Since Gordon Copeland's resignation from United Future there have been some editorials in the media (e.g. NZ Herald, Waikato Times etc.) opining that Gordon has no right to remain in Parliament as an independent and arguing that an "Electoral Integrity" (anti- "party-hopping") bill needs to be introduced to stop it. Arguments for such a bill were given, but there were no counter arguments considered. So I wrote a couple of letters to the editors of those publications making a case against such legislation, as follows:
Irrespective of Copeland’s politics, I oppose ‘anti-party-hopping’ legislation. No matter how MPs get elected, it is one of the few safeguards in our democracy that MPs have the right to act according to their consciences.
It is facile to claim electorate MPs can have a conscience while list MPs cannot – both are put up by their party, both help people, and both bring in votes.
They should not be overly influenced by huge financial pressure to toe the Party leader’s line or face immediate unemployment.
They must have the right to walk out of a party for conscience’s sake. Those who do will be judged at the next election.
The fact MPs can leave acts as a constraint on parties not to abuse their MPs or abandon their voters and principles.
It means parties have a responsibility to carefully choose their list members: and if they don’t do so it’s actually their problem – not ours to fix by law.
If there is dissension in a party I as a voter actually want to know about it and not have it whitewashed until the knives come out after the election.
(Above submitted via the www.Stuff.co.nz website)
To the NZ Herald I further made the point that:
As for Copeland, it is true he wouldn’t be in parliament without Dunne, his actual seat is due to party list votes and it is arguable that the party votes that elected Copeland were indeed from Christians who support his stand.