Four of Northland's five MPs vote for Abortion Bill at first reading

Northern Advocate

14 Aug, 2019 07:00 PM2 mins to read

Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis was one of five Northland-based MPs who voted in favour of the Abortion Legislation Bill when it passed its first reading in Parliament.

Five of Northland's six MPs voted in favour of the Abortion Legislation Bill when it passed its first reading in Parliament.

Members of Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Abortion Legislation Bill last week, with MPs from both sides of the political aisle making emotional speeches.

The bill passed its first reading with 94 MPs in favour and 23 against.

As the bill is a conscience issue, MPs were not required to vote along party lines.

Five Northland MPs - Kelvin Davis, Labour's Te Tai Tokerau MP; Matt King, National MP for Northland; NZ First list MPs Winston Peters and Shane Jones and Labour list MP Willow-Jean Prime - all voted in favour of getting the Bill through its first reading, while Shane Reti, National MP for Whangarei, voted against.

There are 120 MPs in Parliament and all but three voted – including National MP Alfred Ngaro, who had strongly opposed abortion reforms.

He was overseas and said he had sent his proxy vote in to be cast, but that did not appear to have happened.

The other two who did not have votes recorded were National MPs Hamish Walker and Jian Yang.

Walker had cast a vote in favour of the reforms, but it was later crossed out and discounted under Parliament's rules because he left the Debating Chamber before the votes were counted.

Yang was in the House, but inadvertently missed the vote - saying he would have voted in favour of the bill.

The bill will now go before a select committee before it goes back to the House for a second reading.

NZ First has promised that all its MPs will support the bill in the second reading but are still pushing for a referendum.