Judge Vindicates ACT Decision

ACT Leader Richard Prebble said today that he was delighted with the judge's decision that he had acted properly in instituting provisions of the Electoral Integrity Act to remove Mrs Donna Awatere Huata from parliament.

"Mrs Huata's voting against the ACT party had defeated the whole point of having a proportional parliament.

"Under the judgement I am still prevented from delivering my letter to the Speaker to have Mrs Huata ejected until next Thursday. This is to enable her to appeal should she wish. To me the law has always been clear. The Electoral Integrity Act was designed to enable parliament to act quickly. Already Mrs Huata has frustrated the purpose of the legislation for over two months during which time she has felt free to behave like an independent MP.

" The voters elected nine MPs and were entitled to have nine.

"I believe the honourable course for Mrs Huata is to now resign and give up this farce of trying to pretend she has any sort of democratic mandate.

"ACT's next MP on the list, Mr Kenneth Wang, should be sworn in hopefully as soon as next week.

"I was always sure that I was right to first suspend Mrs Huata and then to move for her dismissal," said Mr Prebble.

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