—Hon Member: Which one's this member?CHRIS BISHOP: I'll choose not to respond to that. So the political incentive is to not be a troublemaker. The point here is that with a whip system with a large executive and with the existence of list MPs the incentive to go along with the party are already high. But actually—and this is the point Dr Smith made—we want MPs to sometimes say unpalatable things. Actually sometimes we want MPs to go against the party line. Actually I'd be one who would say looking back with the perspective of history that actually it's a good thing Marilyn Waring spoke up on nuclear ships. Marilyn Waring divorced herself from Mike Moore in relation to rape legislation that was going through the Parliament in the early 1980s and I think with the perspective of history we'd look back and say it was a good thing she said that. I think again with the perspective of history we'd say it's a good thing that Tariana Turia stood up on the foreshore and seabed legislation. People have different perspectives on it and they don't have to agree but isn't this a place where we want robust debate? Isn't it a place where on occasion we actually want MPs to say "You know what? I don't agree with my party."? Here's what we don't want: we don't want MPs to be afraid of saying so because they think their party leader might kick them out. We want MPs to debate things robustly and that's the point Dr Smith made about free speech. This is the home of free speech. The Bill of Rights 1688 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 affirm that. People have gone into battle and fought for New Zealand and fought for those rights. We owe it to their legacy and we owe it to the history of this Parliament and the institution of the Parliament to make sure that people can sometimes divorce themselves from the party line. That will not be the case with this law in our statute book. When National gets back into Government we will repeal it immediately."