Citizenship slip forces MP out

By FRANCESCA MOLD political reporter

United Future's credibility was severely dented yesterday when one of its fledgling MPs was forced out of the job because she is not a New Zealand citizen.

List MP Kelly Chal may now face legal action after it was discovered she signed a form declaring her eligibility to stand for Parliament, despite not being a New Zealand citizen as required under the Electoral Act.

The Indian-born Englishwoman's ineligibility for office was discovered by Internal Affairs when it received her application for citizenship a week ago.

Internal Affairs alerted the Electoral Office yesterday, just 24 hours before it was due to formally allocate list seats in Parliament.

Chief Electoral Officer David Henry said it was too early to speculate on whether action could be taken against either Ms Chal or the party. He planned to meet party officials to discuss what had happened.

But United Future leader Peter Dunne said the Electoral Office must share some of the blame for the botch-up.

He questioned why the office had not raised concerns when they saw Ms Chal had written the words "permanent resident since 1994" next to the declaration "I am a New Zealand citizen", on her nomination form.

Ms Chal has lived in New Zealand for eight years. She is married and has four children.

"Ultimately she has to be accountable and she's accepted that accountability by standing aside," said Mr Dunne. "But there clearly needs to be some further investigation within the Electoral Office as to how come it took so long for them to become aware."

Mr Dunne said he believed the party had taken every reasonable step to ensure all its candidates were eligible. A form declaring their eligibility was signed under oath by party secretary, lawyer and new MP Murray Smith on July 1 and submitted to the Electoral Office.

Questions remained yesterday about whether Ms Chal had hurriedly applied for citizenship last week because she was aware of her ineligibility for Parliament.

Mr Dunne initially told reporters her application was submitted after the election when Ms Chal became aware of her situation.

He did not think she had applied in the hope that it would be approved before she was sworn in as an MP.

But later in the interview, Mr Dunne said the citizenship application was a "purely coincidental matter. I think [it] was something to do with a family matter, actually."

Ms Chal said last night that she had indicated on her consent form that she was not a NZ citizen and it was up to officials to follow that up. She said no one had told her she was not eligible to stand as a candidate.

Ms Chal's resignation means that number nine on United Future's candidate list, Paul Adams, will take a seat in Parliament after all.

Mr Adams was ousted this week when the final vote count gave the Greens an extra seat at his expense.

The embarrassing error is the latest in a string of bad publicity for United Future in the past two weeks.

Mr Adams hit the headlines with his comments that Aids sufferers should be publicly identified and then fellow United Future MP Larry Baldock caused a stir by calling for a cut in sex education funding.

Full election coverage

Graphic: Seats in the 47th Parliament

Full election results

Election links:
The parties, policies, electoral information, and more