Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Chair. It's good to be able to speak on clause 3 which is the amendment to the principal Act which is the Electoral Act. I have in front of me the very Act we are talking about the 1993 Electoral Act so I'm sure the Chair will be most impressed that we will refer to this Act during the next five minutes so that there is no problem for the Chair with going out of scope.I look at section 55(1) of that Act which talks about vacancies and it goes through how vacancies are created. If we look at the first one it is by someone becoming a head of mission in foreign affairs or something like that. Well obviously if Ron Mark for example was gracious enough to take a foreign affairs position he would be a vacancy under this section. Would that then affect the proportionality of this Parliament if he was to take that position up?Section 55(1)(b): if somebody takes acknowledgement of allegiance … or adherence to a foreign [power]". Now I don't know Fletcher Tabuteau may have allegiances to other powers other than what he is supposed to be doing in his current role but—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I just say to the member he's actually debating clause 4.Hon DAVID BENNETT: —that is something where a vacancy can be created. So there are a series—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Did the member hear me? The bit you're referring to is actually in the debate on clause 4. This clause is around the Act itself.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes and this is leading up to clause—because clause 4 is new section 55(1)(fa)—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): No no you may be leading up to it but we are still in clause 3.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes and clause 4 does take in part of that but we need to lead up to that through the Electoral Act. If we look at another part of the Electoral Act section 45 it talks about Māori representation. Now I'm not sure if there has been any research done on whether there will be any Treaty of Waitangi claims as a result of this legislation or whether there would be any breach of Treaty through taking away governance in the middle of a political session. Would there be a change to the New Zealand parliamentary process mid-session and would that be considered an attack on the rights under the Treaty that have been guaranteed through the MMP system?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well it's very interesting but it's actually not to clause 3.Kieran McAnulty: I disagree with the Chair—it's not interesting at all. Stick to the bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: No it is very interesting as the member said. Also the other part of the Act I thought we should look at is schedule 4. Schedule 4 is the list of candidates and the list of candidates becomes very important as well when you consider that we are talking about the potential for someone to be taken off that list. Schedule 4 directly becomes involved into this part of the Act as well.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm sorry to interrupt the member—can you just hold the time—but the fact is that just having the bill and talking to little bits of the bill does not actually meet the requirements of the debate around clause 3. The member must confine his speech to clause 3 which is about the Act that we're amending.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you Madam Chair. I was just getting some context—Dr Duncan Webb: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. The clock seems to have started again. Is that an error? I know it seemed to have gone on for eternity—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Thank you.Hon DAVID BENNETT: It's called the good Lord looking down on you and saying that you shouldn't be passing this legislation. We will continue. I just gave you that background to get it started so that now we can look at the principal Act as the Chair wanted us to do.This is a sad day for the New Zealand Parliament. When we talk about the principal Act being the Electoral Act—that governs this very institution of Parliament. It is the basis on which we all operate. The major part of that is that every member of this House has an equal vote and every member of this House is seen as an equal member of Parliament whether as a list MP or a constituent MP. That is the fundamental premise of MMP—that whether you are list or electorate there is the same responsibility the same ability to make laws and each and every vote counts for the same effect.The difficulty we have now with this amendment to the Electoral Act is that we take away the core being of the MMP system. We take away the ability for each and every member of this House to be seen as an independent voice. That independent voice is now lost because electorate and constituent MPs are now treated differently because as the Minister has said numerous times tonight when he's talked about this bill—his very words have been that it will be the expression of the will of the electorate. I've asked him repeatedly to define that in the sense of a list MP and he has refused to do so. I'd love for him to stand up and explain what he means about that because the heart of this legislation is being taken away tonight. There has been no reasonable approach given as to why democracy should be under attack in this country through this bill. I implore the Minister to stand up and explain what he meant by that and how he sees a list MP sitting within that situation.The Electoral Act—the principal Act that we are dealing with here today—is an Act that governs the way that we approach our politics in New Zealand and it's more than just a piece of paper and it's more than the words that are there. It's about the principles that we stand for as a country and the principles that our people expect us to uphold."