Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much Madam Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the Referenda" Framework Bill. Marja Lubeck: Oh what? Come on. You know better than that. CHRIS PENK: And I'm getting heckled already a few words into my contribution. I think it's because there is a difference of opinion across the House on the plural of referendum. I very much look forward to the committee stage to having the Government—Marja Lubeck: How many years of Latin Chris? CHRIS PENK: There we go. I think we've got a floor crosser already. But on the very serious constitutional as well as grammatical aspects of this bill I note that it's a very real question that we have to ask ourselves: whether a Parliament should allow itself to be bound by the actions of a previous Parliament to the extent that the actions are ratified by the people in answer to a question that has not been set by the previous Parliament. I know that's a long sentence and I apologise to the Hansard editors for that but please allow me to explain. The importance of the question of a referendum can be well understood in relation to what political scientists and linguists and neuroscientists have long known which is that words matter in particular to the extent that they can frame or suggest a particular answer. George Lakoff talked about framing Drew Westen talks about activating networks and the likes of Cialdini talked about "pre-suading" in fact rather than just persuading by putting out concepts or ideas that are inherent in words to suggest a particular frame of mind and therefore a particular answer. So the question of a referendum is what I'd like to focus on in my contribution—and it is no small matter so far as the effect on our democratic process and then the legitimacy of the answer that the people give as an answer to that question is concerned. So just to consider who it is that will be setting the question—and by the way I acknowledge various arguments that have been made around a creature of Parliament the Regulations Review Committee and I'll return to that in my contribution a bit later. But first just to take a very basic look—briefly I can assure you—in relation to our constitution. We have different branches of Government we have separate branches of Government but we also have branches of Government that are not only separate but also in a hierarchy. Sitting above all of them are the people. So in a democracy as the word suggests it should be the rule of the people. The power is derived from the people and passes to the House of Representatives: the legislature Parliament such as we stand in today. From that in turn is derived the authority of the executive; that's the Cabinet that it's proposed under this bill will be determining the question for the referendum. The judiciary off to the side we can disregard for present purposes. So it is significant that we will have the executive branch which is further away from the people who should have the power in the democracy which will be writing the question and not the closer point of the Government the legislature—again Parliament—deciding that question. So in that sense the conscious decision of the Government to put forth this bill that puts that powerful question-writing ability further from the people is in that sense not only undemocratic but in fact anti-democratic. I'd like to address the point made by a member opposite regarding the fact that this is a framework bill. The proposal seemed to be that it's a framework and merely as significant as the scaffolding outside a building. But in fact it's more foundational than that; quite literally. "It's merely mechanical." the member said but the mechanics of a thing are so important. It's the mechanics of a thing that moves it forward and allows it to have meaning in this case and have some shape in the first instance and so it is that the mechanics of the referendum include not only various worthy matters and reasonably technical but still important matters but that they do include the ability to set the question of the referendum. For reasons that I've already outlined that seems to me a very important power and not one that should be delegated lightly. I suppose it's possible to argue in relation to the duration of the bill that the referendum framework should apply to only the next election upcoming. Let me take a step back firstly and just acknowledge in agreement with my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith who pointed out that it seems a strange thing at best that the Referendums Framework Bill sets up a structure—whether you regard it as foundations or a scaffolding is a matter of taste I suppose across the House—that applies to only the next election and therefore gives the power to only the current executive; conveniently he would say. Now the other side of the House might say—and I believe they have argued this previously; perhaps not in the debates so far but they've advanced the argument before—"Well the next Parliament can simply set up a framework on a more enduring basis that will set up the conduct of referenda into the future." Well that's all very well but that might be the intention of the current majority of the Parliament but there's no guarantee that they will be in power following the next election. I for one of course hope that that's not the case. But even if that were their intention then there's no good reason not to make a law now that would endure into the future until such time as the next Parliament makes a more enduring framework for referenda. At that point the next Parliament could simply say that they repeal or the Referendums—quote unquote—Framework Act let's say of 2019. So it's simply unnecessary even from an efficiency perspective to make a law as they are proposing to do now that endures only as far as the next election and therefore gives power in the meantime to only one side of the House. The question of the referendum question again is one of vested interest. Now I do acknowledge—and I don't mean that in an ugly way except to suggest that the executive would be to some extent the judge of its own cause to the extent that it could be said that having a particular referendum framed in a particular way might drive a particular outcome in terms of encouraging voting by certain sectors or interested parts of the population. Now Parliament has a vested interest too and we're all MPs in this place. So to some extent we have a vested interest. I acknowledge that argument would apply to this House as much as it would to the Cabinet room except that where there is a greater number of members the interest is diluted somewhat. Also you would see in this House of course a much greater range of interests than as represented by only three parties as opposed to five plus one independent in the Parliament proper. To address in the final couple of minutes if I may the role of the Regulations Review Committee because the other side of the House has said "Well of course that is sort of like Parliament in the sense that it would have the opportunity on behalf of Parliament to consider the question that the Cabinet would put forward." But that's only a limited help when we think that the considerations and the deliberations of that committee are not open to the public; they're not recorded in an equivalent way to Hansard; they're not televised on Parliament TV and so forth. My colleague Chris Bishop has already mentioned the lack of a broad range of submissions that are typically sought by that group. And of course it's also at best a representation of Parliament. It's not the whole of the Parliament itself. So to that extent it is not as representative of the people as well as it could and therefore should be in this case. Similarly in terms of the ability—it's been pointed out—of the Regulations Review Committee to say essentially "Well we will disallow this instrument. We will send it back to Parliament and then there would be an opportunity for Parliament to have the debate." if members of the Opposition on that committee were to take such an action then it could be said—and possibly rightly so—that the National Party had a vested interest in doing that. So the politicisation of the process would still have kicked in albeit that no doubt the finger would be pointed across the other side of the House instead of from us to them. To set up a process and a mechanism that deliberately invites that kind of partisan jockeying over a question as important as the way that the referendum is conducted seems unfortunate at best. For all these reasons on this side of the House we will continue to oppose the Referendums Framework Bill and in particular as I've emphasised in my contribution the delegation of power from this place Parliament—as representative as it is. Imperfect though we might be collectively we at least have a better claim to representing all the people of New Zealand than the fewer in number and the more naturally partisan collection of the executive. For those reasons we continue to oppose this undemocratic and indeed anti-democratic piece of legislation before us."