www.oocities.org/ubinz/press/1999C14HeraldTemplePartyHop.html

Dialogue, NZ Herald, 14 Dec 1999
 

Notice something? All those MPs who walked from their parties during the last parliamentary term are all out of a job.

How did that happen? Because we voted them out, comprehensively - a brilliant example of MMP in action and of the voting power of the people - the way it should be in a country that values an open citizens' democracy and freedom of conscience.

And that is why the new Government's proposed anti-defection bill - to make MPs who leave their parties immediately leave the House - is pernicious, anti- democratic, self-serving and totally unnecessary We, the people, should decide who stays and who goes and not authoritarian party apparatchiks.

Very few countries in the world have such a nasty piece of law. Those countries which do have this provision either have short democratic traditions, such as Bolivia and South Africa, or have a reputation for repressive regimes, such as Zambia. India introduced the provision to combat rampantly corrupt behaviour that threatened the very fabric of its system.

The proposed bill is contrary to the spirit and substance not only of Westminster and New Zealand parliamentary traditions, but also of MMP practice.

The Germans, on whose MMP system ours is closely based, have no anti-defection law. Why not? Because they remember the Nazis and know better than anybody the dangers of giving political parties too much power and control over their members.

One of the key rights enshrined in our parliamentary democracy is freedom of conscience - the right of any elected member to leave his or her party on matters of policy or principle. This is a safeguard against the tyranny of party leaderships that wish to impose policies, practices or conditions on its MPs that are morally repugnant or repressive. By requiring MPs who resign from their parties to also leave Parliament, the proposed bill seeks to elevate party power and authority above this key democratic safeguard of individual conscience.

MPs are elected not by parties but by the people - whether they are elected by voters' constituency or list votes. Judgement of an MP's behaviour and performance is the electors' responsibility at election time. While a resigning constituency MP's decision might be tested at a consequent by-election, the anti-defection bill, if made law, would remove a key right of electors to judge a list MP's behaviour.

There is nothing in existing law which states that list MPs should be treated any differently to constituency MPs. This bill would discriminate against list MPs whose decision to resign from their par ties could not be tested as part of an election process.

That the new Government knows that the proposed law is anti-democratic and contrary to Westminster practice is shown by its self-serving proposal to have a "five-year sunset clause." In other words,

Labour and Alliance want to use the law to keep their own MPs at heel for this term and most of the next for their own political ends. They feel unable to exert discipline and loyalty within their own parties' structures and constitutions.

The experience of the last election shows that this pernicious bill is unnecessary. We, the voters, can make up our own minds about MPs who walk.

As MMP settles down, fewer and fewer MPs will walk - as the German experience shows - and when they do, it will be for very good reasons. When Jim Anderton walked from Labour in 1989, he waited until the following election for endorsement as New Labour and got it because voters thought he had made the right decision.

The right to walk and to be tested at the next election must be preserved. Every citizen who values democratic rights and the right of MPs to freedom of conscience should immediately tell their local electorate or list MP that the pro posed anti-defection bill must be thrown out. As it was when its bad smell first wafted past a select committee two years ago.