United Future MP loses seat over citizenship

6.00pm

United Future MP Kelly Chal has lost her seat in Parliament after revealing she is not a New Zealand citizen so should not have stood for Parliament.

The announcement amounted to political ping-pong for fellow United candidate Paul Adams, who was an MP until Saturday, when he lost his seat in the final election result after special votes were taken into account.

As the next person on United Future's party's list, Mr Adams will now be back in Parliament.

Mrs Chal discovered on Friday last week that she needed to be a New Zealand citizen to be nominated for United Future's list or be a MP.

Mrs Chal, an Indian-born Englishwoman, is a New Zealand resident.

She tried to get urgent citizenship but was told she should have been a New Zealand citizen on nomination day to qualify.

Mrs Chal had to inform her family of the news and United Future leader Peter Dunne had a prior engagement outside Parliament that he could not break.

The Chief Electoral Office tomorrow releases the final allocation of list MPs.

In a brief statement, Mr Dunne said he had been advised by Mrs Chal that "she has just discovered that she was not eligible to be nominated for the United Future party list or to be an MP".

"Therefore, Kelly has withdrawn her nomination forthwith, and I have advised the Chief Electoral Officer accordingly.

"She will be replaced by Paul Adams."

Mr Dunne's spokesman said Mrs Chal was "hugely disappointed" while Mr Adams, an Aucklander, had "mixed feelings" about being returned to Parliament after having his election night win overturned on special votes at the weekend.

The embarrassing admission was another blow to United Future, which saw its election night haul of nine MPs reduced to eight when the final election vote was released.

It raises questions about the party's professionalism, although it was pointing to the Chief Electoral Office for failing to pick up the mistake.

Chief Electoral Officer David Henry said the rules were that candidates had to be New Zealand citizens.

Candidates asserted that when they completed nomination forms as did party secretaries when they completed list forms.

"They assert that everyone in there is eligible to ... stand as a candidate, to become an MP, and we rely on that assertion by those two people unless we have some reason to think otherwise," he said.

He would not say whether Mrs Chal faced any penalties for misinforming the public and his office until he had spoken to the party secretary and Mrs Chal.

"I need to get their side of the story."

He could not say when that would happen as he was "still in the middle of the election process at the moment".

United Future has promised to support the Labour-led Government on confidence and supply over its three-year term.

Mrs Chal will not have far to look to get advice on what next to do -- she is a career counsellor.

Mrs Chal has been married to her husband, James, for 23 years and the couple has four children ranging from 11 to 21 years old.

She lives in Auckland's Manukau East electorate.

Mr Adams' start in politics has already been controversial after it was revealed he once argued that people with Aids and other "contagious diseases" should be publicly identified.

The former Christian Heritage member lobbied for Aids sufferers to be "quarantined."

- NZPA


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