We should also be upfront about the origins of this flawed law. The architect, Winston Peters, bears a huge grudge over the five New Zealand First MPs who abandoned his party in 1998. The problem is that Mr Peters had, only three years earlier, loudly and proudly defended Michael Laws defecting from National to join New Zealand First. He passionately argued then that it was the constitutional right of an MP to leave a party if they felt it had lost its way, that MPs should not just be robots to do whatever their party bosses or leaders told them, and that voters would have the final word at the next election. 