National not on board with waka jumping bill

National leader Simon Bridges says his party will repeal the waka jumping law if elected in 2020 – but he hasn’t ruled out using it to keep MPs in the fold beforehand.

Parliament debated the Electoral Integrity Amendment Bill – better known as the ‘‘waka jumping bill’’ – yesterday, and it was expected to pass it into law before the week is out.

The law would allow party leaders to boot MPs out of Parliament if two thirds of their caucus agree with the decision. It was won by NZ First in coalition talks, and had the begrudging support in Parliament of Green Party members – who openly admitted they opposed it.

Speaking to Stuff yesterday, Bridges said if his party won power in 2020 it would repeal the bill. "We will definitely repeal it, we think it’s repugnant to democracy,’’ he said.

‘‘There’s centuries of thought and practice about what an MP is, and their ability to be able to stand up from time to time and say they disagree with their party.’’

When asked directly, Bridges would not completely commit to never using the power the law would grant him, although he did say such a scenario was unlikely.

‘‘I think it is an incredibly unlikely to be a scenario where I would use it,’’ Bridges said. ‘‘I think I won’t use it.

‘‘In the instance where someone felt incredibly strongly about a particular issue in Parliament, were it a moral issue or a particular issue for an electorate, there is no question I would not use it.’’

That is not the only situation in which the law might be used however – former NZ First list MP Brendan Horan was expelled from his party over a financial allegation but stayed on as an independent list MP until the next election, a situation that would be made impossible by the waka jumping bill.

Bridges would also not rule out allowing waka jumping to stay the law if that was the price of going into power with NZ First’s support after the 2020 election, saying he didn’t want to engage in preliminary coalition talks through the media.

On current polling the only path to power for National involved an agreement with another party, and the Green Party had all but ruled out ever considering a deal with National.

‘‘We will definitely repeal it, we think it’s repugnant to democracy.’’

National leader Simon Bridges