John Armstrong: Greens 'swallowing a dead rat' to vote for waka jumping law no great surprise

July 27, 2018

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson says party leaders should not be given power to expel MPs who cross the floor.

It should have taken the Greens' caucus all of about half a minute to agree to do what the parlance of coalition politics describes as "swallowing a dead rat".

Thursday’s announcement that James Shaw, Marama Davidson and their six colleagues would indeed be swallowing hard and will not be using their votes in Parliament to block the latest example of legislation designed solely to deter MPs from hopping from one party to another was no great surprise.

With National and Act in vehement opposition to the measure and Labour providing the ballast to help New Zealand First resurrect the law which lapsed well over a decade ago, it fell on the Greens to determine whether waka jumpers should be booted out of Parliament for good.

There are several problems with the logic of all this, however. Given Winston Peters is in the thick of it, that will be of no surprise to anyone either.

The problem is that there is no problem. As a species, party hoppers may be close to extinction. Sightings are now extremely rare. There have only been four MPs who can be categorised as such since the powers in the first and so far only anti-defection law lapsed.  

Its potential replacement is thus pointless. Its introduction into Parliament has more to do with Peters' lingering paranoia that he might again find himself victim to a split down the middle of the New Zealand First caucus of the kind which was engineered by Jenny Shipley to rid her government of her then Deputy Prime Minister - one Winston Peters.

The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act - to give the law its correct title - expired at the 2005 election.

That was thanks to someone unknown, who was blessed with both intelligence and common sense, and who inserted a sunset clause in the legislation during its passage through Parliament. That individual or individuals had the foresight to realise that if party hopping was a problem, it would not be so for long. 

The switch in electoral systems in the 1990s revolution forced MPs to think hard about whether they were in the party which best represented their personal  beliefs.

Should they have been punished for the crime of shopping around? Of course not.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to write a law which is capable of drawing a distinction between a party-hopper who is motivated by principle and one whose horizon does not stretch beyond the merely self-serving.

Peters is a case in point. He is a polarising personality who people would have no trouble deciding which box he best fits.

It is ironic that he is still of the belief that waka jumpers should be punished when he himself was not expelled from Parliament despite being chucked out of National’s caucus. 

Any political movement which opts to become a partner in a government is likely to find itself voting in a manner which contradicts that movement’s guiding principles.

—  John Armstrong |

It is most unfair that Greens now find themselves voting for a bill which they consider to be utterly abhorrent.

But any political movement which opts to become a partner in a government is likely to find itself voting in a manner which contradicts that movement’s guiding principles.

It is a bit like losing one’s virginity. It is bound to happen sooner or later.

That said, it was inevitable that the Greens would support the measure despite them arguably being even more unaccepting than National of what they regard as an atrocious attack on the bedrock right of freedom of speech that should be unfettered as far as the country’s elected representatives are concerned.

From the moment Labour succumbed to Winston Peters’ insistence that legislation making it possible for party bosses to have would-be party hoppers expelled from Parliament be not only introduced into the House, but also passed into law during the current term, the Greens had no choice in the matter.

They hardly helped their cause by not voicing objection during last year’s coalition negotiations to the resurrecting the long-lapsed measure enacted by Labour and the Alliance back in 2001 - or something close to it.

From the moment that the coalition agreement between Labour and New Zealand First was made public last October, the document’s commitment to punishing waka-jumpers came inextricably bound up with the already extremely complicated dynamics operating between the partners in the three-party governing tryst.

If the Greens did not back the party hopping measure, that would have been regarded as a slap in the face for Peters - someone not accustomed to being on the receiving end of swipes of any sort.

Furthermore, the last thing the new government wanted was an early test of its stability.

That meant somebody had to back down before everyone got their backs up.

Given the Greens’ working relationship with Labour offered far greater freedom and flexibility than that prescribed by Labour’s much tighter formal coalition with Peters' outfit, there would have been little argument as to who would have to back down.

In short, Peters owes the Greens a favour. The latter have no doubt reluctantly, but very wisely accepted there is absolutely no point in dying in a ditch over something  which is now a matter of little import.

The far more relevant question - especially given the fast mounting argy-bargy between New Zealand First and the Greens surrounding the potential ban on new mining operations on the Conservation Estate on the West Coast of the South Island - should now focus on exactly what concessions, if any, the latter party has managed to extract from Peters in return for the help they have given him on the touchy subject of party hopping. 

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