Ryall Tony: Electoral Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Ryall Tony: Electoral Matters Bill — Second Reading 
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Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 In taking this call on the Electoral Matters Bill on behalf of the National Party in Opposition there are two points in particular that I want to discuss. The first concerns the words which are so much at the head of the commentary on this bill that the Justice and Electoral Committee unanimously supported the requirement that: “a member of Parliament seek a fresh mandate from voters if he or she acquires a fresh foreign allegiance while in office.” Well well well! 
Members of this House will recall that we had the Prime Minister I am sure stand up in this House and say that this clause would be changed. She said that the situation of denying members of Parliament their seats because of some anachronism of 1886 or whatever it was she was going on about was beyond justification. She asked why in this day and age we would have such a separation. 
 So we had this incredible situation where the law directed the Speaker to expunge a member from this House if he or she breached the Electoral Act yet a member was allowed to sit in the Chamber clearly in breach of the law all that time. Although clearly in breach of the law that member was able to stay in this House and this Government brought in special legislation to legalise and validate a breach of the law. The law was clear. In those circumstances when a member has taken a foreign oath the Speaker should kick him or her out of the House. That is what the law said the Speaker should do. Well it did not happen that way. According to this law the Speaker—Parliament’s man—should have required Duynhoven to leave this Chamber— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will use the member’s full name—Speakers’ rulings 26/7 and 26/8. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: —Mr Duynhoven to leave this Chamber—but he did not. So the Government then wrung its hands and said: “The legislation should be changed. It shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Whoever thought that would be the case?”. We suspected it was because we know that there was probably more than just one case on the Government side on that issue. 
I notice we have not heard a single thing from Tim Barnett. We have not heard a single thing from Taito Phillip Field. We have not heard a word from them on this whole issue. What we have here is this bill now saying that if a member of Parliament takes an allegiance to a foreign power then he or she will be kicked out. Well I do not know whether that will count for much. It still requires someone to exercise discretion and obey the law and have somebody kicked out of Parliament. 
The Government would argue that it has put up an amendment that says that Mr Duynhoven was solely renewing his passport. Was it not the actual fact that the Dutch Government had passed a law to remove people’s citizenship and then decided to reinstitute that law? Therefore there was no renewal of a passport because the passport was invalidated. It ceased. There was no right. The Government in Holland brought in a new right that people could apply for their passports and Mr Duynhoven went to get one. So this Government stood up in the Parliament and said: “What Mr Duynhoven did was no big deal. No one ever thought it would happen that way. The law is hundreds of years old and will be changed.” What do we have in this bill today? Exactly what the Opposition was saying at the time: Harry Duynhoven broke the law and the Speaker according to the law should have vacated that member’s seat if that person did in fact take allegiance outside of this House and outside of this country. The Government has not changed that. If Harry Duynhoven applied for a British passport under this bill he would be out and I would expect the Speaker to exercise his responsibilities under the law and vacate that seat. 
Judith Collins 
: It would certainly have happened had it been one of us. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It would definitely have happened I am sure regardless of which party the member came from. I cannot believe that a Speaker would have exercised favouritism on the basis of which party Mr Duynhoven was from. I do not believe that. But I would say this. If Mr Duynhoven had applied for his passport under this law unanimously supported by the Labour members—and I do not think they realised this when they voted for it—they are saying what Harry Duynhoven did was wrong it was against the law and he should have had his seat vacated. But members will recall it was at a time when this Government did not want a referendum in a coastal electorate on its handling of the seabed and foreshore issue. Therefore there was all this jiggery-pokery so that no one actually had to consider whether he had broken the law. 
Speaking of political shenanigans what about the shocking revelation from the Hon Nick Smith today? This Government came to the Opposition seeking support for a bill that would have allowed the Labour Party to decide the colour of every other party’s political hoardings. Labour would have been able to decide where they go the colour the design and the layout of everybody’s election hoardings. That is what Rick Barker tried to bring into this Parliament under the approval of the Prime Minister. It was discussed in Cabinet that Rick Barker would go and try to pull the wool over members’ eyes. You know how it was done do you not Mr Speaker? Members were telephoned and told: “Oh we’ve just got this little innocuous amendment based on the unanimous recommendation of the select committee and we would like your support for it.” Well thank goodness the National Party’s Richard Worth was on to this. When he got a copy of the bill it was clear that we were not going to support the Supplementary Order Paper that the Government was proposing. 
Here is another one of these mistruths that we get from the Government. Did members hear on  
Morning Report 
 the Government saying: “It was a unanimous recommendation of the select committee that the Government should have the ability to regulate and decide the size colour and format of the hoardings.”? Well do members believe that? I thought it was Lianne Dalziel speaking on the radio when I heard that. But I looked at what the recommendation was. Basically it was a comment from the select committee saying that it wanted the Minister to look at some levels and guidelines for hoardings not a law that lets the Government decide the colour size and design of everybody’s election hoarding in New Zealand. Is that not a rort? That is the sort of thing that goes on in Mississippi where the governing party decides what everybody else’s election hoardings will look like and what colour will be used. Does one member in this House not think that the Government would rule out the use of blue black green yellow or purple? Of course it would. 
This is a desperate Government that knows its separatist agenda will be its undoing. This is a Government that has divided this country on a separatist racially based policy setting and it will be this Government’s undoing. Its separatist agenda of forcing racial preferences and separatism on this country will be the undoing of this Government and that is why it desperately wanted to have—[ 
Interruption 
] I hear Mrs Hobbs. Let us turn to what people’s declarations are on their enrolment forms. Do we want to go there? No we do not because that is a rort and what the Government was proposing is a rort. Thank goodness it has ended. 
Bill read a second time.