Hughes Darren: Oaths Modernisation Bill — First Reading 
Hughes Darren: Oaths Modernisation Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20650] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 Members will have been interested to hear from the shadow National Party spokesperson on justice who has just resumed his seat—a man of course who sits at the lower end of the National Party shadow Cabinet. After that speech it will be very clear why he is at No. 14 and bound to sink even further than that. The irony of Dr Richard Worth—a man who likes to use his title which comes from a wananga in a certain country other than this one; he did not quite qualify for the acceptance standards in this country so he raced off to another one—complaining about an oath to the Queen is that no sooner had he sworn allegiance to Queen Elizabeth in this Chamber than he scuttled off across to Europe to find another monarch to pledge his allegiance to in the form of the principality of Monaco. Of course it was not enough for Dr Worth to be loyal to only one monarchy; he wanted to make sure that he could find another country that he could cosy up to in that regard. 
The Minister of Justice introduced the Oaths Modernisation Bill by saying that it was needed to make sure that words that were redundant that lacked clear meaning or that were antiquated were changed and I thought that he was giving a dissertation on the National Party manifesto for the current election. There could be no better example of words that are redundant that lack clear meaning or that are antiquated than the kind of flip-flop 1980s nonsense members get from that side of the House. Finally National has put out a policy position. It is very difficult to get a policy on tax and it is very difficult to get a policy on education but it is easy it seems to get a policy on oaths and allegiances. I thought so except that on 18 February 2004 Dr Richard Worth fresh from his holiday—no actually on 18 February he still would have been on his holiday and this release would have been sent by remote Internet access from the principality of Monaco—put out a statement entitled “Oaths and affirmations: the march to republicanism”. It carries a photo of him from his graduation from Auckland University’s law school circa 1967. Dr Worth stated: “The removal of old and archaic language from the wording of oaths and affirmations is one thing …” but added that the removal of references to the Queen in such oaths was another. 
In the bill presented by Mr Goff how many oaths remove references to the Queen? One? Two? Three? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Not one. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Zero oaths remove any reference to the Queen. Furthermore the Hon Phil Goff has made sure that it is very clear that we refer to the Queen of New Zealand. That is the very point if one can bear to read further down Dr Worth’s media release that Dr Worth makes when he states Mr Goff “needs to be reminded that she is not only the Head of the Commonwealth but Queen of New Zealand.” 
Hon Phil Goff 
: But didn’t he just say that was a change that wasn’t needed? 
DARREN HUGHES 
: He has just said in his speech that that was a change that was not needed. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: He flip-flopped! 
DARREN HUGHES 
: He has flip-flopped on the Oaths Modernisation Bill. The New Zealand National Party is now flip-flopping on the bill. This is an extraordinary development in New Zealand politics. It is an election year and National cannot hold itself together even on these matters. 
The Labour-Progressive Government has done all the things “Lord Worth” said we should do in the four paragraphs of the media release that he put out at the midpoint of his summer holidays on 18 February 2004. Yet he was forced to come down here tonight after having been rolled by the conservatives in the National caucus like Simon Power to oppose the bill. He himself said that we should be making it clear that Her Majesty is the head of the Commonwealth. Dr Worth had the audacity to start off by quoting the Hippocratic oath and talking about the 16th century—which was I understand the time of Dr Brash’s original dissertation. He mentioned the Hippocratic oath and Lianne Dalziel pointed out that no one actually physically says it any more. No one verbalises that oath. So all National’s arguments were quite wrong. The arguments that it has used to attack the bill are wrong. The arguments that it has used to counter the arguments it originally put forward as its policy in the middle of its summer night’s dream in 2004 are wrong. The situation is an absolute farce. 
For Dr Worth to criticise the Government for bringing this bill to Parliament to modernise the oaths and make it clear that the Queen is the head of New Zealand is a little bit ironic given that he is the man who when we debated the Civil Union Bill last year put up 7 hours’ worth of amendments in the Committee stage. I am not allowed to refer to the absence of members from the House so I will not but I will say Dr Worth did not take the call on any one of the amendments during the 7 hours of voting that he put New Zealand through. I know Dr Worth is a man on the move in the National Party because every week in the  
Independent 
 newspaper he is quoted as the next deputy leader. Of course in a caucus of 27 that does not say much. I know that he is a man on the move and that is why he needs to get up in caucus every Tuesday and defend his position on these oaths. He cannot have the classical laissez-faire conservatives like Simon Power doing him over every Tuesday. Richard Worth is an endangered species in Parliament. The Labour Government is prepared once it has passed this law to try to protect him as well because antiquated things like him have a role maybe after all.