Electoral Amendment Bill

Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill as it stands simply seeks to bring into line other pieces of legislation that are affected consequentially by the passage of this bill. They are the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993, the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000, the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011, and then there are amendments to the Electoral Regulations 1996. I wonder whether I might prevail upon the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, to participate in this debate and simply explain whether, at the end of the bill in Part 2 where the amendments to electoral regulations are outlined, there have been any changes to this provision since the enactment of the Legislation Act of last year—in fact, of 2012, but which became effective in 2013. The Electoral Regulations 1996 are, I presume, disallowable instruments. I would just like that confirmed, because here Parliament is talking about and considering electoral regulations and amendments to them in front of the Committee, rather than having regulations go through Order in Council. So I ask the Minister in the chair just to clarify that point for me, as to whether these come under particular provisions that are provisions of the Legislation Act, which would make these disallowable instruments and not legislative instruments. I can only assume they are legislative instruments, because we are addressing them in the Committee of the whole House in Parliament.

I wish that the legislation in Part 1, which we have just passed, could have been amended and that it could then have enjoyed the support of all of the parties in the House. It is a shame that part of this bill has not enjoyed the full support of this House. This legislation is too important. Any legislation around the electoral provisions that we have in law in this country ought to be passed not by just a simple majority of 61 to 59, which is about as slim as one can get, it should enjoy the support of the vast majority of parties in this House. If the Government had seen fit to accept some of the amendments that were put up in the last part, then this piece of legislation could have enjoyed that support. As it is, we will support these technical bits in Part 2. There is no point in opposing them. It would be simply not only churlish but a bit stupid to oppose them. But what this does then do is make the passage of this bill problematic. If we pass these technical bits in Part 2 as a Committee of the whole House, but we cannot bring ourselves to pass as a Committee of the whole House the essential and substantive parts in Part 1, then this Electoral Amendment Bill is a farce.

It should not be this way in this Committee. It should not be this way in a democracy like ours, which has the benefit of being a small democracy and is, therefore, transparent by necessity and also by convention. It should not be that we have a piece of legislation amending our electoral laws that does not enjoy the full support of the Committee in all parts. It is not impossible for a piece of legislation to enjoy the full support of this Committee. If the bill were fair and it did not put up barriers to people participating in the voting process, then it could have enjoyed the full support of this Committee. As it stands, we will support clauses 57, 58, and 59 through to 64 because it would be silly not to. But if only the same courtesy had been done to the Supplementary Order Papers in Part 1, then we might have had a logical and consistent piece of legislation that we could then say is the electoral law of the land, as supported by all parties. As it is, we will be compelled to go out to electors, to the people of New Zealand, and say that the Electoral Amendment Act—as it will become—did not enjoy the support of all the parties in Parliament. That should have been front and centre of the Minister’s intentions. We will support Part 2 because it is silly not to, but we wish that the members opposite had been generous enough to seek multipartisan support for electoral amendments that were provoking some disquiet and concern on this side of the Chamber.

So it is with reluctance that we support Part 2, but we will make it clear to the people of New Zealand that the electoral legislation that we have was not as well supported in this House as it could have been and that, in fact, it was only marginally supported by a majority in this House. That is not good enough. When it comes to electoral legislation, the Government should have tried harder to get the consent of all parties. It was not beyond its wit to do that. I hope it finds that Part 2 is a great trophy for it. This part is the administrative rats and mice. It makes other pieces of legislation consistent. It amends them because they are affected by this one. If that is the sort of achievement that the National Government takes pride in, then God help all of us, because it is not good enough when it comes to electoral legislation. We will support Part 2. There are no Supplementary Order Papers on it, to my knowledge. There is no need for any. In supporting Part 2, we reflect on the wish that we might have been able to support in full Part 1 of this bill.

I rise to take a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill—Part 2, “Consequential amendments to other enactments”. Can I make just some brief comments about the comments that were made by the Hon Maryan Street. I have the honour and privilege to have been part of the Justice and Electoral Committee since 2012. The committee had the Hon Lianne Dalziel, also Charles Chauvel, from the Opposition present as well. I can say that I am one member on the committee who has been there for some time. We went through the process of the inquiry, as one would normally do. We heard a number of the submitters who were there. Can I say that over that journey, over that process, there were a number of issues that were controversial and that were issues of contention amongst the deliberations of the committee. However, over that period of time the roles and positions of Government members have changed. Previously, the chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee was Tim Macindoe and now it is the honourable member over here—Scott Simpson of Coromandel. There have been changes on the Opposition side as well. So Opposition members may not be aware of that journey and the sorts of contentious issues that were there. There were issues around, for instance, the balloons and logos and tags and so forth.

However, we got to a point where, I have to say that it was this year, as we deliberated at the select committee, there was unanimous—can I repeat that, unanimous—support for the bill as it currently stands. So one must question the reasons why we now have opposition, why we now have Supplementary Order Papers that have been introduced. There were none in Part 2—yes, in Part 1. One can only query that maybe there was an ability to say, yes, we agreed in the select committee, but when Opposition members went back to their caucuses, there was concern. But then, as you know, even with Part 2, Part 2 went back along with Part 1 and that was deliberated on in caucus. It was brought back again to the select committee and again I must confirm that at the committee it was a unanimous decision to support all parts of the bill, even Part 2, where it is technical—“Consequential amendments to other enactments”. All parts of the bill were supported.

The New Zealand electoral system has a very high level of integrity. Part 1 has minor changes to the legal framework. Then in Part 2 there are minor changes and amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act, amendments to the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act, amendments to the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011, and amendments to Electoral Regulations as well. All of these were debated rigorously over 2 years to the point where, again, even in respect of Part 2, with no Supplementary Order Papers, there was unanimous support. I do not want to prolong this debate because the debate has been lengthy in the select committee. On all of the issues, even the ones of contention that will be raised again here, can I just say—and I may sound like a broken record—that all parts of the Electoral Amendment Bill were supported by all of the committee members. The Labour, New Zealand First, and Green Party members all saw this as a good bill, an important bill, and an amendment bill that will ensure that we have a democratic election come 20 September this year. I support Part 2 amendments to the Committee.

I would like to pick up on a number of the issues raised by the member Alfred Ngaro in his previous contribution because I think he has raised some important issues that the Committee needs to consider and needs to debate. First of all, he raised the fact that there were a number of changes in personnel on the Justice and Electoral Committee and that there were a number of controversial issues that were considered by the select committee at length. He is absolutely right. These matters are controversial, and that is why the Committee of the whole House is asking for some explanation around some of the issues. What I have not heard yet from either Mr Ngaro or the couple of other of his colleagues who have managed to get to their feet and speak, or anybody else for that matter, is some explanation around some of the controversial matters that Alfred Ngaro referred to. It is true that there were members on that committee who represented the Labour Party who have actually now left the House. They are no longer here for us to actually ask them what their view was. So this is the place, this is the time, where we get the opportunity to consider all those matters.

What I really, really want to know, and what not a single National member who was on that committee and neither the Minister in charge of the Electoral Amendment Bill, the Minister of Justice, nor the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, has explained is at what point in the select committee process the decision was made to remove the legislative requirement for voter identification cards. That is one issue that I am really interested in. As Alfred Ngaro raised in his previous contribution, that was one of the controversial issues where there may have appeared to be consensus at the select committee but where there certainly is no longer a consensus around it. All we on this side of the Chamber are asking for is an explanation. Where did that idea to get rid of the voter identification cards come from?

The reason why I am asking that question is that there is an extraordinary coincidence going on right now. Coincidences do happen. It is a big world, and so I accept that coincidences can happen. But what is extremely coincidental is that right now in Canada the Conservative Party of Canada is pushing through the Fair Elections Act, which is incredibly analogous to what the National Government is doing with this legislation. Those members have gone quiet, have they not? Is it not strange that conservative parties around the world are using these so-called fair election changes to suppress democracy? Because that is actually what it is about. The changes they are making in Canada are around the use of voter identification cards. It is that similar—it is that similar. They are suppressing the use of voter identification cards to make it harder for voters to identify themselves at the polling booth in exactly the same way that the National Government is doing here in New Zealand. It is a mighty coincidence, and one has to wonder what Crosby/Textor’s role has been in bringing these sorts of changes forward.

You know, they are even using the same argument over in Canada, which is that there is widespread potential for voter fraud. However, there is also in Canada absolutely no—[Interruption] Well, Mr Chairman, I appreciate that this is Part 2, but I am simply responding to the contribution made by Alfred Ngaro. What this Government has managed to do in Part 2 is get consensus around some of the “adminis-trivia” that is in Part 2. That is not exactly a high bar. Well done, National, you have got consensus around that. But what National has not managed to get consensus on is the bill as a whole, and what it has not been able to answer, either in Part 1 or in Part 2, is the question of where these ideas came from. Where did these ideas come from? That is what we want to know, but nobody has been able to answer that question. I just find it remarkably coincidental that at a time when the Conservative Government in Canada is pushing through exactly the kinds of changes that are being made with this bill, this legislation, which was introduced before that, got changed.

Apologies to my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway, but I also would like to take a call on Part 2 to address some of the contributions made by Alfred Ngaro. Like him, I have been involved in the Justice and Electoral Committee on this particular matter for some time, starting with the inquiry into the 2011 general election. As Mr Ngaro will recall, we spent a long time on that inquiry—some would say perhaps too long. There was at one point a question mark over whether there would even be time for this Electoral Amendment Bill to come before the House and be passed in time to put its provisions in place for this year’s election because we took so long over the 2011 general election inquiry. But I am not ashamed of the fact that we took a long time on that inquiry because it was a very robust process, we reached consensus, and we worked very hard to do that. I was proud of my work on that inquiry. It was my first experience of real, genuine cross-party collaboration on a select committee item of business where I think we got a really positive result.

One of the outcomes of that process was the recommendation that changes be made to the use of the EasyVote card to include on it a scannable code so that it could be used as a record that a vote had been cast in the election. That was what we went round in circles, actually, about for a while during the general election inquiry because there was concern about the potential for voter fraud. We heard from submitters who had that concern, we heard from members of the committee who had that concern, and we heard from the Electoral Commission, which gave us evidence about why that concern was unfounded. We listened, and we concluded that it was an unfounded concern and that we could include a recommendation to allow the EasyVote card to be used in this way. So we did, and that is what appeared in the first draft of this legislation. So, as we now debate Part 2 and the consequential amendments to what has just passed by a very slim majority in Part 1, I think it is important that we consider why it is that we have departed so far from the original draft of the bill, which was what the Minister of Justice brought to this House and was what the Justice and Electoral Committee recommended after its inquiry into the 2011 election.

I was not present for the select committee discussions on this bill. I would venture to say that if I had been, I might have made these arguments in person in the discussions. Unfortunately, I was on parental leave and I could not do that, but the same arguments that applied when we were talking about the election inquiry and about the EasyVote card apply to this bill. Those concerns, which may well have been raised by members of the committee during the discussion of this bill, about the potential for increased electoral fraud are simply unfounded. From a user perspective—from a voter perspective—going along to cast their vote in the 2014 election, on 20 September this year, there would be no difference if the bill as originally drafted were to pass. Their use of the EasyVote card would not change. It would not make it easier for them to use the card. It would not make them more likely to commit fraud. It would not make them less likely to commit fraud. There would be no difference. They would simply take the EasyVote card along to the polling booth, present it to the polling place staff member, and get their voting papers. So those concerns that somehow there is an increased chance of fraud taking place from this are simply unfounded. From the user perspective there is no difference. You get the card in the mail; you take it to the polling booth.

Where the difference comes is that after the vote has been cast, the scannable code on the EasyVote card allows the Electoral Commission staff to scan it so that the casting of a vote is electronically recorded against the electoral roll. That is the difference, and that is what we have inexplicably deleted from this bill, which has broken down the consensus that was achieved over a very long period of time when the committee originally considered these items in its 2011 election inquiry. I think that that is a real shame because all it is doing is making it more difficult for the Electoral Commission to do its job on election day, and it is missing the opportunity to streamline electoral processes and to actually continue to modernise and update our electoral law.

There are a number of consequential amendments in Part 2 that stem from what we have debated in Part 1. Again, we will support those because we do generally support the tenor of this legislation. We supported all of the recommendations that originally prompted this bill. We were very excited about modernising our electoral law, and it is a great shame that some unfounded concern about voter fraud, which, if you take a cynical view, as my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway has—

It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill. Unlike with Part 1, the Labour Party is going to support Part 2, so this part of the Electoral Amendment Bill will go through with quite a sizable majority. As previous speakers have said, Part 2 does make technical amendments to a number of other pieces of legislation. There are consequential amendments to them as a result of Part 1 of this bill. I would also like to take some of this call—I will refer to Part 2 very soon—as a chance to speak to some of the issues that Alfred Ngaro made reference to in his Part 2 speech.

I understand that Mr Ngaro is a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, and I think that that committee does need some praise, and Mr Ngaro actually needs some praise for taking a call in this debate at all. The Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, has sat in this Chamber and has been requested to answer a number of questions about the changes that have been made to Part 1 of this bill, not Part 2, but as of yet Alfred Ngaro is the only National person who is willing to take a call. He did not address exactly why the changes that have been made in Part 1 have been made, and some questions need to be addressed there because there are some controversial issues, as Mr Ngaro said. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has already pointed out many of those, but one change that has been made in the bill, which I think Mr Ngaro mentioned in his Part 2 speech, was around what I thought was a silly amendment that was in an earlier version of this piece of legislation around the use of ribbons and logos on election day. Earlier in this debate, I think it was in the first reading, I accused Scott Simpson, the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, of suffering from, I think the term is, kordéllaphobia, which is a fear of ribbons. I praise Mr Simpson, because he has gone away during the select committee process, he has realised that this particular piece of legislation was a silly amendment to the bill, and he has struck that out of the bill. I do praise the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee.

But there is a serious side to this, which some members have already addressed, and that is around the electoral confirmation cards. Most New Zealanders would know those as the EasyVote cards. Certainly in my electorate, when constituents get those cards, they know that they are ready to go and vote. Although this piece of legislation had that written into it at the very first stage, the Minister of Justice has asked that this be removed. For what reason, we do not know. Can I also point specifically to clause 57 in the bill, which refers to amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act. Subclauses (2) and (3) refer to the deletion of the signature of the Minister of Justice in the schedule, form 2, and the schedule, form 2A. Of course, we know that our current Minister of Justice is the Hon Judith Collins. This clause 57 asks for the deletion of the signature of the Minister of Justice. I guess you could call that—[Interruption] No, the signature of the Minister of Justice—you are getting to my point—would be an endorsement of whatever that signature pertained to. We would hate for the Minister to be getting a bit of a reputation around the deletion of her endorsement on things, given recent events. But let us not cry over sick milk.

These amendments to Part 2 are technical amendments, but, as the Hon Maryan Street said, although we apply principle to this, on this side of the Chamber we are quite keen to modernise our electoral system to make sure it has integrity, to make sure it is efficient, and to encourage participation. We believe that Part 2 does do that. We are concerned with what is contained in Part 1, but we on this side of the Chamber do encourage support for Part 2 because we know that in order to make Part 1 work, even though we do not agree with all of it, Part 2 does have the support of the Labour Party.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2