OPINION: As someone nationally recognised as a "pain in the a..." for speaking out to an authoritarian party leader, it will be no surprise that I have thoughts about the latest waka jumping bill. In my view, the bill is a threat to our democracy, and should be opposed. We should be making it easier for new parties to enter Parliament, not harder.

The story of the waka jumping bill is a particularly blatant display of a bruised ego driving policy decisions. Winston Peters was a strong supporter of waka jumping in 1996 when welcoming Michael Laws to his new party:

"MPs have to be free to follow their conscience. They were elected to represent their constituents, not swear an oath of blind allegiance to a political party.

SUPPLIED Winston Peters used to be a big supporter of waka jumping, but has since changed his opinion of the controversial practice.

"If an MP feels that membership in another elected party better serves his or her constituents, then that can be put to the test at election time."

READ MORE:

* Gareth Morgan calls TOP candidate a 'pain in the a...'

* Why Winston wants to stop waka jumping - again

* National: Waka jumping bill an affront to democracy

* Peters: Why should one disgruntled MP be able to subvert what the public voted for?

Two years later, Peters became the champion of preventing MPs from leaving their parties to join or found new ones. So what changed?

HELEN KLISSER DURING Former Prime Minister Helen Clark's government passed the first waka jumping legislation as a temporary measure 17 years ago.

In the first two parliamentary terms under MMP (1996-2001) a whopping 22 members of Parliament defected from their parties. In response to this instability, (and perhaps with some concerns about the possible independent streak of Alliance MPs) Labour passed the first waka jumping legislation in 2001, intended to be a short term solution while MMP settled in. They assumed waka jumping would become less prevalent and therefore such legislation would no longer be needed past 2005.

The evidence is clear they were correct. While the waka jumping legislation was in place from 2001-2004, only four MPs defected from their parties. Of course, one of them was Dame Tariana Turia who resigned from Labour, formed the Maori Party, and won her seat back in the ensuing by-election. This may help explain why NZ First didn't need to twist Labour's arm too hard to try and get the legislation reinstated in 2005, but they were unsuccessful.

But how did Winston Peters go from a vocal defender of waka jumping to its harshest opponent, crusading to have it outlawed for the past two decades?

Peters jumped from the National waka himself (or more accurately, was pushed from it) and took that opportunity to found NZ First. He joyfully welcomed several other waka jumpers to NZ First in 1996 (when he issued the press release containing the above quote).

It turns out Winston was happy with waka jumping, as long as he was the one benefiting from it. When eight disgruntled NZ First MPs defected in 1998, however, Mr Peters changed his tune.

For him, the betrayal of 1998 is apparently still as fresh as the day it happened. And so here we are in 2018, debating legislation designed to solve a problem that no longer exists, at the cost of the constitutional conventions of this nation, because Winston is still grumpy about something that happened last century.

The stated aim of the legislation is to preserve the integrity and proportionality of Parliament, by ensuring MPs who leave their party cannot continue in Parliament. However, over the years many MPs have left their party as a form of whistleblowing, because they believe the party is drifting away from its own stated goals and values. This, too, is a matter of integrity.

As Dr Pita Sharples said, speaking in opposition to the bill in 2005: "You cannot legislate for integrity." It is possible for someone to be a waka jumper with great personal integrity, as Dame Tariana Turia was when founding the Maori Party. But it is farcical to think the leader of the political party you are leaving would see that defection as anything other than betrayal. It should not be for the party leader to determine whether the waka jumper is acting with or without integrity; that decision should be left up to voters at the next election.

As someone who has spoken out about a party behaving in a way that is contrary to its stated values and been sacked for it, I naturally believe protecting the ability of individual MPs to act as whistleblowers is important.

However, my greatest concern about this legislation is that it will prevent new parties from being formed. In the history of MMP in this country, no new party has ever entered parliament without first leaving an existing party. Put another way, every party in Parliament other than National and Labour was started by a waka jumper (and even National and Labour were formed through a messy process of the splitting and coalescing of several parties back in the day.)

Every minor party supporting this bill is hypocritical - none of these parties would likely exist without their founding members defecting from an existing party in Parliament, as Sue Bradford pointed out in her tweet.

How dishonourable of the Greens to support the waka-jumping bill; if Rod & Jeanette hadn't been able to leave the Alliance, Greens would never have entered Parliament in 1999 & the whole journey may have been stillborn. It's sad to see history forgotten. https://t.co/zwYktIXIbI — Sue Bradford (@suebr) January 30, 2018

The ability to establish new political parties that have a presence in Parliament is essential to the functioning of democracy under proportional representation. In fact, this is one of the main arguments for proportional representation over first-past-the-post – that it allows more parties to exist in Parliament, increasing the diversity of views represented there.

The most direct way to make it easier for new parties would be to lower the threshold for a party to enter Parliament without an electorate seat. In the absence of such changes, the waka jumping legislation will make it ever more difficult for new parties to enter Parliament. This may be an unintended consequence, or perhaps this is the real intention of the bill?