Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill, Electoral Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Associate Minister of Justice: I move, That the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Both of these bills were introduced into the House in my name but since that time they have transferred to the delegation of the Hon Mark Mitchell, and I make this speech on his behalf. New Zealand has a robust and effective electoral system. Both of these bills respond to the recommendations of the Justice and Electoral Committee inquiry into the 2014 general election and will help modernise and simplify the election rules. With the election fast approaching this year, it is in everyone’s best interests to ensure that the rules are clear for everyone, well before the public head out to vote. That is why these bills have been cognated to be progressed as quickly as possible, as they are closely interrelated.

With this mind, I would like to thank the parties that took part in the select committee for taking a very constructive approach in reporting back at the end of last year. Having these amendments to electoral law enacted in a timely manner is important so that the rules are clear for all parties, voters, and other participants. Can I also recognise those members of the public who took the time to make submissions.

Both bills deal with related matters of electoral law. As highlighted during their respective first readings, they implement some important changes to enhance the efficient delivery of elections. The Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill modernises election broadcasting and funding rules in the Broadcasting Act, following a unanimous recommendation of the select committee. The bill removes parties’ opening and closing election addresses, in favour of an increased allocation for each party. Although the actual allocation amount is not in the bill, it will allow parties to spend their Broadcasting Act funding allocation to advertise with more flexibility across platforms, such as the internet, reflecting, of course, the different ways that voters now seek to get their information.

The Electoral Amendment Bill reflects the changing needs and expectations of voters, and will help modernise electoral law and practices. For example, the bill will enable the Electoral Commission to provide information to voters electronically and will allow the counting of advance votes to begin earlier on election day, to reflect the increased popularity of advance voting.

The interrelation of the two bills is clear in the committee’s recommendation that a new expense return for allocations under the Broadcasting Act be added to the Electoral Act—a change I will talk more about shortly.

I would like to touch briefly on other changes to these bills, as recommended by the Justice and Electoral Committee, beginning with the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill. The first of these changes is a minor amendment to clarify the relationship between the Electoral Act expense limits and parties’ funding allocations under the Broadcasting Act. The committee has also recommended an amendment to ensure that the Electoral Commission remains required to report to police when it believes an offence has been committed under Part 6 of the Act. One further minor amendment to the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill, recommended by the committee, ensures that the offence of arranging for prohibited election programmes applies only when doing so for a political party, as is currently the case.

I would now like to turn to the committee’s recommendations for the Electoral Amendment Bill. As I have already mentioned, the first of these directly relates to the Broadcasting Act, and highlights, again, why it is appropriate to consider these bills together. The funding allocation under the Broadcasting Act will no longer be limited to use on TV and radio. In order to provide continued transparency and assurance that the allocation is still being used appropriately the committee recommended adding to the Electoral Amendment Bill a requirement for parties to file a public, audited return of how they have spent their allocation. Adding this to the Electoral Act means that the new requirement can follow the same process in that Act, which is already used for parties’ other types of expenses and is well understood by them.

This requirement will replace the existing safety in the Broadcasting Act of broadcasters themselves providing returns of all election programmes broadcast, which would have been impractical to extend to all providers of online content and advertising. The committee has also recommended a minor amendment to the provision that prohibits electioneering within 10 metres of the entrance of an advance voting place, to clarify how some of the restrictions apply to electoral officials.

A further recommendation of the committee is to remove the provision that makes it an offence for a former MP to sit or vote in the House after they have vacated their seat by way of an appointment as a public servant or returning officer. The committee has recommended removing this offence due to its limited relevance and the fact that the situation it covers is highly unlikely to occur in practice. The committee considers that should the situation occur it would be a matter more appropriately dealt with by the House of Representatives itself, under the Parliamentary Privilege Act. The committee has also recommended a number of other minor and technical amendments to these bills, which largely clarify the current provisions and correct inconsistencies in the current legislation.

Can I first of all thank the committee members for their careful consideration of these bills and acknowledge the outgoing chair of that committee, the Hon Jacqui Dean. Regular reviews of electoral law are an integral part of maintaining New Zealand’s robust and efficient system of electoral law, and these changes reflect that same due diligence by the committee. The changes we are making in these bills will help simplify and clarify the election rules, leading to a smoother election process, and better reflect the changing needs and expectations of voters and political parties and candidates. I commend the bills to the House.

I rise to speak in the second reading debate of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill, which are, as the Minister has said, cognated. Labour supports these bills. We commend the Justice and Electoral Committee for the work that has been done. We also commend the Minister for her efforts in reforming and modernising various pieces of legislation over the last few years, with a small plea: please can the Privacy Act be next, in terms of introducing mandatory reporting for privacy breaches and providing more teeth to the Privacy Commissioner?

With regard to this legislation, these two bills follow a fairly substantial piece of work following the last general election, in 2014—a report from the Justice and Electoral Committee, from which there were 28 recommendations. That committee did do a substantial piece of work. These two bills include 12 of those recommendations in the second part of this legislation.

The substance, with regard to the first bill—the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill—as the Minister said, modernises and updates the format of election broadcasts in time for the 2017 election, this year. It removes the requirement for the political parties’ opening and closing election broadcasts, which are seen—and I think there is fairly substantial evidence for them being seen—as an anachronism in today’s world. It also removes the requirement for TVNZ and Radio New Zealand to provide free time for those broadcasts. Instead this legislation allocates the equivalent of this time into an increase in the broadcast funding allocation.

For a large part of the New Zealand population, those television opening and closing statements are outdated. People’s viewing habits are changing—fewer people are watching those set-piece broadcasts. This legislation increases the flexibility that political parties have to use their allocation for election programmes.

I just want to reference the submission by the Labour Party to the inquiry that the select committee conducted, which went into some depth about the limitations of the existing regime that result in increasingly inefficient use of public funds by all parties. And this is not just relating to the Labour Party; this basically relates to the inefficiency generally of the system, which is why we are changing it. It noted that “Media consumption habits and marketing tools have changed hugely over the past 10 years. The public no longer embrace and ‘consume’ generic marketing messages. New Zealanders expect interactivity and personal relevance from all the brands they choose to engage with, including political parties. Although this is [especially true] of younger voters, the changes [are really being viewed] across all demographics.”—and I think that is probably pretty evident by the rise of Facebook and the demographics of the people who are using that. “The Broadcasting Allocation rules restrict the budget to the purchase of media and production costs for TV, radio and press only. These channels, although relevant and able to provide reasonable reach, provide decreasing cut-through as the public use modern tools (such as My Sky, [video on demand]) to filter out broadcast adverts.”

So, essentially, this is sensible, and it actually is going to enable there to be a much greater reachability and flexibility for there to be communication and engagement during our important 3-yearly event that is an election campaign, which is when we engage with voters and is a really important part of what we do.

💬 Jono Naylor: Man, we do it all the time; we don’t do it every 3 years.

Of course we do, but this is the prescribed, funded part of that process, and it is important that we get it right and that we are up with the times. The Electoral Amendment Bill implements, as I think I said, the unanimous select committee report recommendations from the Justice and Electoral Committee Inquiry into the 2014 General Election. It implements 12 of those 28 recommendations.

The select committee stated that only those changes that could be realistically implemented in time for the September 2017 election would be included. The Government suggested, or indicated, that it will consider some other recommendations—that require, as it said, more time—for 2020. I want to touch on this because there are some particular issues around those recommendations that have not been included, which is a bit disappointing, in the sense that they have disenfranchised the thousands of voters who have not completed the enrolment activity that they could have done before the election. Although there is some capacity there for them to have their votes counted, there is also that disenfranchising that means that many of them are unlikely to, and that really does matter. If this Government is really serious about the recommendations that are included in this report, then these really should have been taken more seriously and given a higher weighting, a higher priority.

In the last election almost 10 percent of the population who were eligible to be on the electoral roll did not sign up before election day. Numbers suggest that the failure to enrol does not always mean that a voter does not want to participate. For the 2014 election more than 27,000 voters made the effort to vote but had their vote disallowed because they were not on the electoral roll. That is the population of a town, and that matters. That should be something that is taken really very seriously and should not be pushed out to 2020; it should have been addressed now and I am looking forward to asking some questions about that at the Committee stage, because we do not make the process of enrolling and voting as easy as we could, especially for those who change address and therefore fail to enrol, or those who are enrolling for the first time before the official roll is printed. So we have some concerns about that.

The integrity of the voting system has been well maintained, with the significant increase in early voting, and we do not accept that the risk outweighs the benefit of ensuring that next time possibly 27,000 votes will be counted.

Finally, I just want to make a couple of remarks about the fact that one of these cognate bills is a broadcasting bill and makes changes to the Broadcasting Act—section 6 of the Broadcasting Act—yet in the recent reshuffle just before Christmas the new, unelected Prime Minister disestablished the broadcasting ministership portfolio and that has gone floating into the ether—

💬 Chris Bishop: What do you mean, “unelected Prime Minister”?

He has not been elected by the voters, which relates to the bills that we are actually discussing. This broadcasting portfolio has been disestablished. It has been divided between communications on the one hand; arts, culture, and heritage on the other. During the 1990s this portfolio under a National Government was folded into the communications portfolio, and one of the first things Labour did in 1999 when it became Government was to separate it out and give it the status that it needed. This is a really worrying development. There is no indication as to how those functions are actually going to be performed under this Government.

I am very pleased to rise as the newly elected chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee. It is interesting to follow after Ms Curran because Ms Jacqui Dean, who was the outgoing chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee and has now risen to ministerial rank, explained to me what a collegial—

💬 Chris Bishop: A bright future!

A bright future—absolutely, Mr Bishop. She had explained to me how collegial the committee was. There seemed to be a bit of jostling there, so perhaps we will move this discussion back to talking about the select committee process and how it was that, at the end of the day, the findings in the report were unanimous.

Look, as I said, I am very pleased to be taking this call as the new chair. I acknowledge the sponsoring Minister, the Hon Amy Adams, who has spearheaded this review, and, of course, the Hon Jacqui Dean, outgoing chair. I want to thank Mr Jono Naylor, the deputy chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, for making me feel so welcome and, actually, the members opposite, because I have chaired only one meeting—let us be fair about it—but from what I have seen it has been a very collegial committee. So the Hon Jacqui Dean was correct in her description, and I think that all of the members of the committee are willing to discuss things openly and move things along—nuanced findings and, hopefully, get agreement on most things.

Although I did not sit on this review and was not present at the debates, my understanding of these bills is basically that the substance of them are in respect of the opening and closing addresses of electoral broadcasting. Let us face it: time has moved on. We are now in an age when people are using the likes of the internet, apps like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. I have to admit I am Generation X, so I do not understand them all—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Surely not!

Well, I am trying to learn, Mr Paul Foster-Bell, but, look, we will continue with that education as we go along in my political career. It is about modernising, this legislation. It is about allowing more flexibility to political parties to get their message out to voters. As we have seen, as technology has advanced, people are gaining their news in many, many different ways, and—especially Generation X—are turning to such apps as Twitter. We only need to look overseas to the likes of Brexit and the American election where Twitter was greatly used. That is fair enough. It is about engaging people in democracy and it is about again informing voters through whatever vehicle the political parties see as appropriate and necessary.

To pick up on what some of the other speakers have talked about, we have seen that engagement in our democracy has dropped, so it is important that we use those alternative vehicles to engage our voters. Fewer people were found to be tuning into the opening and closing addresses with TVNZ—a 25 percent drop, apparently, in the average audience since the 2014 election. So we need to—[Interruption] Sorry—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: All programmes have dropped. Nobody watches TV any more. Why would you?

Thank you. Thank you, Mr O’Rourke. You are helping me prove my point, in that technology is advancing and people are turning to different vehicles to get their news, to get their entertainment. So thank you very much for that contribution and I will look forward to your contribution on Thursday as well, as we move our agenda forward in the Justice and Electoral Committee.

I think, realistically, that although these bills make other technical changes to move electioneering forward in respect to this framework, these are good bills, they were unanimously supported across the House. They are about making things fairer, about communicating with the voters, and about helping them engage in democracy. With that, I commend these bills to the House.

You learn something every day in this place. I did not know what “cognate” meant until I heard this debate and I thought I had better look it up in the dictionary. It simply means “related, interconnected, or associated”. I think most of the people listening might prefer it if we called them related bills and said that is why we are discussing them together. Maybe I am more ignorant than most of the members here, but I suspect most of us did not know what that word meant.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Speak for yourself.

I was speaking for myself.

I turn, firstly, to the Electoral Amendment Bill. Democracy, which we all celebrate in this House, is incredibly important, and I think we should all be worried that there is a decreasing participation in democracy around the Western World, including in New Zealand. And if there is something that disappoints me about this bill it is that it actually really does not go very far to try to address that by making it easier for people to enrol and vote. My colleague Clare Curran has already said that at the last election 27,000 votes were disallowed, many of those because people were not enrolled properly.

We know that one of the reasons why enrolment is dropping is a lower interest in democracy. I think that is happening around the world. An additional reason in New Zealand that the rolls are imperfect is related to the decreasing rate of homeownership. When people do not live in their own home and they are moving from rental to rental to rental—

💬 Tracey Martin: Or a car.

—or cars—it is more likely that they will not be enrolled to vote and therefore not be able to participate.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: We need tarpaulin TV.

Well, yes. It is really sad, is it not, that a number of the people who are not enrolled to vote do not even have a house. But the decreasing rate of homeownership, which is now lower than it has been for over 60 years, is one of the reasons why enrolments are dropping.

In the face of that reality—that we have got a decreasing rate of democratic participation—you would think that a Government would be doing its utmost to make it easy to enrol. I have said for a number of years now that I think that everyone who has got an IRD number should be able to vote. A lot of overseas countries base their electoral roll on IRD numbers. It would take a very minor change to the system, to actually require a disclosure as to whether you were a citizen or resident entitled to vote, and you could save all of this money that we waste on the current roll by actually basing it on the IRD roll. Everyone, virtually everyone, who is of voting age has an IRD number. You need an IRD number if you are on a benefit. You need an IRD number if you are in work. There are virtually no New Zealanders who do not have an IRD number.

There is some complexity in ensuring that you do not have people who are not entitled to vote and are entitled to an IRD number. I suspect, if you look at those numbers, the numbers would be so small that the more effective thing might be to ignore that as irrelevant at the margin. But even if it was a problem you could devise a system, as they do overseas, to have some recognition on your IRD number as to whether you are entitled to vote or not.

You can very easily push against voting fraud also by putting a year of birth associated with the IRD number, as they do in a lot of Scandinavian jurisdictions—or some Scandinavian jurisdictions—and then you have actually got a check for someone who is coming in to vote. If they are presenting themselves in respect of an IRD number that is transparently not the same as the age that they are meant to be, you have got another check against voter fraud. That would be a very, very easy way to save money, because at the moment we have got these two records being kept—one at the Inland Revenue Department and one through the electoral system—and it would also improve voter turnout.

Why does National not then do this? Well, there is a cycle to these things through time. We know that fewer of the people who are lower-income in society vote National than vote Labour. More of the people who are higher-income in New Zealand vote National than Labour. We all know this. It is true. It does not mean to say that there are no low-income people who do not vote National or no high-income people who do not vote Labour. But the truth of it is that in general a higher proportion of lower-income people, who are more likely to be disenfranchised by current rules, would vote Labour, and that is actually one of the underlying reasons why National does not move on these issues.

We saw it also it following the—was it the last election, Clare Curran, or the one prior, when they did away with voting cards? One of the ways in which you can encourage people to vote if English for them is a second language or if it is their first time voting or they are not sure how to vote, is to send them a voting card in the mail, which makes it easier for them. It was a piece of paper about the size of a credit card. It gave their name and their address, and it sort of said that you could take the card to the voting booth. You did not have to take it along, but it made it easier for people to exercise their right of franchise to vote. And National did away with it.

💬 Hon Members: No, we didn’t.

Yes, you did.

💬 Chris Bishop: It’s still there.

Is it?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Still got it.

Oh, I apologise. National tried to get rid of them. I am sorry. Oh well, I thank you for not letting me spend the next 4 minutes on that. I thank you for that act of generosity, and I take that particular accusation back.

Another initiative that has not been advanced was enrolments on the day. Clare Curran alluded to this. Why, in today’s world of computer technology, can we not enrol on the day? Really, I mean—it really beggars belief. If you present, effectively, some form of ID, why can you not vote on the day and be enrolled on the day? I do not understand why there are barriers being put in place of that.

In respect of the counting of advance votes in advance of election day, I agree with that. It is a good idea. But I am told that at the moment the electoral officers around the land are trying to prevent scrutineers being present while that is done. That would stop scrutineers, as they have done throughout the years, effectively, being able to mark off who has voted. For many, many years in New Zealand it has been legitimate for whatever political party to keep an eye on who has voted. It is one of the checks and balances against voter fraud, because it is another check against people voting twice, and political parties have got an interest in proper processes around voting and we help keep it clean. But it is a little bit inconvenient to the electoral officers to, at times, have representatives of political parties there counting votes and looking over their shoulder, and they would rather that that was not happening. So I am told that at the moment—and this is current for the likes of the Mt Albert by-election and being proposed in respect of the general election this year—the registrar of electors, or whoever is the person who oversees elections on the day, is proposing to stop political parties’ representatives being present at, and participating in, the counting of advance votes.

In respect of the broadcasting changes, can I thank the Government for those changes. I agree with other speakers that they are very, very sensible. The way of the media has changed. We know that. It is, I think, proper that a relatively small amount by Government standards is applied to publication of different parties’ policies in advance of an election through broadcast media. Those broadcast channels are changing. They are not through traditional TV and radio to the same extent. Individual content in a somewhat broadcast manner through social media is becoming more frequent, and we saw that writ large in the American election. It is not all good what is happening through some of these social media platforms, but that is the way things are moving. So I think it is appropriate that there is a change to those rules to allow the funding to be used as political parties think best.

Political parties have got an interest in reaching as many people as effectively as they can, so the interests of political parties actually align with the public interest, which is the dissemination of information to voters. I think that more flexibility being given to political parties, rather than it all being directed to be spent on opening addresses and closing addresses, is very sensible, and I think the public policy ideal that lies behind that funding is best matched by loosening up the rules and enabling political parties to do it better than they currently can. With those comments I am pleased to record that the Labour Party is voting in favour of both of these bills.

I think that these two related bills are a really good symbol of the parliamentary process working to the benefit of New Zealanders. There was obviously an election in 2014. The Justice and Electoral Committee undertook a review of that election and made a number of recommendations from that review. The Minister has then picked up a number of those recommendations and put them into legislation, brought them back to the select committee, and now we are debating them at a second reading. I think it is a really good process, one that will mean that over time we will be able to fine-tune and enhance the democratic process within New Zealand.

Particularly I want to draw attention to the broadcasting aspect of these two bills. With the advent over recent times where we have the world of Netflix and Lightbox and MY SKY, and with all the younger people—particularly, obviously, the member Denis O’Rourke who will probably tweet this on his “Instachat” afterwards, or something—

💬 Clare Curran: Instagram!

I know it is.

💬 Metiria Turei: “Instachat”!

I know it is. It was supposed to be a joke, but clearly it was not very funny. But there are fewer people now who even bother having an aerial on their house, so tying opening addresses into television is something of a foregone era. So bringing it into a more modern context, where we can allow some flexibility for political parties, just makes a great deal of sense.

The content of the broad amendment legislation is, again, just bringing in some sensible things. We have seen, pretty much, agreement around the House this evening on this. The committee was faced with all sorts of quite technical issues, like deciding what is the minimum distance that someone can campaign from an advance voting booth. There was a lot of discussion about that—what happens if a candidate parks their car next to it, or otherwise. I think we have arrived at a pretty sensible place, but we are able to send a clear signal that actually trying to influence voters on their way into the voting booth, whether it is on polling day or at the advance voting booths, is not acceptable.

The other aspect that, in conclusion, I just want to talk about is the very practical idea that advance vote counting can begin at 9 a.m. on election day. Waiting until 2 o’clock, I think, is not going to benefit anybody else. For those of us who have sat through election night—if you are winning, it seems to take for ever until you find out whether you have won, and if you are losing, it is death by a thousand cuts. So being able to get those results out a little quicker will, I think, make everybody’s lives a whole lot better.

It is good legislation. I am sure we will have some robust discussion in the Committee stage, and I look forward to seeing these recommendations put into practice so that we can have a better, more enhanced election this year, in 2017.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party is supporting both of these bills. They are very practical changes that are being made, and if there is more discussion to be had in the Committee stage, then we will be open to that. I just want to briefly address the change that is on most people’s minds, which is the change to the broadcasting allocation and the rules.

There is no doubt that we are already, now, in a new media communications environment in New Zealand politics. It is a natural progression that as technology changes the way that people engage with politics and with news and with information, the law needs to keep up with that. It is certainly true that the rules were unduly restrictive over the use of the broadcasting allocation and, arguably—especially in, I think, the last couple of elections—for those of us who have been heavily involved in the decisions around how that allocation is spent for our particular parties, it really did mean that quite scarce resources were being locked up in old systems that were ineffective.

From a public policy point of view, if there is going to be State funding of some kind—like this is—then the use of that money needs to be the best possible use of it, so it is not locked into old technologies that have limited impact. So, as times have changed, the law is finally keeping up with the way that people want to access the information, and I think that is perfectly reasonable. That is part of the democratic process. We do not want to be funding public money into outmoded, outdated forms of communication, particularly on issues as critical as election campaigns. You know, not everybody is into elections and election campaigns, but it is a critical part of our democratic process and it needs to be taken seriously. So we support these changes.

To be frank, I think that one of the beneficial changes here is that the funding is not locked into broadcasting time on television, in particular, and radio. I suspect that radio actually has more utility still, but anyone with Netflix knows that TV is kind of making its way out of the window, and it really does not have the kind of opportunities that it might have had in the past for the community to access information about political parties and what they are offering in an election.

The rules do still constrain to some extent the use of the money, and I think that is wise too. It is public money and we need to be held accountable for it, and the systems for accountability are, I think, good in the legislation. Expenditure limits still apply, and I think that is wise, but the bills open up the channels through which parties can use that State funding to communicate with voters in a way that best enables voters to get access to information.

I will say, though, that over the years I have been to quite a number of meetings with a broadcaster—its CEO and other senior officials—that has regularly tried to get out of broadcasting the opening and closing statements and has complained about the fact that prime time is required to be used by law. It has to use prime time for political parties’—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Oh, the poor little things!

—yes—opening and closing broadcasts. You know, I have zero sympathy for them, frankly—zero sympathy for them at all. The State broadcaster needs to take real responsibility for its role in promoting and supporting a healthy democracy, and its arguments about having to give up prime time for this are, frankly, ridiculous. So there is a little bit of me that is saying “Damn! It’s kind of getting what it wanted, after all.”, but that does not matter as much as making sure that our constituencies—the New Zealand public—get access to good information in the way that they need it the most. And, like I say, TV is kind of making its way out of the window, anyway.

We will continue to support these bills through the remaining stages of the debate. If, as I say, there are suggestions for changes to the legislation, we will look at them seriously, but I think that, overall, the bills are effective. They do not go quite as far as many of the submitters who made requests for changes to these laws asked for, but they are none the less sensible steps along the way to having a more flourishing and healthy democratic process. Thank you.

New Zealand First has no issues with the Electoral Amendment Bill, so I will only need to speak about the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and to explain why New Zealand First will continue to vote against it. There are two issues. I want to begin with what one submitter said, and this submitter was a gentleman with vast experience as a broadcaster and he really knew what he was talking about. I think he made a very good submission. What he said, fundamentally, was that he thought that the opening and closing addresses should be continued, free of charge, by TV ONE and Radio New Zealand because they had a public duty to do so.

I also think that those organisations have a public duty to do so. They whinge and whine about the cost of it and they say that not enough people are watching it, but the truth is they are required to do this for only 2 nights in 3 years—2 nights in 3 years. Big deal! They should be able to handle that without going belly up. So they can do it, as far as I am concerned, and I do think it has a lot of value.

I think that the political parties also have a public duty to make a formal opening statement in a campaign and a closing statement as well. I think it has been a good practice. If we do not continue that, all we are going to get is tedious old advertisements, especially those from the National Party. Who on earth wants to see them? For goodness’ sake, TV is bad enough without having to watch that kind of rubbish.

A lot of play has been made about the fact that 25 percent fewer people watch those broadcasts than watch television generally. Well, as far as I am concerned, television is such rubbish these days that, in fact, that 25 percent is probably general and across the board; if not, more. So that is one issue—that New Zealand First opposes this because there is a public duty for both those broadcasters and for the political parties to make formal opening and closing statements to inform the public about what their policies are and why the public should or should not vote for particular parties.

But there is a second issue. The second issue is this: the bill does not alter the formula for the appropriation to fund election programmes and advertisements between the various qualifying parties. Nevertheless, the Government has announced an increase in the total provision of $750,000 to a total of $3.6 million. What will that mean? What that will actually mean is this: National will get an even greater share of the total than before, and the smaller parties like New Zealand First will get even less—so you would not be surprised that the National Government is very enthusiastic about the bill, because it is thoroughly for its benefit and not at all for the benefit of smaller parties, like New Zealand First is currently.

Before the bill was introduced, the Minister did ask other parties for their views. I wrote to the Minister and said that we would not support it unless the criteria for the allocations between the various parties were reviewed, but I did not even get a reply to that, and that was not agreed to. So we can only suppose that the National Government wants to expand its funding gap with other parties not only by keeping the criteria as they were before but also by adding a further $750,000, knowing that the National Party will, in fact, get the lion’s share of that. That is what this bill is really about. The criteria for allocation between the political parties are in fact just as outdated as the provision claimed for opening and closing addresses as amended by this bill.

The Electoral Commission is responsible for deciding how the money is to be allocated to parties, and this bill re-enacts the existing provisions with no change—unfortunately. Currently the Electoral Commission must allocate to eligible parties in accordance with a thoroughly outdated statutory set of criteria, and I am going to go through those. They are these: “(a) the number of persons who voted at the preceding general election”—no problem with that; “(b) the number of persons who voted at any by-election held since the preceding general election”—I will have something to say about that in a moment; “(c) the number of members of Parliament a political party had immediately before the end of the last Parliament”—no issues with that at all, that is quite sensible; “(d) any relationships that exist between one political party and another”—for some inexplicable reason; “(e) any other indications of public support for a political party such as the results of opinion polls”—for goodness’ sake; “(f) the need to provide a fair opportunity for each registered political party to convey its policies to the public [through] broadcasting”—and that is fair enough.

Some of those criteria desperately need to be changed, because they are inherently unfair. They are archaic and not a good fit for an MMP Parliament. They are complex, uncertain, and, most of all, they give a massive advantage to the bigger parties and significantly disadvantage smaller parties. For example, in 2014, the National Party was allocated $1,530,622. Labour was allocated $919,829. The Greens were allocated $401,380. New Zealand First was allocated only $200,690. Even the tiny Māori Party got $100,345, while the one-member ACT Party still got an incredible $76,930. How can anyone claim that there is any fairness in that?

Criterion (b), “persons who voted at any by-election”, should not be taken into account at all. By-elections are poor indicators of what will happen at a future general election. By-elections are fought in an array of different circumstances and often years ahead of the following general election. It is a completely irrelevant consideration.

Criterion (d), “relationships that exist between one political party and another”—what on earth has that got to do with it? What has it got to do with it that there is some kind of strange agreement between Labour and the Greens? What has that got to do with funding?

💬 Chris Bishop: No, it’s about the Alliance—it’s about the Alliance.

Why should that be taken into account? It simply does not make any more sense than the nonsense talked by that member over there.

Criterion (e), “any other indications of public support … such as the results of opinion polls”—well, just look at the record of opinion polls in New Zealand that constantly put New Zealand First at small level of support, which is then blown away by the reality of the following general election. If you want any further evidence of that, just look at what happened recently with Brexit. Look at what happened recently with the election of Trump as President, and what the opinion polls said there. Opinion polls are utter rubbish and should never be taken into account for the allocation of public moneys for any purpose whatsoever.

The public needs to understand what is really happening here. What is really happening here is that the National Party is trying to get a bit more money for itself and does not give a damn that small parties will suffer at the other end of the spectrum. That is neither fair nor appropriate, and I will tell you this: the people of New Zealand are beginning to wake up to these facts, and that will be another nail in National’s coffin, and that is a good thing.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Following on, and, in some degree, I hope, refuting that display of political baboonery and bottom-bearing we have witnessed tonight—it must be election year, Mr O’Rourke, in that you are putting on your very best Donald Trump performance. I want to speak on these cognatically related bills, the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill by focusing on some of the substance of the bills, rather than politicking over it.

But first let me say that I want to refute a point that the member made. I disagree that everything on television is rubbish. I think, actually, we are living in a golden age of televisual entertainment. It may not be on the valve-powered, steam-operated set that the member has, but, certainly, I took the opportunity over the Christmas break to enjoy The Crown, the wonderful $100 million TV epic about our Sovereign and her early life. Mr O’Rourke’s opinion on the media reminds me a little bit of some of those relict dowagers in The Crown—those last vestiges of the Victorian age.

I think very few people sit down and enjoy the opening and closing broadcasts on a free-to-air TV station, like they might have done back in the 1950s and 1960s, enjoying those with popcorn and, perhaps, getting friends around to watch what the political parties are offering. I think the reality is that most Kiwis are consuming their media in a very different way, so this is very apt and appropriate legislation to modernise that part of the election advertising process, so I want to commend the Minister of Justice for the very sensible stance she has taken on this.

The one particular aspect I want to touch on—and it will be a quick reflection, because I only just rejoined the Justice and Electoral Committee last week; I was not on the committee through the hearings process—is the 10-metre buffer zone during advance voting. I will not name the party, but at the last election there was certainly, in Wellington Central, one party that was within 10 metres of an advance voting booth. It was separated by a vertical separation—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, name the party.

No, I will not name the party; there is no need to bring it into it. Needless to say, there was a Green-hued sign on a floor immediately above a voting booth. The ruling was that, because it was a 30-metre walk up some stairs to get around to the balcony to actually physically go to that election promotion site for that party, it was sufficiently far away. I think it is very important, when this is being interpreted, that that should be 10 metres as the crow flies, rather than a 10-metre walk or ride from the site, because it is very important that we have clean, fair elections in this country. This is a very good set of bills, and I commend them to the House.

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

Just to pick up where my colleague Metiria Turei left off before me, we welcome the general endorsement—pretty much across all parties—for the amendments to the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill. The aim is to implement the recommendations of the Justice and Electoral Committee report on the general election of 2014. Indeed, the two bills include something like 12 out of the 28 recommendations made—those that are feasible to implement before the 2017 election.

As we have said, we regard this as a natural progression in updating the electoral laws of our country. It gives us an opportunity to meet the challenges of the 21st century digital age and to make sure that the election is undertaken with due efficiency, greater fairness, and transparency perhaps.

I think it is also important in this respect to recall the point that the Hon David Parker was making earlier, to the effect that we should all carry some concern now that democracy is in danger of being degraded all around the world, and perhaps including in this country, with a decline in enrolment and the imperfection of rolls, for whatever reason, whether it is because people own fewer houses and are more itinerant, or for whatever reason and, for that matter, use social media at times. So we do have to be careful about how we proceed, and this legislation goes some way towards rectifying that.

The amendments to the two Acts will prove very useful in 2017. The bill amending the Broadcasting Act does a variety of things: it removes the requirement to have an opening and closing address, and it gives more flexibility in the use of funds to that effect; it encourages greater use of the internet; it updates laws on the return of expenditure limits; and it removes the requirement to submit returns on all the broadcasting programmes during the election.

The amendments to the Electoral Act will address the issue of interference in advance voting and gives greater clarity in that respect. They will update the law on former MPs voting in Parliament, which is remarkably obsolete. There are a number of other recommendations as well—as I said, 12 altogether. We find them all to be sound and constructive. The Green Party is pleased to support the bills.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, kia ora anō tātou katoa, ai, ka pai, kia ora.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and greetings once again to us all. Gosh, well done; thanks.]

I stand to contribute to the second reading debate of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill. I want to start by saying that we support the bills.

When I consider elections, as young as I am—having taken part in just a handful of elections—I am always reminded of a discussion with my son, who is of voting age. When I asked him whether or not he would vote and whether or not he would vote for his father, he said to me: “Well, are you going to fill up my car?”. The reason I give that story is that when I consider legislation—in particular, after the review, having sat on the select committee—I would like to think that the legislation would make the election a fair playing field. I think it does that with some of the broadcasting provisions and changes proposed in the broadcasting bill.

I would like to think that the legislation and the review would make sure that democracy and the ability to vote will be accessible to one and all. It is on that point that I raise some concerns. I raise concerns because as I sat and listened to the submissions during the review, there were a number of submitters who talked about being able to engage with our young people—the disengaged—in particular, Māori youth. Many options were mentioned. In particular, one of those that I would like to touch on briefly is, of course, moving to a digital era. Many members in this House have talked about the different broadcasting platforms where voices can be heard with regard to elections and where electioneering can take place in advertising.

If we are truly progressive, we want to ensure that young people in Aotearoa New Zealand are able to engage and are able access the ability to vote. One of the clear sentiments that came through to me during the submissions was about making sure that technology keeps up with the times. We heard some submissions saying that technology is not quite there in terms of keeping secure digital files. I can understand that. But do you mean to tell me that all the platforms utilised by the various companies on the internet are at risk of suffering some sort of electronic sabotage? Do you mean to tell me that we cannot find an operating system that is secure enough, that is easy to use, and that is accessible?

I think of the many young people of today who sit with their smartphones and who play on their iPads. One of my youngest children, who is five, engages on an iPad. We still hold on to this nostalgic view of walking in, grabbing a big fat orange marker, reading the name, and ticking a box. Although I do not want to steal any of the occasion and the ceremony involved in voting, I think that more thinking and planning can be done to ensure that we step in the right direction towards a digital voting system.

In my final minute—gee, time gets away—I will refer to the Māori electoral option. The Māori electoral option was an issue that came up during the submissions. The legislation does not respond to that at this particular point. We hope that it will address this issue by 2020, whereby those of Māori descent have the option at every election, every 3 years, to opt for the Māori roll. I know, for example, that there are approximately 8,000 Māori in Maungakiekie, one of the electorates in Tāmaki Makaurau, who are not on the Māori roll. I have spoken to a fair number of them who are actually quite keen to engage in and to be an active participant on the Māori roll, but there seems to be some sort of confusion about when they can opt in or even opt out. We want to make sure that that is quite clear and evident for all those of Māori heritage, so that they can make an informed decision when the time comes. In closing, we support these bills.

I think the House is in reasonable agreement on the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill, so I do not propose to take up too much time. I do just want to respond to a couple of remarks made so far during the debate. The first was the extraordinary suggestion—perhaps unrelated to the actual topic—from Clare Curran that we have an unelected Prime Minister. Of course, in this country we do not elect our Prime Ministers—that is a completely different system. What we do is elect parties, in which party leaders who enjoy the confidence of the House go on to be Prime Minister.

It was a little bit ironic, given that the Labour Party changed party leaders twice within 18 months, before the 1990 election, and there was no suggestion from anyone at the time—as Paul Foster-Bell pointed out by way of interjection—that Geoffrey Palmer and Mike Moore were unelected. So I do just want to respond to that ridiculous claim. If that is the standard of criticism of the Labour Party towards this Government for the rest of the year, good luck to it and long may it continue.

The second point that I want to respond to is some more substantive remarks made by Denis O’Rourke, who, I have to say, makes a good contribution on the Justice and Electoral Committee. We have been working pretty collegially as committee members, over the last couple of years, through this inquiry into the 2014 election. Of course, these two bills have come out of that inquiry, as the Minister noted in her introductory speech.

Denis O’Rourke played a good role on that committee. He did spend quite a deal of his speech criticising the criteria that the Electoral Commission uses when it divides the broadcasting allocation—the time and money given to political parties. One of his criticisms was that by-elections are no indication of future electoral performance.

💬 Hon Amy Adams: How true!

How true, exactly, as my colleague the Minister Amy Adams says. That seems somewhat inconsistent with the 2 years of rhetoric from New Zealand First Party members about how the Northland by-election result signals some kind of on-coming electoral apocalypse for the New Zealand National Party, which they have been fond of saying inside and outside Parliament for a good 2 years.

So I do agree with Denis O’Rourke, that by-elections are no indication of electoral support in general elections. Likewise, the by-election that we both recently had in Mount Roskill, and, I suspect, the upcoming by-election in Mount Albert as well, which will be comprehensive wins, probably, to the Labour Party, I would venture to suggest are no indications of support in the future. But, of course, they are part of the criteria for a good reason. I think Denis O’Rourke shot himself in the foot there.

The second thing I wanted to just quickly respond to was this idea—he seemed bewildered; he seemed mystified by the idea that the Electoral Commission should take into account arrangements between particular political parties, and, of course, that is a historical hangover, I suspect, from the days of the Alliance in 1999—

💬 Tracey Martin: Then update it. They don’t exist.

Tracey Martin says “Oh, that’s outdated.”, but, actually, we saw another example of an Alliance-type arrangement at the last general election when, months before polling day, the Mana party and the Internet Party decided to join forces to mount a—

💬 Hon Amy Adams: The moment of truth.

Exactly! Amy Adams says it is the moment of truth. It is certainly the moment of truth for someone and some particular political parties. Of course, they decided to combine, to try to get as many votes as possible during the campaign. So that is exactly why we have those parts of the criteria. So, with those very technical rebuttal points made in the debate so far, I will commend these bills to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I am a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, so it is my pleasure to take a call on these second readings of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the related Electoral Amendment Bill. Where I want to start, actually, is by reinforcing the Electoral Commission’s 2014 report, which really highlighted two critical priorities. They were, first, a need to promote voter participation and, second, finding ways to meet the changing needs and expectations of voters.

The recommendations in these two pieces of legislation actually represent 12 of 28 recommendations from that select committee process, and I’d just like to highlight three of those. The first one is about allowing the Electoral Commission to investigate a new approach to counting advance votes, including bringing forward the start time for the counting of advance votes from 2 p.m. to 9 a.m. on election day. The whole intention around that recommendation is so that we can produce better results for the public, and, at the end of the voting process, we have results earlier.

The second recommendation that has been implemented in the Electoral Amendment Bill is about enabling all submissions regarding objections to proposed electoral boundaries to be made available online, instead of the current requirement to produce a summary of all submissions, so people will be able to see what has been submitted in terms of the electoral boundary recommendations from the Electoral Commission. I think that is a much more transparent process.

The other recommendation I wanted to highlight is that we are going to provide the date from which hoardings can be erected. They are going to be Saturdayised. So there will be a standard day, and it will be a Saturday, when everybody can expect that hoardings will go up. Again, I think that for transparency, and to enable the public to then know that we are in an election period and the process has begun, that is incredibly valuable.

I really want to focus on two submissions. One relates to the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill, and the submission I want to focus on is the one that Denis O’Rourke focused on, actually. It was from Tom Frewen. He presented to the committee about the purpose and nature of the opening and closing campaign statements, which have historically been broadcast on free-to-air TV and radio. He thought that there has been a conflation between that public process and providing an amount of money, and that amount of money, which has increased, is now $3.605 million—so there is a difference between the purpose and nature of the opening and closing statements on free-to-air TV, and advertising.

There was quite a bit of debate in the select committee about the merit of those propositions—whether election programming is different to election advertisement. There has been a lot of conversation in the House tonight about engaging with modern technology and engaging with voters on all these different platforms, but the underlying philosophy of Tom Frewen’s argument is that at the moment we have a platform that is free to air and there is a difference between the free-to-air platform and others where there may be barriers because people have to pay for subscriptions to access those, and does using the money—because it has become all about the money—to enable more choice for political parties to engage actually undermine the whole essence of democracy in ensuring that everybody has access to information to make informed decisions?

He also highlighted for that particular piece of legislation that we gave only 10 days for public submissions, and he thought that was inadequate. I think that warrants mention in the House, because it was a particular issue that not only he but others pointed out.

The other submission that I would like to focus on was from the Law Society. It expressed concerns about the other recommendations that have not been picked up in this bill. There were 28 recommendations. This bill incorporates 12 of those, which means that 16 recommendations have not been picked up. So I think there is an expectation, particularly for a couple of those recommendations, that the Government will be picking those up in time for the 2020 general election.

What we were told as a select committee by officials was that we could not include some of them because we did not have the time to implement them for the 2017 general election. One of those recommendations was about the adequacy of provisions for dealing with emergencies, such as what happens if there is an earthquake on election day, how do people engage, how do they vote, etc., etc.

One of the other recommendations that I particularly want to focus on is the right for the Māori electoral roll option to be granted after every general election. So on 23 September we will have a general election, and after that election, as Māori voters, we should be able to choose whether or not we are on the Māori roll or the general roll for the 2020 general election. At the moment, as Māori voters, we have choice every 5 years, and that then determines the number of Māori seats that we have, but one of the recommendations to increase participation for Māori voters was to say, well, let us provide that electoral option every election cycle—so every 3 years.

I do not want to minimise how important these two bills are or how much debate was had in the select committee, because we have many challenges, I think, in ensuring that democracy actually functions, and functions to enable the participation of all eligible voters. One of the biggest issues that we had at the last election was on election day—27,000 people voted, and their votes were not counted. That is another one of the issues that we think is incredibly important. Why should we be disenfranchising New Zealand citizens from exercising their right as a citizen to have a say on election day about (a) who they want to represent them in terms of their constituency vote, and (b) who they think should govern the country in terms of which party they support and, by default—as Chris Bishop said earlier—who becomes the Prime Minister and leads our country?

So I think there are many more challenges and questions to be answered within the context of not only these two particular pieces of legislation but this area in the future. I think it is incredibly important not only for Māori voters but also for young voters. I think the more that we can do to ensure that they engage in the process, the better we will be in terms of the mandates that we each have in our communities and also the quality of the engagement that we have in the communities that we are here to serve. Kia ora.

I stand tonight in support of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill in its second reading. Thanks to the work and the effective contribution from all members of the Justice and Electoral Committee the review of the 2014 elections reached unanimous support across the parties. This is evident in the contributions in the House tonight with all parties supporting this bill.

In its report to the select committee, the Electoral Commission did note its concern at the decline of voter turnout. Voter engagement is the key to a healthy democracy, so it is vital that political parties can choose the most appropriate means of reaching the voting public, whether it be print, radio, TV, social media, or signage. This bill does go some way to addressing this by allowing flexibility to political parties in how they engage and communicate with the voting public.

This bill provides an adjustment to better fit in today’s modern and digitally connected world. It modernises the rules around advertising at election time by removing the requirement for opening and closing addresses and for those to be broadcast. It also removes the requirement for Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand to provide time for them. This is a very good bill. It is well supported across the House and I have pleasure in commending it.

Members, this debate has concluded. There will be two questions put on this legislation. So the question is that the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Those of that opinion say Aye, to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to change our vote, if I may, please, to 12 votes opposed.

Well, the clerk has already announced the result. With leave of the House, if the member seeks leave, we will have it. Otherwise it is too late.

I seek leave to change our vote on the last call to 12 votes opposed.

First of all, actually, what you are going to be asking for is to call for a party vote because I have already announced the result, and so we will need to have a party vote; so you will need to seek leave for there to be a party vote.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I seek leave to call for a party vote.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. We will have a party vote.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I need to correct the vote. It is 31 not 32.

Leave is sought to correct the Labour vote. Is there any objection? There is no objection. The clerk will correct the votes and we will announce the result again.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 109, Noes 12.

Electoral Amendment Bill read a second time.