Getting it right the second time

You may remember that last year the government amended the Electoral Act to avoid a byelection after Harry Duynhoven technically vacated his seat by having his Dutch citizenship restored. The kludge - the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill - was to legislate so that the change of citizenship clauses did not apply in the current parliamentary term. This was "intended as a temporary measure pending a full review" of those sections of the Act.

The review has now been completed, and the result - the Electoral Matters Bill - was introduced to Parliament last week. The primary purpose is to fix the citizenship clause so as to explicitly allow MPs to maintain dual citizenship acquired before they entered the house, or acquire it if the reason is solely due to descent or country of birth (citizenship acquired by marriage was exempted in 1981). It also makes it clear that an MP vacates their seat if at any time they cease to be a New Zealand citizen.

This is a good change, and one that deserves support. The old rules are archaic and fail to recognise our generous views on dual citizenship; it's well past time they were updated. It's just a shame that we needed a mess like the Duynhoven affair to point out that they needed changing.

(The rest of the bill amends the rules governing free election advertising, but it's rather technical and I don't think I can be bothered wading through it all at the moment).