Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): I think the House is in reasonable agreement on the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill so I do not propose to take up too much time. I do just want to respond to a couple of remarks made so far during the debate. The first was the extraordinary suggestion—perhaps unrelated to the actual topic—from Clare Curran that we have an unelected Prime Minister. Of course in this country we do not elect our Prime Ministers—that is a completely different system. What we do is elect parties in which party leaders who enjoy the confidence of the House go on to be Prime Minister.It was a little bit ironic given that the Labour Party changed party leaders twice within 18 months before the 1990 election and there was no suggestion from anyone at the time—as Paul Foster-Bell pointed out by way of interjection—that Geoffrey Palmer and Mike Moore were unelected. So I do just want to respond to that ridiculous claim. If that is the standard of criticism of the Labour Party towards this Government for the rest of the year good luck to it and long may it continue.The second point that I want to respond to is some more substantive remarks made by Denis O'Rourke who I have to say makes a good contribution on the Justice and Electoral Committee. We have been working pretty collegially as committee members over the last couple of years through this inquiry into the 2014 election. Of course these two bills have come out of that inquiry as the Minister noted in her introductory speech. Denis O'Rourke played a good role on that committee. He did spend quite a deal of his speech criticising the criteria that the Electoral Commission uses when it divides the broadcasting allocation—the time and money given to political parties. One of his criticisms was that by-elections are no indication of future electoral performance.Hon Amy Adams: How true!CHRIS BISHOP: How true exactly as my colleague the Minister Amy Adams says. That seems somewhat inconsistent with the 2 years of rhetoric from New Zealand First Party members about how the Northland by-election result signals some kind of on-coming electoral apocalypse for the New Zealand National Party which they have been fond of saying inside and outside Parliament for a good 2 years. So I do agree with Denis O'Rourke that by-elections are no indication of electoral support in general elections. Likewise the by-election that we both recently had in Mount Roskill and I suspect the upcoming by-election in Mount Albert as well which will be comprehensive wins probably to the Labour Party I would venture to suggest are no indications of support in the future. But of course they are part of the criteria for a good reason. I think Denis O'Rourke shot himself in the foot there.The second thing I wanted to just quickly respond to was this idea—he seemed bewildered; he seemed mystified by the idea that the Electoral Commission should take into account arrangements between particular political parties and of course that is a historical hangover I suspect from the days of the Alliance in 1999—Tracey Martin: Then update it. They don't exist.CHRIS BISHOP: Tracey Martin says Oh that's outdated." but actually we saw another example of an Alliance-type arrangement at the last general election when months before polling day the Mana party and the Internet Party decided to join forces to mount a—Hon Amy Adams: The moment of truth.CHRIS BISHOP: Exactly! Amy Adams says it is the moment of truth. It is certainly the moment of truth for someone and some particular political parties. Of course they decided to combine to try to get as many votes as possible during the campaign. So that is exactly why we have those parts of the criteria. So with those very technical rebuttal points made in the debate so far I will commend these bills to the House. Thank you."