The terrible waka jumping bill

Stuff reports:

The Green Party is breaking its long-standing opposition to waka jumping legislation after getting several concessions from Justice Minister Andrew Little.

The Labour-led Government introduced the Election (Integrity) Amendment Bill to Parliament last week, part of a promise made by Labour to NZ First during coalition negotiations.

The Greens have sold their principles out to Winston.

Those concessions include reinstating a provision that means 75 per cent of caucus members have to agree with a party leader’s decision to expel an MP from caucus.

That is a fairly trivial barrier.

Just imagine if such a law had been in place when Muldoon was Prime Minister. Marilyn Waring, Derek Quigley and Mike Minogue would all have been expelled from Parliament by Muldoon.

This allows party leaders to expel MPs who criticise them. It won’t be hard to get 75% of caucus support when a party such as NZ First is basically a personality cult.

It will also have a chilling effect on MPs who sometimes have to disagree with their party on an issue of local importance. If you stand up for your constituents, then wham you may be out of Parliament.