conscience voting

Georgina Beyer says she is guided by her conscience in voting for the foreshore and seabed legislation.

She initially intended to abstain from voting on the legislation as she felt uneasy about voting for it. However, she has no right to do that. The F & S legislation is not decided by a conscience vote.Ms Beyer may be Maori, but she holds a general seat and is supposed to reflect her constituency who wants her to vote for the legislation. She says she guided by her conscience.

So immediately after telling her constituents she was to vote for the legislation, she announced that she intends to abstain from voting. NZ Herald wrote this editorial - then a few days later Georgina announced that she is going to vote for the legislation.

It's a bit of a turnaround - another Goverment-related U turn - back to what she told her constituents in her electorate.

Now she is voting with the wish of her party leader as well as the wish of her constituents. Good on her. Not that it will make much difference to the final result.

Perhaps Ashraf Choudhary could learn a few lessons from her. Like do NOT abstain against the wishes of your constituents on the final vote, irrespective of whether it is a conscience vote.