Little Andrew; Tolley AnneHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Chair. From the session we had just before the dinner break and the contributions we've heard just now I just wanted to respond to a couple of points. The Rt Hon David Carter who has just spoken raised the issue of retrospectivity. The right honourable member—he's a former Speaker of the House—is entitled to have his views and his words very carefully considered and I do that. I just want to say on the point of retrospectivity which was raised in a contribution earlier by Chris Bishop as well that this bill is not retrospective. It does not affect anything that has already happened. What it will be if it is passed is a law that will apply to an MP who on a whim or for whatever other reason decides they want to change the party and change the proportionality of the representation of parties in Parliament. Because of the fundamental principle underpinning MMP—which is that once the electors have decided or voted on the proportionate share of party representation then that is it—that decision should not be undermined by an individual MP who claims to be acting on his or her conscience.On the issue of conscience which the Rt Hon David Carter just spoke about then as well can I just say this: no MP gives up their conscience when they come into this House but you come in having subscribed to a set of policies. That's what makes our democracy and our democratic institutions predictable. The reason we join the respective parties that we do is we have common and shared values with other people who form those parties. That's what we do—that's what we do. That's how stable political systems work: groupings of people who have clearly understood shared values. None of that changes in this bill. None of that goes away but what MPs will not be able to do is what we have seen in the past and that is to change or distort or undermine the proportionate representation of parties in Parliament.It cannot be and it is not defensible for anyone to assert that an MP is free to come here not to speak as their conscience dictates but to act in a way that undermines this institution and the numbers or the shares or the proportion that the voters have cast from one election to the next. It is the voters whose voice must count. Voters can change their mind. They are free to change their mind and so an electorate-based by-election may well lead to a different result for that electorate.I come to the point that I think the Hon David Bennett had raised which is the difference between list MPs and electorate MPs. He confuses the idea that when MPs are sitting in this House discharging their duties and obligations as an MP every MP is equal and the same. The truth is MPs come to this House through different paths. An electorate MP comes to this House on a different path than a list MP—that is the reality; that is just fact—so there will be things that will happen that will affect those MPs in a different way. Electorate MPs can survive through their electoral fortunes in their electorate a change of Government. They are still there even though the Government changes. A list MP frequently does not. So I don't think we should get too hooked up on that or think there is too much of any significance in that.On Dr Nick Smith's reassertion—as he has done a few times actually in the House—on the 1688 Bill of Rights I would just make this point for historical accuracy and perspective. Let's remember that that was put together—Simeon Brown: By Winston!Hon ANDREW LITTLE: —to suppress Catholics. That's why it was put together. Mr Brown may think it's hilarious that Catholics 300 or 400 years ago should have been supressed. Maybe the National Party thinks that's OK. It was actually a pretty nasty device used to make sure that Catholics were deprived of the opportunity to seek elected office and high office and what have you. There wasn't anything particularly noble about that although a bit like the Magna Carta it gets interpreted in hindsight and whole new values are attributed to it that never existed in the first place.There is no need for referenda as proposed in either of the amendments which we're speaking to at the moment under clause 2 and for a deferral of the implementation of these measures once the House has agreed to it.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call Stuart Smith.