Woolerton R Doug: Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:566] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First has pleasure in supporting the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First has had experience with people upsetting the balance of the Parliament by leaving our party and sitting with parties that opposed us. The electoral integrity legislation lapsed on election night and it needs to be put back in place. It is all very well for Bill English and the National Party to talk about what they see as right. It is all very well for them to say that the legislation takes away rights from individual MPs. It does not. If a person stands up before the public and says he or she is standing for the New Zealand First Party and will represent what that party stands for whether as a list MP or as a constituent MP through the next 3 years then that person should stay with that party.  
In the case of a constituent MP if that member disagrees to such an extent with the party or if the views of the member’s electorate are at such divergence with the party’s views that he or she sees fit to leave the party— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Or personal views. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: —or personal views then the electorate can have a by-election and that is rightly so. God bless the electorate. Everybody can get into the by-election. The member can test and seek the mandate of the people. However if a list MP stands in the name of a party and then disagrees with the party in my view honour dictates that the MP should leave the party. If the member does not leave then I think it is right and proper that by majority the other members through the party leader can ask the member to leave.  
It is ironic that the ACT party having opposed the original bill was the first and only party to use the legislation successfully. And it did not cause any upsets. The matter was handled not necessarily with decorum and taste but it was not a bun fight. It was handled properly through the courts.  
What National members will not understand and choose not to understand—and Bill English talked about this—is the fact that in the case of any person who stands for National in the Piako electorate for instance where the Luxtons held court for many many years and now Lindsay Tisch holds the seat it is the party seeking of the candidacy that is important. Once a candidate is on the National Party ticket he or she is in. The person can go out and campaign in all the other electorates around the country or wherever he or she desires because that person knows that the National Party in Piako will carry him or her home. It does not matter a toss whom the party puts in there as long as the person is halfway respectable. If Mr English feels uncomfortable about that and if it makes him sad and insecure to know that anybody the National Party chooses in Clutha-Southland will do just as good a job as him will represent the people just as well as him and will hold the National flag just as high as him then I am sorry but that is the situation. Even in a constituency seat it is the party that reigns supreme. The 10-minute effort read out by the Hon Pete Hodgson said all of those things—and a very good speech it was too.  
There are times when that is overturned. My own leader Winston Peters stood as an Independent in Tauranga and overturned that. But that is a minority case and members can still do that. A list MP who is required to leave a party that he or she fundamentally agrees with on a majority vote of the people within it and the leader can go and stand again for whomever he or she decides to stand for. The legislation does not disbar the person from office. It does not disbar the person from standing for whomever he or she wishes to stand for in the future. It is a nonsense to say the legislation is anti-democratic. Although a person got in on the party’s coat-tails or by representing a party it is rightful that when that person no longer agrees with the party he or she should go out and seek another seat or seek another position with another party if he or she so desires. There is nothing undemocratic about that. I think that is absolutely sensible and I think this legislation is sensible.  
I make no bones about the fact that since starting as a party branch secretary in the National Party when I was 21 years of age I have been and am known as a party man. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Grown up since then. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: I have certainly grown up since then. I am a party man because I recognised even at that age that it is the party that puts people into Parliament. There is a simple test and it is a test I put to Tau Henare when he was leaving New Zealand First to go and sit with National. At least he has tidied that up and he can now be called an honourable member of the National Party but back then he could not. The test is that if someone does not believe that it is the party that gets a person into Parliament then he or she should try standing as an Independent without any party backing any time anywhere. I say such people should not belong to any party but should go out there on their own devices put their names up to stand for Parliament and see how far they get. I say that they will not get elected to Parliament because that has been proven time and time again. It is the party that brings people into this place and therefore it is the party and its policies that should be respected.  
In spite of what the Opposition may say nobody has argued more vigorously than me within either the National Party or New Zealand First even though I was a founding member and president of the latter party for 12 years and am still an MP. Nobody has argued more vigorously than I have within those parties. Nobody has challenged the leadership of those parties or the local party officials more than I have. I know all about that. I have been there done that and bought the T-shirt. It is popular—it is a cliché—to say that New Zealand First is a one-man band that one cannot disagree with Winston Peters and so on and so forth. I disagree with Winston Peters and I have disagreed with him many times on many issues over many years. We are still friends and the party will not fall apart and nobody will leave New Zealand First in this term I can promise members that. In the National Party however one’s future was not quite as certain as that but I have done the same thing there. Provided that one observes the rules of debate as it were in a political party one can disagree argue put one’s viewpoint and make one’s voice heard.  
Of course if members choose to go back on the things that they promised at an election and to go against the things that their party stood for then they will have a spot of bother and every person in this House knows that. But this legislation will not cause the problems. This legislation will ensure that the public of New Zealand having elected what the Yanks call “a ticket” to Parliament have the surety that that ticket will sustain through the 3 years and I think that that is honourable. I think it is just and I think it is what should happen. We are supporting this bill for those reasons.