Electoral Amendment Bill

I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by 13 February 2017. New Zealand is fortunate to have a robust and efficient electoral system. This efficiency is maintained through regular reviews of the law and practices surrounding the electoral process. The reviews also ensure that electoral law and practices are regularly modernised and reflect the changing needs and expectations of voters. The Justice and Electoral Committee carries out these reviews after every general election, which look into the delivery of the election and determine any potential improvements that could be made to the electoral framework. The committee then makes recommendations to the Government regarding the suitability of potential amendments.

Between October 2014 and April of this year, the committee undertook its inquiry into the 2014 general election. I would like to thank the committee for its careful consideration throughout the process. I would also like to thank the variety of individuals and organisations who made submissions. I understand the committee received 211 written submissions and heard 32 oral submissions. On 21 April this year, the committee released a thorough report, which included 28 recommendations on a range of electoral issues. I was pleased to see that all of the inquiry’s recommendations were unanimous.

When the Government responded to the committee’s report on 4 July 2016, we set out our approach to the recommendations. Each recommendation has been carefully considered, and the Electoral Amendment Bill is the result of those deliberations. This bill implements 12 of the inquiry’s recommendations that can be introduced in time for the next election, along with two changes relating to issues not considered by the inquiry. The changes contained in the bill will update our electoral law and further enhance the efficiency of our electoral system. In addition, the Government will progress those recommendations that do not require law changes. In particular, Government agencies and other key stakeholders will be encouraged to work more closely with the Electoral Commission to address the issue of low voter turnout.

Four recommendations require more significant policy development and have not been included in this bill due to time frames. These recommendations will be considered for future elections. One recommendation that the select committee considered was to give greater flexibility for opening and closing addresses, to give parties more choice about how they want to use their allocation of time and money. I am interested in considering this idea, and I am consulting with political parties across the House on how this piece of work might be progressed. If there is broad support, I do intend to advance this matter further. As signalled in the Government’s response to the inquiry, other electoral broadcasting matters will be considered as part of the digital convergence bill.

I would like to touch briefly on a number of the specific changes that the bill makes. The bill helps to ensure a timely count of votes, in light of the increasing number of people who choose to vote in advance. The Electoral Commission will be able to start counting advance votes earlier on election day and will have more flexibility in how this is done. This will ensure that the preliminary election results can be announced on election night in a timely manner. The Electoral Commission will also be able to make certain forms more user friendly. Many of the electoral forms are currently overly complex, which can be a barrier to voter participation. By de-prescribing the format of these forms, the Electoral Commission will be able to simplify them, making them easier to use. The Electoral Act will continue to prescribe the purpose of the forms and the information required. This change will not affect ballot papers, which will still be prescribed.

Some changes that were not considered by the inquiry are also included in the bill. One of these changes provides clarification about the prohibition on making false statements to influence voters on election day or the 2 days prior. The bill specifies that this offence relates only to actions taken to actively and purposefully publish or republish false statements on election day or the 2 days prior. The bill makes a number of other amendments to electoral law, all of which are minor and technical in nature but no less important for the smooth delivery of our elections.

Having a select committee inquiry into each election is a valuable opportunity for ensuring multiparty collaboration around electoral reform. I welcome the opportunity for constructive cooperation with other parties during this bill’s passage through the House. It is important that these amendments can be enacted sufficiently in advance of the 2017 general election, so that the rules of the game are clear for everyone and to ensure we minimise disruption for election preparations. I am hopeful that the select committee will be able to report back in a timely manner, given that the vast majority of the changes have already been carefully considered by the committee and, importantly, were unanimously recommended. The changes made through this bill will enhance the efficient delivery of our elections and will ensure our law remains relevant for next year’s election and beyond. I commend this bill to the House.

I welcome the opening remarks of the Minister of Justice because, of course, I would absolutely agree that the process that we have undertaken as a Parliament is a robust way to bring to this House any electoral law amendments that, ultimately, we would want cross-party consensus on. It is a little bit of an about-face, this process, because, thankfully, driving the changes that we have is a report by the Justice and Electoral Committee, which has already considered what might need to be changed. We have already had submissions around that, and out of that have come some recommendations.

Those recommendations have been drafted into a bill, and that will then allow submissions, again, to come forward from the public. It is a robust procedure, and I think that that is appreciated by all sides of the House. Having said that, what has been captured by this bill is by no means every element that was considered by the select committee—particularly by some members of the select committee—to be of great importance. I want to touch on some of the missing elements from this bill, because they feel equally important to us on this side of the House.

The first that I would mention simply falls under the heading of this: how do we make it easier for members of the public to participate in the act of voting in New Zealand? We know, because we work in this area, that it is a two-stage process. It requires, first, accurate enrolment—preferably before the published roll, but certainly before election day itself. That in itself has caused problems, as 10 percent of the population—roughly 330,000 voters, and that has doubled in recent times—who are eligible to vote do not even undertake the act of enrolling. Some of that may be deliberate—a choice to opt out of the process—but some of it could simply be a lack of understanding around what is required in order to vote.

Many people could naturally assume that you vote by showing up to a polling booth and casting a vote. We know that that is part of the problem, because there were a number of people who did undertake enough effort, at least, to participate in the act of voting by going to a voting booth, and, either on polling day or beforehand, casting a vote, but did so inaccurately. When I say “inaccurately” I mean that they did not enrol, or that they put down inaccurate information, or that there was a difference between their special vote form and their enrolment form—some administrative error meant that 27,000 people cast a vote that did not count in the last election. In some cases that would be as many votes as would be cast in an entire electorate—27,000 votes discounted because of an error. That error might be that someone went in and cast their vote thinking that they were on the electoral roll, but were not.

We know that there are ways to mitigate against that risk. If, as a voter, I go into a polling place, and I go in there early to vote in the advance voting period—it is not election day—and they cannot find me on the roll, I can take a risk and say “Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m on the roll, I am just going to cast a vote anyway.” If I am not, it will not count. What they could do, then, is give me a special vote form and an enrolment form, and I have to fill out the two. If I fill out anything there and there is inaccuracy between the two forms, or if I say that I am definitely on the roll and they give me just one form—there is so much room for error. We could combine the two forms and say: “If you are having to fill in a special vote form, let us make that count as an enrolment form. Let us just have the one—remove the risk.”

It would be a simple administrative change that could change the outcome for thousands of voters who currently have had their vote not count—and they know it, because after the election they get sent an enrolment form that says: “You cast a vote and it did not count. Can you please enrol?”. That does not encourage participating in democracy. The Electoral Commission came to us, the select committee, and it said: “We think we can do this—in fact, we think we should do this. Let’s combine these two forms.” I still do not understand why Government members voted against that—I still do not understand that. I want the opportunity again, in the select committee, for that to be discussed. I can absolutely guarantee now, for this House, that Labour will be putting in a Supplementary Order Paper on this matter. I would much prefer that we have consensus on this question, so it would be good if we could use this process to tease out why it was that the Government had discomfort with this change.

Taking it one step further, we had one other element that the Government had even less comfort with. You can enrol all the way through the advance voting period, and, in fact, you can do it in a polling station. If I go in and I am found not to be on the roll, I can fill in an enrolment form and I can vote at the same time. That is great, but there is one day you cannot, and it is the day that most voters turn out to vote, and it is election day. It is becoming increasingly arbitrary to say that you cannot enrol on that day—increasingly arbitrary. When we tested out in the select committee why it was that we still have that partitioned off, distinct day we could not vote, it was identified that, actually, we could probably maintain the integrity of the voting system and allow enrolment on the day that you vote on election day. Again, we had real concerns that we could potentially be turning away people who are willing and ready to vote, because of that administrative quirk in our system. That seems completely unnecessary.

We are very lucky in New Zealand that our voter fraud is low, and that the integrity in our system is high. From memory, I want to say we had 150 duplicate votes, and the Electoral Commission could not even narrow down how much of that was simply people who, for instance, are not aware that they have filled in a ballot paper—a special vote, for instance, in a residential facility—and then have filled in a second. Actually, a lot of incidents are probably people who are—I did not want to say senile, but we do not know, and in some cases it could simply be that. The numbers are so low—the numbers are so low—that, actually, there will be cases of that. Why is it that we have a fear around opening up the ability to enrol and vote on the same day—to enrol and vote on the same day?

💬 Jacqui Dean: Who was that?

I say to the chairperson that I know he meant no offence by that statement, but we do go into every place where someone is eligible, to ensure that they do have the opportunity to vote. Those are two issues we had great concern with.

The other thing I do just want to add is about civic education—we discuss it every time, but let us actually do something about it this time. It should be compulsory in the senior years of students in our schools not only to enrol to vote but to learn about the electoral system and the political system in New Zealand. It is not enough that we do it in social studies. It is not enough that we do it in junior school, when it does not feel as relevant to a younger person. Why is this not embedded within our compulsory subjects in New Zealand—not an elective and not a choice that is made by a school, but a subject every single student should be learning? It is absolutely critical.

I want to touch very briefly on what is included in the bill. The Minister did that a little bit, too. Many of the changes, I would say, very broadly, are captured by the idea of giving the Electoral Commission, where there should be flexibility, greater flexibility, a right to have clear, plain English on voting forms—excuse me, not on ballots, because we have kept them distinct and legislated, but on guidance and other non-statutory forms—to make sure that they have the ability to ensure they are doing everything they can to make their processes accessible, so that they do not have to communicate just via post.

We have also done some really common-sense things like allowing the Electoral Commission to use online electronic roll look-up in voting places, so we are not just reliant on the printed roll. We will have real-time data on enrolment so that 6 weeks prior to the election, if someone is enrolled, they will have that real-time information, if it is available. That is important.

Because of such an increase in advance voting now, we had a discussion around where electioneering should not take place around an advance polling place, and, roughly, we thought: “Look, people should not be harassed. They should be free to walk into a polling place without being harassed and without being confronted.” So creating a 10-metre boundary around polling places is important, but we accept that, for instance, in an inner-city polling booth like in the area that I work across, sometimes there are hoardings in quite close proximity. There always have been. That is because we have more polling places in accessible areas, so let us not be extreme. Let us be practical and give a bit of flexibility for the Electoral Commission to reduce that if it is impractical for a voting place—that particular boundary.

We are Saturdayising when hoardings can go up. That has been a bugbear for a while. We are saying, look, an MP’s signage on their office is obviously not an election advertisement—let us be clear about that. We are trying to be practical and pragmatic, but I would challenge the committee: we need to make sure we are doing everything in our power, within reason, to make sure voting and enrolment are accessible, and we have not quite got there yet.

The Electoral Amendment Bill, first reading—and I want to first acknowledge members of the Justice and Electoral Committee, who, as usual, worked in a constructive, collegial, and pragmatic way to make a report to the Government, and here we are with the Government’s response by way of a bill.

I think we would all acknowledge that we are incredibly fortunate in New Zealand—some might say lucky, but I reckon we are fortunate in New Zealand—in that every permanent resident above the age of 18 is entitled to vote in the general election. We also are fortunate—and there is nothing lucky about this; it has taken many, many years of diligent attention to the legislative process, to which we add our most recent iteration—to have a good, robust process within the electoral system, and we do now enjoy a very high level of integrity within that system. The other part of that equation for a good, robust electoral system that delivers good results for the country is to have strong engagement by those who are entitled to vote, and also those younger folk who are not yet entitled to vote but who should be thinking about their degree of responsibility and, in particular, civics responsibility.

It is my view, and, I believe, the view of a number of members on the Government side and other sides, that early engagement in the process is far more beneficial than that very last-minute “Oh my goodness! It’s the day before the election. I’m not enrolled. I do want to vote. Oh!”. If you are not engaged, how do you make good choices? If you are not engaged in the electoral process, of which we are so proud, how can you then be focused on receiving many, many, many types of information that will come flooding in to you as a citizen, through every means possible—and we expand those means even in this bill. If you are not engaged, how do you make a good, informed decision? That is why my view and the view of many others on the committee and across these benches is that early engagement, so that a considered decision can be made, has got to be the preferred option for anyone who is engaging in this electoral system.

It is also really important that we have regular reviews of our electoral system so that it can be as efficient and as effective as it possibly can be. A lot of the recommendations that are made in this bill reflect that, the changing nature of doing business in New Zealand. Therefore, for example, we are making changes to bring the electoral system in line with shifts in technology and, indeed, shifts in voter behaviour. We will enable more efficient systems in polling places with things like, for example, earlier counting of advance voting—just seemingly simple changes that will make our system even more robust. Because we have many opportunities to speak on this bill, I would emphasise that early engagement of people in the system has got to bring about better outcomes for us all. Thank you.

For those who think this is a somewhat dry subject and unimportant, we should reflect on the fact that the election of George W Bush in his first election, when he beat the Democratic Party candidate Al Gore, was, effectively, an outcome of improper purging of the rolls in Florida. What happened in Florida in that election was that the Republicans, who did not want people who they thought were more likely to vote Democrat to be able to vote, went through the electoral rolls and they struck out people who had the same name as people who were in prison.

In the process, they struck out a lot of Bill Smiths who were not criminals and were not in prison and who had not been imprisoned, and they struck out the wrong people. The effect of it was that those people lost the right to vote because they were not on the electoral roll, and that could have been the difference in the electoral college in Florida, which was the difference in the electoral outcome that foisted upon the world George W Bush, who was not a force for good. He was a force for, overall, the world going backwards, including in the likes of Iraq and with continuing effects in Syria. So electoral rolls are incredibly important.

Around the world you always see the swing about a central point depending on whether you have a right-wing Government or a left-wing Government, because a lot of the people who are less likely to be correctly on the roll, who are more likely to have insecurity of accommodation and, therefore, be moving around, are more likely to be left-leaning voters than right-leaning voters. Therefore, there is an electoral advantage in having a narrow roll for the right and an electoral disadvantage for the left if you have got a narrow roll. We have seen that, I think, in the last few years. I am not saying that this National Government is as bad as the Republican Party was in Florida, but it still does things that curb the ability of us to have as fulsome a roll as we should have in New Zealand to enable people who have got as much right as me to participate in the political process to do so. They have as much right as any of us here, yet they are prevented because they are not on the roll.

How could we fix this in New Zealand? There are a lot of Scandinavian countries that now use the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) system. Virtually everyone in New Zealand has an IRD number. You have got to have an IRD number if you have got a student loan. You have got to have an IRD number if you are on a benefit. You have got to have an IRD number if you are a superannuitant. You have got to have an IRD number if you are in employment. Virtually everyone in New Zealand has an IRD number. Why can we not use IRD numbers as being a legitimate representation of your ability to vote? Some Scandinavian countries put a year of birth next to everyone’s IRD number. So my IRD number would be the same, but it would have 1960 in it, which makes it a little bit harder for someone who is 16 or someone who is 80 to impersonate me. It actually is a good way that you could move against—

💬 Hon Member: Would they?

I leave a fair range in the middle there, as a consequence of the hole in the top of my head, which did not use to be there. I think that we need to move to a system that would save money, because at the moment we have all of these people being paid money to try to maintain our electoral roll, separate from the IRD system, which could be more cost effectively done if we utilised the IRD system. I think it is terrible that so many people in New Zealand are disenfranchised from being able to vote. Not only are those people disenfranchised; theoretically, they are in breach of the law because they are meant to be on the electoral roll.

I want to mention another thing that is not fixed by this legislation. Taylor v Attorney-General is the first decision ever of the New Zealand High Court to give a litigant a declaration for legislation that is in place being in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It was an appalling piece of legislation passed through this House following Paul Quinn, a National Party member, bringing forward a member’s bill. What it did was that it changed the rule on people who were on short criminal sentences and their ability to vote. It has always been widely accepted in New Zealand, including on this side of the House, that if you are in prison for a long period of time, like 3 years, you lose your right to vote.

But the Government shortened it to any period of imprisonment and created injustices again by doing that, according to the High Court. This is because if you get a 1-year sentence and it happens to be between two elections you can still vote in each election, but you cannot if it is over the period of an election. If you get a non-custodial sentence instead of imprisonment—which would be more likely to happen to someone who is better off in society than someone who is itinerant, who might not be able to satisfy the court that they should have home detention because they have got no home to stay in—then the person who gets home detention can vote, but the person who has been guilty of just the same seriousness of offence cannot vote. The High Court, for the first time in New Zealand’s history, criticised the law passed in New Zealand. It gave a declaration that that law was non-compliant with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This piece of legislation could fix it, but it does not. That is wrong in principle.

I want to turn to two other issues. Jacinda Arden has already made the point that if you can enrol close to the election and you can also issue a special vote close to the election, why can you not do both through the same form in an early voting booth? It is a very simple idea. It is a very simple idea that would enable more people to vote, and I would have thought that that is something the National Government would support.

There are some other good things in this legislation. I agree with the practical remedies advanced in terms of the practical changes being made in allowing advance votes to be counted earlier in the day on voting day, but not before voting day—I think that is appropriate. I like the way that we are giving flexibility to the format of forms rather than prescribing the forms. We are just prescribing the content rather than the way in which they are set out. I agree with Minister Adams that ballot papers are very, very sensitive because the way in which a ballot paper can be set out could affect the outcome of an election, and I do not think that anyone in this Parliament would want Parliament to give away the right to control what ballot papers look like, because that could be politicised more easily if that was the case.

Can I return to the point that I made at the start. I think we should be able to use IRD numbers. Together with a declaration that someone is either a permanent resident or a citizen at the time they vote, that should be enough to enable a person to vote. Thank you.

It is great to see, when you have done an inquiry in a select committee, it start to come through with recommendations that are a part of legislation. I agree with the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, Jacqui Dean, who spoke earlier, that it was, I think, a very constructive time that we had together as a committee, working through the various submissions. We got submitters from all sorts of areas—obviously, various political parties and different private citizens who had different views about improvements that could be made to the electoral process in New Zealand. I found it, personally, a really interesting experience to hear the pros and cons. Often you look at things at face value and say “Well, that looks like a very good idea.” and then you start to think about some of the ramifications of those ideas and think through the possible adverse consequences of those decisions. I think it has been great to tease those out through this process. I look forward to teasing those things out further when this returns to the committee as part of this Electoral Amendment Bill.

I think that what has happened in this current iteration, or review, of the Electoral Act—and, of course, this will happen after every election—is that, in particular, it has been beholden on us this time around to make sure that we maintain the integrity of the voting system within our country, and I believe that we have done that; but, also, to explore some of the changing environments, some of the changing behaviour that has occurred around early voting, and, also, to acknowledge and reflect on some of the changing technological aspects of our society. I just want to draw the House’s attention to a couple of those things at this particular stage of the legislation—for example, allowing electoral officials to be able to use an online enrolment-checking function of voting papers, which enables real-time checking of voters’ enrolment status. I think that is a great outcome. That just makes common sense when you think about it—that, actually, we have not got people having the ability, perhaps, to go around different polling booths, to try to cast a vote, and then to catch them out later on and have to go through a whole process. Being able to do it online and in real time is clearly a very good step, and I think there are a number of other technological aspects to this bill, in terms of acknowledging the advanced technology, that are good as well.

In particular, finally, I just want to touch on a particular aspect that came up, which was that party secretaries will have to be reappointed almost immediately if they leave during the election period. I think that is critical, given that party secretaries are, in effect, the only ones who, when there is a breach of some kind, can legally be held accountable. So I look forward to this bill returning to the Justice and Electoral Committee and to the further debate that we will have on this going forward.

I will not take too long in the debate on this bill. It is great that the parties support it, and we certainly do. The inquiry was, as always, a good one and it raised a number of issues that have not been addressed in this legislation. It would be good to work with the Minister of Justice on more legislation early next year to see whether we can resolve some of these issues that have not been able to be resolved in this bill.

Just a few things to note from the inquiry, I think: the kids’ voting programme that was rolled out—78,000 children in years 9 and 10 had access to an experience of being able to vote and learn how to vote. I think that is a really good start and we need to keep rolling out that programme. I recently gave a talk at Logan Park High School, to their senior students there, and although about two-thirds of the students there were learning about the New Zealand electoral system, about a third had not. So there is still a serious gap when young people do not understand how our electoral system works, and we can do a great deal more to improve that.

The advance voting is increasing, as has been discussed, and there was a lot of conversation in the Justice and Electoral Committee about there being more places for advance voting in places where people are, where they go, as opposed to expecting them to go to their local school hall, and about increased opening hours. If we were able to do that, we could potentially shorten the period of advance voting, as long as there was greater access during that period of advance voting. Greater access, by having polling booths in the places where people go during the day and in the weekends, is incredibly important if we want to maximise people’s access to their democratic right to vote.

The voters in prisons issue, which was raised briefly by my colleague, was also talked about to some degree, and it continues to be a stain on New Zealand’s democracy that the bill of that man was allowed to pass, with the support of the National Party members, to disenfranchise thousands of New Zealanders, many of whom—a predominant number of whom—are reportedly Māori, and prevent them from voting. It was a disgraceful act at the time and it continues to be a disgrace. When people are convicted of a crime and they are sentenced to a custodial sentence of 3 years or more, you may be able to argue that they should not vote. I would not argue that, but you may be able to justify that—someone might. But at the moment, the change that was made means that most prisoners now, including those who have sentences of fewer than 3 years, are not able to vote. Those people are entitled to have a say—all prisoners, in my view, are entitled to have a say—in the democratic processes of their country.

Prisoners are, in fact, one of the groups of people most excluded from the democratic process when they are in prison. The whole point of the prison process and incarceration is to punish them by relieving them of their freedom of movement. It does not relieve them of their rights as citizens. We do not strip citizens’ rights from people who are convicted of crimes and are imprisoned—we simply remove them from society and remove their right to free movement. These people all have rights as citizens, and one of those core fundamental rights in a democracy is that they should be able to vote, particularly given that the most powerful laws, if you like, that are created in this place are the laws that enable a person to be incarcerated, the punishment laws through the criminal system. They have a right to have a say as to who represents them in this place, so that they have some kind of voice, and the fact that we continue to disenfranchise thousands of New Zealanders, many thousands of Māori in particular, is an ongoing disgrace and needs to be changed.

There was some talk about voters with disabilities, and there was a higher level of satisfaction, if you like, with the voting system in the last election for those people who had disabilities, but there is still more that can be done to improve access for those with disabilities. When I say “improve access” I do not just mean making it possible for a person with a disability to vote; I mean making sure they have all of the privacy, the agency, and the access to voting, without others being involved, that we all enjoy as people who, in the main, are able-bodied. It is not just about whether they can actually physically vote; it is the circumstances in which they are able to vote, that they do not need to use another person to interpret for them, that the rules do not impose an unnecessary burden on them—like, for example, the rule that says that they have to verbally say what their name is as part of the voting system, which for many people with a disability is not possible. It is a silly rule that makes it very difficult for those people. It reduces their access. So we can certainly do much more to improve access to the voting system for people with disabilities.

Just finally, the Māori electoral option was also discussed. There is a strong view that it should be possible for people to change from the Māori roll to the general roll, from the general to the Māori, and back again once every electoral period, rather than once every 5 years, and to decouple—the report describes “decoupling”—the Māori electoral option from the census. The census is actually irrelevant to the rights of people to be able to vote and to the electoral cycle. So there was some very good discussion. Not all of it is represented in this legislation, but there is, no doubt, more time to make some changes.

Finally, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary, as I understand it, of the very first MMP election. The very first MMP election was on 12 October 1996, and what we have not done in the last 5 years is make the changes to MMP that were promised by National after the 2014 election. You would remember that we had a referendum on whether or not to keep MMP, and there was a resounding call from New Zealanders to keep MMP and a strong commitment from New Zealanders to support changes to the MMP system that would improve that system, to improve the democratic approach, to improve access, and to improve the quality of representation in this . None of those things have been done by National, for all sorts of varieties of excuses—

💬 Chris Bishop: What a load of rubbish.

Go and talk to Judith Collins if you want to find out about those foolish excuses that she made at the time. So we have had lots of time now to consider what those options might be, to make those changes, but we continue to have a Government that, despite promises to change the system, to improve MMP after the referendum—National broke that promise, and we still do not have those changes set out in an electoral bill. This was also a missed opportunity to make those changes to improve our democracy. Thank you.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee. There are a number of things that we want to discuss there, and, in fact, amongst those are a number of things that are actually not in the bill at all but that were previously discussed by the committee when it reviewed the outcome of the 2014 election. One of them was mentioned by the Minister in her speech, and that is the question of more flexibility for funding for opening and closing addresses on television. There is no provision for that in the bill as yet, but I understand from what the Minister said that she is willing to consider that. I want to say right here and put on record that New Zealand First is very interested in that. We do want to discuss it, and we do want to try to reach consensus with other parties on that, because it is high time that that issue was looked at. The fact is that opening and closing addresses on television are not very popular, most people do not watch them, they are probably not really worth the money that is spent on them, and it would be good if parties had flexibility to use that funding in other ways, especially for broadcasting. So that is something we look forward to discussions on, both at the committee and, perhaps, on a one-on-one basis with the Minister.

Something else that I think bears more discussion is the whole question of advance voting. There was a lot of discussion about advance voting when the committee reviewed the 2014 election, and we noted—with some satisfaction, I think—the strong trend of voters to use advance voting. I think it went up by around 20 percent, to well over 30 percent at the 2014 election. When you get that number of people using advance voting up to 3 weeks ahead of election day, it makes you sit up and take notice. The reasons are pretty obvious: people are working, many work on Saturdays, many have sports functions to go to on Saturdays, or go shopping on Saturdays. Saturdays are very, very busy days for people, and many people do want to take advantage of shorter queues at polling stations well before election day itself. If we want to really increase turnout, we really do need to make sure that we optimise facilities for advance voting.

What was discussed at the select committee when it looked at the matter were two things. One was that there are not enough polling booths available in the advance period, for the 3 weeks before election day—not enough polling places, and that needs to be improved. Second was the problem that some voting places used for advance voting are not the same as the polling places used on election day, and that causes confusion and possibly turns people off from going and casting their votes. So those are two things that I think, even though they are not in this bill, we need to have another look at. Maybe they do not need to be in this bill; maybe it is something that the commission can have a look at without any change in legislation. I am not sure about that, but I am sure that we need to discuss this more, and I would like to hear the Minister give some indication about whether the Government is going to move in the ways that I have suggested, as to how we can improve voting up to 3 weeks before election day.

Talking about voting in advance, I note that the bill does make some changes about counting votes on election day, and the proposal is to extend the period, instead of 2 p.m. on election day, down to 9 a.m.—that gives the whole day in which it is possible to start counting votes. Given the number of votes that are cast in advance, it would be very sensible for that to happen. What New Zealand First would not have supported is any proposal to start counting votes during the 3-week advance voting period. We think that that would have opened up the possibility of leaks, of progress votes, or of speculation and false claims about how votes are going, so it is better not to do that. It should be sufficient to count the votes on election day, but I am sure we would support the extension of a few hours by making it possible to start counting votes from 9 a.m.

The bill does some other quite sensible things, which I am sure that New Zealand First will want to support, and one of those concerns contact information on election advertisements out of Parliament offices. They will now be treated as a single sign. Most offices have a number of signs on or near them; the same occurs with vehicles. It is good to see that the law will be clarified to make it possible for all of those signs to be treated as one sign, and for those not to infringe the law by remaining in place during the election period, especially the advance election period. So it is good to see that, and there are some other pretty sensible things too that we would like to state our support for at this stage.

One of them is the new section 197(1)(k), which provides that it will be an offence to do a number of things to influence advance voters during that advance voting period. In fact, what is proposed is for there to be a buffer zone, and that will be 10 metres unless there is some good reason to alter that. I think this is actually a very important provision, because I think it is important that people are able to go and cast their votes in peace without being harassed by people, whether it is by loudspeakers, by being handed pamphlets on their way into a polling booth, or by being harassed in some other way. One of the things that will put people off voting is if they have to run a gauntlet of people on the way to a polling booth, being harassed and being told which way they should vote or which issue they should vote in favour of, or whatever the case may be. So we in New Zealand First do very much support that people should be able to vote, and do it in peace without having to be subjected to any form of advertising outside the normal scope of things. I note that there are exemptions in the bill for advertising on people’s clothing—the usual rosettes are exempted from these provisions—and similar things on motor cars, and so on. I think we have got, as a result of this bill, a very sensible balance between allowing people to vote in peace and providing some exemptions to make sure that we do not go a little bit too far, especially as far as rosettes and those kinds of things are concerned. So that is good to see.

Another thing that is good to see is clause 97, which provides for a specific period beginning 2 days immediately before polling day and ending on the close of the poll. It relates to people who would make false statements to influence voters, and that will now be an offence during the whole of that period. I think that is a very, very important provision when you consider some of the things that happened at the last election and that happened at previous elections. Again, it is important for the integrity of our system that that should not be permitted to happen. So we do, overall, support all of the major components of this bill, and there are many other more minor things that it covers as well that are very sensible. But there are a number of items that I said, at the beginning of my speech, we do want to discuss. They are not actually in the bill. We think they should be in the bill. I know that there are some proposals for Supplementary Order Papers to insert them, but I would like to think that we would be able to discuss those before we get to the point of the Committee of the whole House. I would like to think that they will be discussed at the select committee even though they are not in the bill. I hope we are not going to be told they are outside the scope of the bill and that we therefore are not allowed to discuss them. That would not be a good thing to happen.

I would like to see a more general discussion at the committee, so that we can discuss some of these things. The Minister has already raised one of them; as I said, we want to discuss that. I would like to discuss the matter that Jacinda Ardern raised, and a number of other matters that I think deserve discussion and that would improve New Zealand’s electoral system. So I look forward to the discussion of those things at the select committee and after that. We have had a pretty good record of achieving consensus on most things so far. I hope we can achieve consensus again on some of those other things yet to be discussed.

The inquiry from the Justice and Electoral Committee into the 2014 election was one of the first things I had the privilege of doing after I was elected to Parliament in that election—the 2014 election. It was a really interesting experience on the committee, and I want to acknowledge all the committee members who have spoken in the debate so far. It was a collegial committee and we worked our way through the submissions on that inquiry, and it became very clear—I think, reasonably early on in the committee’s inquiry—that we were going to end up with some form of legislation down the line to make improvements to our electoral system.

We consulted widely. We had trips up and down the country—to Auckland and Wellington, at least. Colin Craig turned up in Auckland, and we were all very worried for a while, but it turned out that he just wanted to make a submission about, I think it was, the Broadcasting Act allocation of funds, in the end, so it actually turned out to be a bit of a damp squib, but it was fine. I think what we have produced as a Government out of that parliamentary inquiry is a sensible piece of legislation—14 changes, as other speakers have made mention, to adapt the Electoral Act to shifts in technology and voter behaviour.

I just want to highlight one thing in particular that I am very keen on, and that is the new amendment to prohibit campaigning and the display of campaign material within 10 metres of advance voting places. I think it is going to be worth having a discussion at the select committee as to whether or not that 10 metres is the appropriate space around the advance polling place. We canvassed this in the committee and with submitters, but it may be impractical in some areas for those 10 metres to be enforced, particularly in urban centres in which there are advance polling places in libraries and community centres, for example, near main thoroughfares. So we are going to need to have a bit of discussion, I think, at the Justice and Electoral Committee as to whether or not that is an appropriate space around an advance polling place, but I have no doubt we can reach some sort of unanimity or at least some consensus on that.

Just in closing, I do want to just rebut a couple of the comments from Metiria Turei there, who said that this is a real missed opportunity to make improvements to MMP. She said that the National Government promised to make amendments to MMP after the 2014 election. That is a fallacy. That is not correct. What was promised was a review of MMP, which is exactly what happened, and there is no consensus on moving forward on some of the changes that the Greens seem to want to promote. For example, the removal of what is known as the electorate seat threshold waiver, which is the ability for MPs who win an electorate seat to waive the ordinarily enforced 5 percent threshold—there is no consensus on getting rid of that.

The other point I would make, because the Greens are very concerned about proportionality under MMP, is that it is often forgotten that the electorate seat threshold waiver helps proportionality. It makes the Parliament more representative; it makes it more democratic; it makes it more proportional. It was more proportional after 1999 when the New Zealand First Party missed out on the 5 percent threshold and Winston Peters won Tauranga; it was more proportionate after 2002 when Jim Anderton won Wigram; it was more proportionate after 2005 when Peter Dunne came into Parliament with two other colleagues on the back of winning Ohariu-Belmont. So with those brief remarks I commend this good bill to the House.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—Kennedy Graham.

Just to reiterate what Metiria Turei said, the Green Party will be supporting this bill to the select committee. The bill follows, as we have heard, the 2014 inquiry by the Justice and Electoral Committee. It makes a number of small changes to the Electoral Act, in line with recommendations by the committee. It allows the Electoral Commission to start counting advance votes earlier on election day. It allows the Electoral Commission to make certain forms more user-friendly. It prohibits electioneering inside and within 10 metres of advance voting places. We have just heard from Chris Bishop of the practical implications of that that will need to be explored; we take that on board. It removes references in the Act to the former Electoral Commission and other offices. It makes a change, which was not recommended by the committee, to clarify the prohibition on making false statements to influence voters on election day or the 2 days prior, so that this offence relates only to the actions taken in that period.

These in our view are all meritorious. The proposed changes appear to us to be reasonable. We endorse the points made by our colleague the Hon David Parker about the critical importance, as he put it—it is easy to regard this as just a purely technical issue, but it strikes at the absolute heart of liberal democracy—of an honest, accurate, and transparent electoral system, the problems that can arise when you do not have that elsewhere, and the interesting suggestion that we should use the Inland Revenue Department system for our registration, broadly in the way that the Nordic countries do. So there is a lot to be explored in the committee as the bill becomes subject to scrutiny.

I recall Jacinda Ardern’s comments lamenting the fact that 27,000 votes were rendered invalid at the last election. That is not something that we should see as acceptable. A number of people expressed regret at the way the legislation has turned now with the former member Paul Quinn’s member’s bill, which removes the right for prisoners to vote. We agree that that is unsatisfactory and needs to be rectified, and possibly could be examined in this committee. There is a lot to be looked at. I have not been involved in this committee, but I am following it very sympathetically, and there is a need to look at a lot of issues, in the general recognition that we will be supporting this bill.

Listening to the debate so far on the Electoral Amendment Bill I cannot help but get the feeling that there is a little bit of fiddling while Rome burns going on when it comes to this debate. This bill makes a number of technical amendments to current electoral law, while the huge elephant in the room is the declining level of participation by the citizens of this country in their democratic process and the dwindling levels of confidence in the institutions of our democracy, whether that be lack of confidence in this Parliament or the electoral system or whether it is just wider scepticism about the whole of Government and the whole of the governing process.

We are seeing that much more visibly in other countries than we are in New Zealand at the moment, but we are not immune to that here in New Zealand. If we want to see indicators of that, let us start with the number of people who are not on the electoral roll, which is quite significant, and then the number who are not voting. Combine those two numbers together and the second runner-up at the last election was not actually us in the Labour Party; it was that group of people. It was the non-voting group of people who actually came second. The non-voters party came second at the last election. That is something that none of us in this House should take any pride in.

I have to say that we are here debating the rules by which we are elected, and I am willing to make a wager right now that there will be very little public scrutiny of this debate. It will not get covered in the media—it will not be on television, and it will barely be covered in any other form of media—and yet we are determining the rules by which we get elected, by which we then have the authority to make the laws of this country, and no one is scrutinising us. That is something that we should be concerned about, because what we have seen over the last decade or more is a diminishing of the fourth estate, the media, and the role of the media in scrutinising what we do.

The fact that we are changing the laws around elections with no scrutiny is something that we should be concerned about, as well as the fact that most New Zealanders now will be getting information about politics and about the electoral system through non-traditional media—things like social media. The problem with that is it encourages people to live in an echo chamber, where the only views that they get are ones that they already have. Their existing views are reinforced and they are not actually exposed to alternative arguments and debate, and I think that that is something that we should be really concerned about. And of course it relates to this, because when we are talking about low turnout and we are talking about people not being on the electoral roll—all of those things contribute to that. So here we are debating a whole lot of technical amendments, but we are missing that wider picture.

My colleague Jacinda Ardern talked about the importance of civics education, and I absolutely agree with her on that, but I would go so far as to say that the entire New Zealand curriculum is actually civics education, because the single most important thing that we can do is encourage young New Zealanders to be critical thinkers and to question everything that is put before them. That is what the New Zealand curriculum can do, should do, and is designed to do. If anyone wants to see the risks of a jingoistic approach to civics education, we only need to look at our good friends in the United States of America to see what happens there. Bear in mind, when you watch those video clips on social media of the average Donald Trump voter explaining why they are supporting Donald Trump, that every one of them was taught civics in school. Every one of those people who are voting for Donald Trump was indoctrinated with a version of civics. They were taught to memorise the Presidents of the United States, and yet they were not taught to critically question everything that is put before them by politicians.

I want every student in school to question everything that I say and everything that the members opposite say, because, actually, that is how we get an informed democracy. I do not think that a narrow version of civics education that is about memorising the former New Zealand Prime Ministers or any of that sort of thing is going to deliver that. I actually think that the best civics education is a very broad curriculum that encourages New Zealanders, yes, to understand our history, but also to question everything. I think if we do that, we will be taking a big step in the right direction.

But let us just talk in my remaining 30 seconds about the particular issue that really annoys me, and that is the fact that people cannot enrol to vote on election day. They can enrol in the early voting period, but they cannot enrol on the day. Jacqui Dean says that that means that they are not engaged. That is not true. Many of the people who show up to vote on election day do not know that they are not actually on the roll—it is because they have moved house or something like that. They have been participating, they have been following the debate, they have been engaging in debate, they show up to vote, and their vote does not count because they are not on the roll and they were not aware of that. That does not mean they are not engaged.

It is a pleasure to stand in support of the Electoral Amendment Bill in its first reading today. Following the general election, a review was undertaken of our electoral laws. This amendment bill is a result of the review that occurred after the 2014 general election.

In New Zealand, we have an electoral system with a high level of integrity. Foremost in our considerations is protecting that integrity. There are 14 changes proposed in this amendment bill that will improve services, not only to the voters but to the candidates and the parties, and they include changes that just help to bring the voting system in line with the 21st century and with the shifts in technology and voter behaviour. One example of this is the change to the Electoral Commission being able to use technology to communicate and provide information to electors. Another proposed change extends an exemption to the signage rules around fixed parliamentary signage on electorate offices.

The complete suite of changes proposed in this bill provides improvements to our electoral system. They are very simple and mostly technical in nature, and I have pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Sorry, I was just going to say to members that I know there were two or three members looking at the clocks somewhat anxiously. I just want to tell members that the clocks were accidentally set for a 5-minute period, not for 10 minutes. I call Maureen Pugh. [Interruption] Oh, she had actually finished. Sorry.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you very much for allowing me to contribute to this first reading debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill. I am now a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, but I was not a member of the committee whose terms of reference post the 2014 election was “To examine the law and administrative procedures for the conduct of Parliamentary elections in light of the 2014 general election.” The select committee received 211 submissions and heard from 32 submitters.

I think critical to any analysis, actually, should be what the Electoral Commission recommended in terms of its election report. It really highlighted two critical priorities. The first was promoting voter participation—and that is within the context of a turnout of 72.1 percent in 2014, which actually built on the 2011 turnout of 69.6 percent. I think that really was a shock for the Electoral Commission, actually, that voter turnout was under 70 percent, and that continues to be one of the priorities that it has highlighted. It has also highlighted finding ways to meet the changing needs and expectations of voters. Another critical finding from the Electoral Commission was that the number of people who voted early in 2014 was 29.3 percent but in 2011 it was 14.7 percent. So, in fact, we had a doubling of the number of people who chose to vote early.

Within those two areas, I think what the select committee has tried to do was not only use the submissions from the people who came to our inquiry but also to try to complement and implement the Electoral Commission’s findings and recommendations. That really comes from its mandate, which is outlined in the Electoral Act in section 4C(a), which is “facilitates participation in parliamentary democracy;”. I actually think that should be at the forefront of our minds as a select committee when we debate the merits of this piece of legislation and any proposed amendments. From my perspective, and I think the perspective of a number of us who have contributed today—we are fully aware of the declining voter participation rates, and we do want to do something about changing those statistics.

One of the other interesting statistics that I want to read into the Hansard today is that we also have a problem about enrolment. In 2005, 94 percent of eligible voters were enrolled, but in 2014 that had dropped to 90.3 percent. So there has been a steady decline in enrolment figures. So not only do we have declining enrolment but we have had, up until the 2014 election, declining voter turnout or participation rates. I think that it is incumbent on us to ensure that the next generation of voters actually are fully engaged in the system.

What the Electoral Commission has been able to tell us is that we seem to have particular issues with a couple of cohorts of people: those who are under 50 and also those who are under 34. I am not too sure about why it is those particular age groups, but I am sure that there will be submissions to the select committee that will outline those issues. We have also got issues about Māori on the general roll compared with voter participation rates of non-Māori on the general roll. The other interesting statistic—and my colleague Adrian Rurawhe will be interested in this—is that Māori on the Māori roll vote less than Māori on the general roll. We also have quite a few issues in the Pacific and Asian communities, generally.

So I think that there are a number of challenges ahead of us, and, again, I think if we go back to one of the central purposes of our Electoral Act—it is to make sure that all eligible New Zealanders are enrolled in the system and they have their say. That is fundamental to democracy. That is fundamental to how our system works. It is certainly fundamental to determining who gets to occupy certain roles within this institution. So I look forward to having some really robust discussions at the select committee and, actually, as a committee enhancing what I think is a good piece of legislation. Where we have got to now is that we do not disagree with anything that is on the table, but I think many of us have Supplementary Order Papers that probably have already been drafted, given that I know how diligent my colleague Jacinda Ardern is, and are ready to go to enhance this piece of legislation.

In terms of the decline in voter participation, there were some interesting comments about civics education and also about whether we should change the age at which young citizens should be able to vote. Obviously, our voting age is 18, and I am sure we are going to get submissions that say we should allow 16-year-olds to vote. I was actually really interested in my colleague Chris Hipkins’ comments as our spokesperson for education. Obviously, we would hope that all 16-year-olds are at school and so they are contained within a system that can actually encourage and ensure—[Interruption] yes—that they are enrolled and they actually do vote, because, possibly, we could set up booths at school. So if the biggest challenge going forward is that young people are not engaging in the system, I think there is some merit in either a Supplementary Order Paper already—based on that presumption—or somebody making a submission to that effect and providing the rationale to us as a committee for us to make a determination that it has merit. I am really not going to speak for much longer. We obviously support this piece of legislation, and I look forward to hearing submissions. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

As the final speaker in this first reading debate I just really want to round out what I think has been a good introductory debate from across the House, and to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for the very good work that it has done, under the capable chairmanship of my colleague Jacqui Dean, on its inquiry into the 2014 general election and the recommendations that it has made.

I think the committee has done a very good job. It is clear to me that the Minister has picked up on pretty much all of the recommendations. There seems to be broad consensus across the House for this bill, and I am looking forward to watching it progress through the House. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 13 February 2017.

Motion agreed to.