National promised to abolish the 'waka-jumping' law. Now it won't

Tuesday, 9 July 2024

The National Party promised to repeal the controversial “waka-jumping” law that could be used to force former Green Party MP Darleen Tana out of Parliament.

But now in Government, National has backed away from dealing to the law it thought was anti-democratic. That’s because Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is an advocate for the law.

“National is not in favour of the waka-jumping legislation, but we have much bigger priorities to focus on as a coalition Government,” said Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, in a statement provided to The Post.

“Cabinet hasn’t considered it and has no plans to.”

Peters said there would not be changes to the law “because we’re in coalition”. And he urged the Green Party to make use of the provision to oust Tana, who he accused of facing allegations “verging on slavery when it comes to workers”.

“Let's have a little less of this talk and waving your hands around on TV, about your kaupapa, so to speak, whatever that might mean, where the Greens are concerned,” he said in an interview.

“Let's have some action – here's the standard case, why there's a need for the waka-hopping legislation, right here, right now. And they've got no excuse at all to allow someone to get away with this.”

Waka-jumping, or “party hopping”, has returned to the political debate with the Green Party’s expulsion of Tana, after an investigation into what she told the party of claims about migrant exploitation at her husband’s business.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has urged Tana to resign from Parliament, but has not confirmed whether the party would go so far as trigger the waka-jumping law.

The law has long been politically contentious. Similar legislation was in place in 2001 but it was struck off the books as it had an expiry date of 2005.

The provision returned in 2018, when the Labour-coalition Government passed a waka-jumping provision back into law at the behest of NZ First, which made it part of a coalition agreement with Labour.

But the return of waka-jumping was opposed strongly by National and, while the Green Party did not support it in principle, helped it into law to honour the agreement struck to form Government. It was called a “dead rat” the Green Party had to swallow.

When National attempted to repeal the law in 2020, the Green Party supported it through the first reading, but the 2020 election got in the way of it being pursued further.

As that debate played out in the House, National MP Chris Bishop – who has called the law a “disgrace” – promised, “When National gets back into Government, we will repeal it immediately”.

Not so.

Peters on Tuesday said the waka-jumping law was not anti-democratic but about retaining the proportionality of the vote delivered by the public on election night.

“Let's have a little bit less of this swallowing dead rats. It's not a dead rat. It's called the integrity of the electoral system. And I'm not going to stand by while people who don't understand the essence of democracy make that sort of stupid statements.”

Peters said the law should have been triggered already because the Green Party urged Tana to stand down, and she hadn’t. He speculated that Tana might instead join Te Pāti Māori.

'The proportionality of the vote on which she came in has been upset,“ he said.

Under the waka-jumping provisions in the Electoral Act, the law is triggered by party co-leaders writing to the Speaker making the case that proportionality of the Parliament had been upset.

Swarbrick has not done this, instead notifying the Speaker that Tana was out of the party. She has not ruled out trying to use the waka-jumping law.