Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Acts

The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Acts are two Acts of Parliament by the New Zealand Parliament which force the expulsion of members of the New Zealand Parliament who have resigned from or been expelled from the political party for which they were elected. Two such Acts have been passed: the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act 2001 (see § 2001), which expired in 2005, and the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act 2018 (see § 2018), which remains in force.

The New Zealand Parliament is elected using mixed-member proportional voting and the Electoral Act 1993 provides for the election of list members on behalf of registered political parties. Particularly in the 1990s, repeated instances of party switching led to criticisms that the proportionality of parliament as determined at a general election had been disturbed. The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Acts were therefore attempts by the legislature to control its members' affiliations and votes in a way that conformed to the most recent election outcome. The New Zealand political parlance of "waka-jumping" has given rise to the colloquial description of the Acts as the "waka-jumping laws."^[1]

The Acts operate differently depending on whether the expelled member represents an electoral district or if they were elected on a party list. The expulsion of an electorate member triggers a by-election; expelled list members are simply replaced by the next available candidate from their former party's list. In either instance, the Speaker of the House must make a declaration expelling the member. To date, two such declarations have been made. Former ACT MP Donna Awatere Huata was expelled in 2004 under the 2001 Act, while former Green MP Darleen Tana was expelled in 2024 under the 2018 Act. Despite the Acts being in force, other members and parties have conducted political manoeuvres to enable them to change parties or to be political independents without being expelled.