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Party Hopping Bill and Cannabis Bill Progress
Party Hopping Bill and Cannabis Bill Progress
The
Electoral Integrity Bill completed its first reading today
and was sent to the Justice Committee for
consideration.
The Bill aroused some intense and angry debate. With those in favour arguing for the need to preserve parties’ proportionality in Parliament as decided by the voters. Those against said it was an attempt to use the law to stamp party discipline over an MP’s right to differ from their party.
It progressed by 63 to 57 with Labour, NZ First and the Greens in support.
Some excerpts from speeches in the debate:
ANDREW LITTLE
(Minister of Justice)
The Electoral Integrity Amendment Bill affirms a democratic principle that sits at the heart of our MMP system, and that is that the proportionality of party representation in Parliament is paramount…
What this bill does is establish a process for MPs who decide, in the course of a Parliament, that they no longer align with their party—to put it in neutral terms. Some will say the party has left them; others will say they have left the principles of the party…
But in any event—you know, we can phrase it how we like, but it allows a process for MPs who've reached that point to then deal with that situation. If they are an electorate MP and they resign from their party, they resign from Parliament, and they can then make a choice about whether they go back to test their mandate and the strength of their values and their local electorates understanding of their values by contesting a by-election. For a list MP, because of the way the list works, it means that the MP resigns from Parliament—or may well be expelled from their party—and they are, therefore, out of Parliament.
Hon AMY ADAMS
(National—Selwyn)
I don't
think it's exaggerating to say that this is a devastating
day for democracy. It is a devastating day, because you have
in the House today a bill … that puts political party
dictatorship into our electoral system…
I want to save one of my last comments for the Greens… Time and time again, they have used some of their strongest language and expressed in the most ardent terms how opposed they are to party-hopping legislation, and won't it be interesting to see whether, suddenly, a ministerial warrant is enough for them to make their most deeply held principles expedient…
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): The bill seeks to address the very real problem when an MP, whether elected to an electorate or in Parliament on the list, ceases to represent that political party, unilaterally undermining the democratic system…
This bill seeks to rectify the defect in representation that arises when members defect or are otherwise ousted by their parties. At the moment, no system exists in our electoral laws to address this problem…
But the Green Party has always
fostered deep concerns for this type of legislation, and our
concern has always been that in seeking to preserve the
proportionality of Parliament, laws like this can give too
much power to party leaders. They can quash not only
legitimate dissent within political parties, but they can
actually contribute to this exact problem—the problem that
the bill is trying to address, which would be that in trying
to uphold the integrity of the party against breaches by a
party leader, the member could be ousted…
We hold tight
to those concerns, but because of those concerns, when we
engaged with the process in this bill we asked that tighter
controls be inserted around the power of party leaders to
oust members…
So the Green Party will be voting for this bill at its first reading, to send it to the select committee. We want to ensure that the concessions that we've won on this bill are preserved. We do so, while shouldering considerable concern within our party and our caucus about the implications of this bill on our democracy and the critical role of MPs to speak out with freedom and without fear of expulsion.
Many of our MPs and members come from a
radical position that relies on the freedom of speech and
speaking truth to power. We value those freedoms. We value
them in our political system and in this House. All true and
great change has relied on people standing up bravely
against an oppressive status quo, regardless of how many
they offend or disagree with.
DARROCH BALL (NZ
First): There are two main considerations that need
to be made when approaching this legislation and whether one
would like to support it or not. The first one of all is
understanding what the people voted for on election day to
represent them—to represent them. The second is: is it our
responsibility to ensure that we maintain that level of
proportionality? In a robust and fair democracy, it is our
absolute obligation to ensure that is the case, and it can
only be addressed robustly and properly through legislation
such as this…
In other business, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill was introduced and Damien O'Connor made a ministerial statement on an extension to the medium-scale drought event to include Southland and parts of Otago.
The Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill completed its first reading with all parties in supports, but with numerous MPs expressing concerns with many saying it was far too narrow.
The Bill creates a statutory defence for terminally ill people to possess and use illegal cannabis. It also creates a regulation-making power to set standards for legal cannabis products; and amends the law so cannabidiol and it products are no longer classed as controlled drugs.
The debate on the first reading of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill when the House rose.
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