Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Mr Chairman thank you. I just want to immediately respond to Mr Little's last series of comments where he is saying that members should focus on the bill and look at the detail that is in the bill. Well on proportionality what it says in section 55D inserted by clause 5 is that if a leader reasonably believes that the member of Parliament concerned has acted in a way that has distorted and is likely to continue to distort the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament as determined at the last general election;". What determines that representation at a general election is the policy platform that a party goes out on so what happens when a member of Parliament decides to stick to that platform as in the cases outlined by Michael Woodhouse? What happens when you get a different situation?And make it very clear: we are here because Winston Peters was upset by Brendan Horan eventually becoming an Independent member. He became an Independent member because Mr Peters booted him out because Mr Peters condemned him before he had been before a court. And when he went before the court he was exonerated. So in that circumstance who was it who distorted the proportionality of Parliament? Who was it who forced someone out of New Zealand First and no longer allowed them to cast their vote for New Zealand First? It was the leader of the party who under this provision would be able to simply say "Well I'm sorry. My caucus are too weak to oppose me; so sonny you're on your way." That's what this is about. It's as clear as that. It is a guillotine provision provided to every leader of a political party against any dissent that might occur from in the ranks of that party even if as the bill states they are the ones who are pushing the party policy as presented at the last election.Everyone knows that under MMP there are compromises. Everyone knows that the current Government is cobbled together by both a public and a secret agreement between parties about what they're going to do in Government. But everyone also knows that that means the Green Party have had to lay aside some of their policy planks the Labour Party have had to lay aside some of their policy planks and the other party's got most of their policy planks. That's what happens under MMP. But it doesn't mean that members who come here cannot speak against the decision to abandon party policy. I also ask the Minister this question: if a member is elected by a constituency and there were issues in that constituency and if the leader of the party concerned came along and said in the campaign "We will remedy them." but then in the coalition arrangements it all gets pushed aside and the elected member—the person who has the majority of confidence of the electorate—is left high and dry are they allowed to speak against that particular action by their party? Under this no. It would mean simply that they have to knuckle under. It means that there is effectively no more electorate representation. There are just people who stand in electorates with a party banner over the top of them and I notice it's only the people who are not elected from electorates who are laughing and shaking their heads and carrying on in a completely ridiculous fashion on the other side of the Chamber. This is a very very important bill as far as New Zealand's constitutional arrangements are concerned. It's an important bill for democracy. The concept of proportionality must always go back—as the Minister has just agreed—to the will of the people who cast their votes and to have a bill that takes that away is extremely undemocratic. We've already been through the exercise this morning where we've found out that an elected member directly elected cannot be exempted from the bill—or we can't even discuss that apparently so I don't want to upset the Chair. But it's a very odd thing that there can be no discussion inside a bill that is about the proportionality of Parliament the make-up of Parliament and the representation of the will of the people in Parliament through that proportionality—that there can be no discussion about the views of those who are directly elected."