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Andrew Dickens: Winston Peters is not a slave owner

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Fri, 17 Aug 2018, 12:01PM
Nick Smith says it makes Winston Peters a virtual slave owner with his charges firmly under his control. Photo \ File
Nick Smith says it makes Winston Peters a virtual slave owner with his charges firmly under his control. Photo \ File

Andrew Dickens: Winston Peters is not a slave owner

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Fri, 17 Aug 2018, 12:01PM

So the National Party and Nick Smith, in particular, are up in arms about the New Zealand First constitution.

It requires its MPs to pay a $300,000 fine if they're expelled or resign from the party's caucus, but stay on in Parliament. They don’t have to pay the fine if they quit and allow a by-election or the next list member to take their place.

Nick Smith says it makes Winston Peters a virtual slave owner with his charges firmly under his control.

Political commentator, Associate Professor Grant Duncan, also had a problem with it saying it undermines free speech and therefore undermines democracy.

He says if an NZ First MP wanted to expose wrongdoing in the House, and the leader of the party objected, then that would impact our democracy.

Now all this would be true if New Zealand First was Winston Peters’ Party but as I understand it’s constitution it isn’t. The party has the legal number of members. It has a democratic constitution. It has a parliamentary caucus. They meet and they vote and while of course, Winston Peters has a big say, I think you’ll find that Shane Jones, Ron Mark, Jenny Marcroft, Fletcher Tabuteau, Tracey Martin, and the others I can’t remember would certainly not agree that the party is a one-man band.

There was one question that no-one seemed to ask this morning. What if Winston Peters was the one who wanted to quit? What if he went doo-lally and started spouting crazy stuff and the rest of the caucus wanted to expel him? Surely if he got turfed then he would have to pay the fine if he continued as an MP

So I phoned an NZ First MP. Who told me that the leader of the party is elected yearly by a vote. It’s perfectly feasible that he could be turfed. That the whole constitution is voted on by the whole party.

So Nick Smith was talking balderdash.

Furthermore, he was talking it late because this was introduced and covered by the evil mainstream media in 2014, so whoever it was saying the electorate didn’t know about this when they were voting, was also talking rubbish.

Furthermore again, every single one of the NZ First MPs came in on the list. Nine MPs representing a party that got 7.2 per cent of the vote. They only have their job as a member of the party. So as far as I’m concerned if anyone chooses to leave New Zealand First party then they lose their mandate and stepping down would be the only honourable thing to do.

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