General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I begin by expressing my congratulations to those who were elected in the local body elections on Saturday, my commiserations to those who were not elected, and my consolation to those who do not know either way at this stage. We have seen an appalling situation, by any stretch of the imagination, and particularly so when we discover that essentially the system for running local elections in New Zealand has been unchanged since the days of provincial government, which ended in 1876. That in itself is an indictment, and is a reason why there needs to be an urgent inquiry into the events surrounding that election. The subsequent issues that have emerged regarding the counting of votes, the contract that was let, and the fact that every local authority is responsible for the conduct of its own election is, in my view, totally unsatisfactory.

The point Mr Brownlee raised by way of a point of order a moment or two ago about large cities now being ungoverned and district health boards being unable to carry out their responsibilities is, perhaps, a little far-fetched, but the reality remains that many New Zealanders today—most of whom did not vote in the local body elections anyway—have had a further blow to their confidence in our system of local government by virtue of the fact that we cannot even get the results counted and out on time. Part of the problem lies in the way in which we administer the local body elections.

I take the House back a few years to the establishment of the Electoral Commission in the early 1990s as part of the lead-up to our MMP system of Government. One of the objectives prescribed for the Electoral Commission at the time of its establishment was that it should oversee all matters relating to the conduct of elections in New Zealand. As one of those who can remember the design of it, and as a member of the select committee at the time, I well recall the discussions about the fact that we needed one central body to conduct elections, to carry out the regulatory responsibilities in terms of the registration of parties, etc., and to ultimately take over the handling of enrolments. At the moment, we have a hopelessly split and divided system. Then we add into that the tier of local authority responsibility, and we get a system that is totally unworkable and that has failed the public on this occasion.

I am a strong advocate of the single transferable vote (STV) system. I do not hold that responsible, but I do believe that inadequate preparation was made for counting the votes under it. I draw to the House’s attention this parallel. In our first MMP election in 1996 we experienced similar problems in getting results, which were complicated then by a referendum as well. But the lesson that should have been learnt from that change was that when one makes a major change to one’s electoral system—and I will come back to the point raised separately by Dr Smith in the media in a moment—one needs to have thorough and adequate preparation. It was maybe forgivable in 1996 to have the delays the first time around. It is utterly unforgivable in 2004 to have a similar situation occurring.

Dr Smith raised in the media the fact that we have one system for some elections and one for another. There is some merit in that point, but I do not think that that in itself goes to the core of the problem. I take the point that people, confronted with a range of voting papers, may have scratched their heads and wondered which names to tick, or which names of a series to strike out because they did not wish to vote for them. But the fundamental point is that we have a system administered by so many different authorities and we clearly did not have sufficient preparatory work done. Even the company involved in carrying out the election—and I was not aware, until I became aware of who Electionz.com are, that we had privatised the electoral system in New Zealand—now admits that it did not have the resources to do the job properly. That in itself should be raising huge questions about the level of preparation for this change.

The reality will be that up and down New Zealand at the moment, many people who have been cynical about local government over the years, who have wondered what on earth its relevance has been, and who have tended to ignore it, will now have had their cynicism confirmed. I feel sorry for those candidates who are on tenterhooks. I feel sorry for the country.

It was only a few weeks ago that the Minister of Local Government proclaimed that the upcoming local body elections would be historic, great, and successful. Then, he wanted to claim responsibility; today he is blaming everybody else but himself. The scale of the debacle is extraordinary. Tens of thousands of single transferable vote (STV) votes have not been counted. Eighteen district health boards and seven councils are affected. The Minister admitted on radio this morning that it was worse than a shambles, and said that the integrity of the vote will always now be in question.

The Minister must accept responsibility. Let me set out why. This Government passed a law, against opposition from this side of the House. It put in place the law that provided for the confusing system of STV, and it also required every district health board to have that system. The Minister has gone even further. He has personally promoted STV all around New Zealand. The Minister said in the House this afternoon that he has no responsibility at all. Well, the smoking gun is in the record from Datamail. Datamail says that Chris Carter’s own department has worked with it for the past 2 years in developing the software and the system. His department approved the Datamail system that has failed so badly. Members should remember that it is a State-owned enterprise that has stuffed up here. For the Minister to blame councils when his own department indicated that both Datamail and Electionz.com are approved agencies, really is an extraordinary exercise in passing the buck.

It is also noteworthy that only a few weeks ago he was claiming credit for the STV system and for the campaign that was to back up that system, yet today Datamail has said that at the core of the problem was the poor information campaign—for which the Minister claimed the credit at the Local Government New Zealand conference speech only a few weeks ago. The Minister is keen to highlight the fact that STV has worked fine in a few areas that did not use the company. That is garbage! There were 14,000 votes in the Auckland district health board area. Of that number, nearly 15 percent has had to be thrown out because of this confusing system. In Northland, 4,000 votes are unable to be counted because they are invalid. That is extraordinary and undemocratic. For the Minister of Local Government to claim that that is a success is something extraordinary. The part that is so bizarre is that only a few weeks ago, the Minister said that the running of local body elections was a partnership between central and local government.

💬 Hon Bill English: Who were the partners?

I assume it is between the councils and the Minister.

💬 Hon Bill English: It’s a divorce today.

Is it a divorce? We know the Government is pretty keen on some strange things like that. I am saying to the Government that the Minister cannot say it is a partnership one week, and then the next week say that it is all the councils’ responsibility. It is interesting: as the Minister of Conservation, there are all sorts of pictures of him in the paper, as if he personally saved the kākāpō, but the moment anything goes wrong, that Minister is nowhere to be seen. There is an old ministerial convention in this House, and that is that Ministers are responsible for their departments. The fingerprints of the Department of Internal Affairs are all over this debacle, and Chris Carter is responsible for that. But what is even more serious is that he is responsible for the PC legislation that introduced the confusing and conflicting electoral system, that has resulted in this debacle. I say to the Government member who is about to get to his feet that the Government should take responsibility.

The House will rise for the year in about 9 weeks, and a new question has arisen in New Zealand politics: can Dr Brash last as long as that? If he does, then he will enter the new election year as leader and will, therefore, almost certainly lead National into the general election. He will lose that election. He will depart politics soon after. Under that scenario, National will have a new leader about 1 year from now. But the other scenario is that he will be gone by Christmas, and that scenario is starting to gain momentum.

Let us explore the evidence: firstly, the polls. National is tracking down these days in poll after poll, and Don Brash’s own ratings are leading that decline. His preferred Prime Minister ratings are now low—again. If there is another month of decline like the last month or two, the National caucus will stop its current muttering and start doing the numbers seriously. It is bad to watch it happen, but it is about to get worse.

Secondly, let us look at his performance. Crucially, that also not only remains bad but is getting worse. That man is not learning from experience. The post-Ōrewa shine has long since corroded and left him. The hope that his caucus invested in him has long since gone. He has responded to all of that by steering clear of Parliament. Instead, he tours, cadaver-like, around the towns, meeting with very small groups of people—mainly business. He becomes more distant, not less. He is hermetically sealed. He has become more clinical and less able to take a position on any issue that resonates with any significant group of the public.

Thirdly, there are the policy flip-flops. Flushed with his Ōrewa success, he let it be known that a series of major speeches on policy would play out this year. It turned out to be a series of one—on law and order. The good doctor was going to get tough with crime rates, which happen to be at a 20-year low, and put more people in prisons. “Oh yeah?”, said the nation with one voice, “Where? Where will you build these prisons? Will you build them in Tony Ryall’s electorate or in Simon Power’s electorate? Will you build them in John Key’s electorate? With what sort of money, and how much money will it cost? When will you build them, and with what workforce, given that we’ve got the second lowest unemployment rate in the Western World?”. So the law and order speech sank into a swamp, and the series of speeches was off—it was the flip-flop. But in the last week or two, it seems as if the series might be resurrected again—flip-flop-flip. It is very hard to tell where National is.

Fourthly, Dr Brash has no judgment. He thought he could change the law on the nuclear issue, and he thought he could get away with it. He is profoundly, dismally out of touch. He thought that he might hock off Kiwibank. “Don’t do that,” said members of his own party. He wants to spend the Cullen fund, but his finance spokesperson thinks that that is a bad idea. Then, over the weekend we watched the Mayor of Auckland get historically and comprehensively dicked, and we saw Dr Brash put up his own sinewy hand and say that: “Maybe Mr Banks could come back into the ranks of the National caucus.” He has such timing and such judgment!

But, finally, the main bit of evidence is that Bill English is on the move—watch him. This week, today, and last week, the man has been putting out press statements at exactly the same rate as the leader. He is working hard. He is taking an active role in House procedures. He is taking it to the Government. It is true that his allegations in the education portfolio are misleading—or sometimes worse than that—but he is active and engaged, and his activity is planned and strategic. Bill English is waiting. He knows that his time is coming again, and he has one fact at the very front of his mind. It is this: about a year ago, Bill English lost the National Party leadership by mistake. Do people remember the rat pack, the Bill English camp, celebrating the night before and losing the following day? Do they remember the effect on the caucus in general, and on Nick Smith in particular? Do they remember the questions about who voted for whom, and whether the senior whip had done the right thing? Do we all remember all that? It was a mistake. That was why they were celebrating the night before. What happened was that a number of the caucus who wanted to support Bill English also wanted to run him close, teach him a lesson, and sharpen him up a bit. What happened was that they did not tell each other. It was a mistake. He is coming back.

Debate interrupted.