Electoral (Registration by Special Vote) Amendment Bill

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, e ngā members of Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I move, That the Electoral (Registration by Special Vote) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the bill. Often we have members of Parliament who can go through their time in this House without having the privilege of having a member’s bill drawn under their name. I am proud, as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, that this is not the first bill that I have had drawn, but, actually, my second bill, and I do hope that the support of the Government in terms of my first bill is also realised in the introduction of this bill.

I am proud to nominate this bill, the Electoral (Registration by Special Vote) Amendment Bill, and the aim of this bill is to amend the Electoral Act 1993 to allow unregistered voters to register by completing a special vote. Voter participation in our general elections is too low, and Labour is committed to lifting it. The bill amends the Electoral Act 1993 to allow unregistered voters to register by completing a special vote and so ensure that their votes are counted. In the last 30 years, there has been a general decline in voter turnout over time, with the lowest percentage of people voting occurring within the last two election cycles, 2011 and 2014. Roughly a million people did not show up to vote in the 2014 election, making it one of New Zealand’s worst turnouts in the last century.

The Ministry of Social Development’s Social Report 2016 says that voter turnout rates as an indicator of the confidence the population has in political institutions, the importance they attach to them, and the extent to which they feel their participation can make a difference. It is vital for a healthy democracy that we lift voter participation, and it is also vital that we do what we can to remove current impediments to voter participation where they serve no use other than to fulfil bureaucratic requirements.

Democracy will be enhanced under this bill, as unregistered voters will be able to register by completing a special vote. For various reasons, someone may choose to complete a special vote—which involves submitting their details and signing a statutory declaration in front of a witness—unaware that they are not enrolled to vote. In this case, the elector will receive a letter from the Electoral Commission advising them that their vote did not count and requesting that they now enrol by submitting the same details they provided when they cast their special vote. Not only has their vote been disallowed but an opportunity to engage the elector in the political process has been lost. The elector must also duplicate the paperwork necessary for their enrolment.

The 2014 election saw an upsurge in the number of special votes cast, the total number of special votes disallowed, and the percentage disallowed due to non-enrolment. There were 331,000 special votes cast in 2014. Of the special votes cast at the last election, 27,467 were disallowed because the voter was not enrolled at all. The Electoral Commission has projected that in 2017’s general election, 35,000 people who cast special votes will be disqualified because they will not be enrolled at all. The commission projects a further 53,000 voters in this year’s election will have their party vote counted but their candidate vote disqualified because (a) they are not enrolled in the correct electorate, or (b) they will vote in the wrong electorate because they have failed to understand which electorate they were enrolled in.

An analysis of the Te Tai Tokerau judicial recount indicated that some voters whose votes had been disallowed because they were not enrolled had completed special vote declarations at previous elections. The commission surmises that these voters thought that completing a special vote declaration would mean they would be enrolled. With both enrolment and voting now being delivered by a single agency, and because both forms require similar details from the elector, the commission suggests legislative change that enables a special vote to be treated as an application to enrol or update details. This will also serve to streamline the enrolment and voting process during the advance voting period.

This bill will enhance democracy in New Zealand by ensuring those whose voices would otherwise not be heard are engaged in the political process and have their votes counted. This amendment to the Electoral Act will enact recommendations made by the Electoral Commission and enable tens of thousands more Kiwis to participate in our democratic process. Increased voter participation is vitally important if voters are to elect a Parliament that is truly representative of our communities. This bill will also create efficiencies and will eliminate wasteful red tape in our electoral system by treating a special vote as an application to enrol or update details.

I want to thank the Labour Party’s submission to the inquiry of the electoral subcommittee into 2014, and I particularly want to acknowledge our deputy leader and colleague, Jacinda Ardern, who took our views to that subcommittee, and is very much part and parcel of this bill being presented tonight. I do look forward to the Government’s support for this bill. For me, it is completely apolitical, it is fully non-controversial, and it is something that all Kiwis will benefit from. I also look forward to the support of the Māori Party for this bill. In the 2014 election more than 3 percent of all votes cast in Māori electorates were disallowed as they were invalid special votes. In the last two elections more than 8,600 Māori voters have had their votes disallowed as they were invalid special votes. Māori know that we desperately need to increase our participation in the electoral system, yet the current barriers in place are already suppressing a significant number of Māori votes. For democracy, for representation in this House, I commend this bill to the House.

It is with a certain sense of déjà vu that I find myself standing to speak to this member’s bill. Not so long ago, we passed the Electoral Amendment Act and brought into force a number of recommendations that came forward after the Justice and Electoral Committee had gone through quite a long process of picking apart the 2014 election. We heard from many different submitters, and we heard a whole bunch of things that people thought perhaps could be brought into play for the 2017 election and beyond, so we brought forward a bill that contained a number of amendments to the Electoral Act. Some of those amendments were significant improvements; for example, around clarity around advertising at advance polling booths—we set a parameter inside of which it would be inappropriate to campaign. We brought forward some amendments regarding standardising exactly when signage would be able to be put up at election time.

There was a particular look at the electoral roll, actually, and we had quite a long discussion about access to the electoral roll. One of those discussions was around who it was who would have access to the electronic version of the electoral roll. We had ideas put forward that perhaps the intelligence agencies might have access to that. We kind of batted that around, looked, and decided that the electoral roll was actually something that was quite important and quite significant to New Zealand, so we said that there should not be any changes as to who should have access to the electronic version of the electoral roll. In doing so, what I think was really interesting about that conversation about the electoral roll was the importance that it has, not simply just for general electoral purposes. In fact, the electoral roll is actually important to a number of other organisations, who use the statistical data from it. The information is valuable to political parties during an election time in terms of scrutineering, in terms of identifying where voters may or may not be, and also for local government purposes, which of course happen outside of the normal general election cycle.

It was with a certain level of trepidation that the committee and then the House decided that they would not necessarily want to tinker too much with that. A proposal was brought forward that, perhaps, some should be allowed to register to vote by way of a special vote on election day, and that was rejected by the committee. I recall that it was actually brought forward by a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage, and was again rejected at that point. So here we are, finding ourselves a few short months—or maybe it is even weeks—later, debating this again.

When I saw that this had come up, I thought: “Aha! There must be some new information that has come to light that we did not have before us when we first heard this.” I listened intently to the speech from the sponsoring member, Meka Whaitiri, for that new piece of information—that new “Aha!” moment that said something has changed that warrants this House going back around the mulberry bush again, spending its valuable time to revisit an issue that was a decision made a very short time ago. I did not hear it. I did not hear any argument that had not already been put forth at either the select committee stage, or the Committee of the whole House, or at the first, second, or third reading of the electoral amendment legislation. But here we are. We are around the mulberry bush again. If we are just going to rehash the same old arguments, I guess we will just have to do that again now.

Why is it that we have an electoral roll? I think it is a really important question that we ask, because this piece of legislation that has been proposed ultimately undermines the value of the electoral roll in New Zealand. If we say to people that they can just rock up on the day and cast their votes, there is no need for them to actually go to the effort of enrolling in the first place. In the first election, we might not see much of a change. We might actually see, as the member has suggested, an increase in voter participation, because those people who have not enrolled will have their votes counted. But I will put dollars to doughnuts that over time, the number of people who actually choose to enrol will diminish, because word will get around that, actually, you do not need to bother to enrol; you just rock up on the day and you cast your vote.

I will tell you what I believe happens when people enrol. I know some people do not get around to it, but, quite frankly, I think one thing that the Electoral Commission does well—there are a number of things that it does very well, but, in particular, what it does very, very well is promote to New Zealanders, across all sorts of media: “An election is coming, are you enrolled?”. It sends out information, it asks whether you are enrolled, you get those packs in the mail if you are on mail, you see it on the TV, you hear it on the radio. You would have to be living under a rock, basically, to not know that there is an election going on when there is the little cartoon guy with the orange background running around saying: “Are you enrolled?”.

So people will slowly, as time goes by, enrol less and less often. I believe that enrolment is a very, very important part of the process. If people are so disengaged from the process that they do not get around to enrolling, what confidence can we have that they are actually engaging, listening to the comments that are around, and informing themselves in order to make an informed decision? It is absolutely somebody’s right to vote. I absolutely agree with the point that it is somebody’s right to vote, but in New Zealand we have a system that says you enrol to vote. I cannot understand, if the member is so committed to this idea, why she does not just scrap the enrolment altogether. But no—she still believes that enrolment is important, but she is just prepared to undermine the enrolment process.

There are some other points that make it very important that we actually get as many people enrolled beforehand as we can. It makes vote counting a lot simpler. On election night, what we want to have, for certainty for the country, is the most accurate—the most accurate—outcome that we can have on election night. Now, we always understand that there are special votes being counted, and things rearrange a little bit. The Greens, traditionally, get a little bit of a smile on their faces after the special votes have been counted, and, actually, we in National sort of get a little bit sad, because the last time around—I think the last two elections—we lost somebody after the election night, and the Greens have gone: “Yes. We’ve got an extra one.” But that variation is generally pretty small. And so in an MMP environment, when parties are trying to get into post-election negotiations over how to form a Government, the last thing we want is to increase the amount of special votes that are being cast and, therefore, create more uncertainty for a longer period of time after election night.

It is clear to me that, actually, despite the fact that on the first time up there might be increased participation—I believe that over time, this kind of thing will actually undermine the election process. If we need to work harder to get people enrolled earlier, then let us work harder to do that. If we need to work harder to get people engaged in the democratic process, then let us do that. But let us not just take a short-cut route. Let us not just take the easy way out that actually says: “Oh, let’s just make it really easy for them so that we don’t have to worry about it.”

Now, when we had this debate during the electoral amendment legislation, a member from the other side accused us of simply voting for this because, as he perceived, we were doing it because it would benefit our side of the House. The funny thing about that accusation is that at that point, that member, I believe, was admitting to himself and to this House that the only reason he was voting for it was that he believed it actually served his purposes better. You cannot make accusations without it coming around to face the other way as well.

There is no need for us to go around the mulberry bush again. We have done it once recently. I will not support this bill.

It may be that that member, Jono Naylor, has to come back to the House tonight and apologise for undermining his own Government’s commitment to the Open Government Partnership, which is to allow participation, encourage participation, and provide for the engagement of the citizens of this country, to enable them to participate in democracy.

What he has put up is a case for putting up more barriers—and not just putting up more barriers; he has justified putting up more barriers. “They should be disengaged if they cannot be bothered to enrol.”, he says to this House. Well, that goes to the very heart of the utter core differences between the National Government, which is anti-democratic, and the Labour Party, which is fundamentally about all people being able to participate in society, and not putting up barriers to people.

What about the 40,000 homeless people in New Zealand? How are they going to vote on election day? They are going to be disenfranchised from their democratic right to vote if they have to cast a special vote because their details are not right on the electoral roll or they are not on the electoral roll. That is what we are discussing in this House today.

This is a democratic bill that Meka Whaitiri has put up. She has put it up to try to correct an utter anti-democratic act by this Government in blocking the enablement of more people in New Zealand to be able to participate in the New Zealand elections. And yet the Government is a signatory to the Open Government Partnership. It is absolutely in black and white that a Government that is a signatory has to provide better means for people to participate in their democracy. So that is why that member needs to come back to the House and apologise before the night is out, because he has fundamentally gone against that.

For his edification, the legislation that was recently passed was the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill, and the Electoral Amendment Bill, which came out of the Justice and Electoral Committee inquiry into the 2014 election. There were 28 recommendations that came out of that inquiry. This Government has implemented only 12 of them. What it did say, though, was that it would possibly look at other measures. Well, from listening to that member tonight, they are off the table. They are off the table. And any other National Government member who gets up to speak on this bill needs to clarify the position of the Government on this. Is the Government going to look at this in the future, or is it off the table, as that member has said?

I want to show you a graph. I am sure the people of New Zealand watching this at home can see the blue parts of this graph. The blue parts of this graph go back to 2005, and the circled bit here is 2014. The graph shows the number of people who were disenfranchised at the last election. On election day there were 27,000 people who turned up to vote, who were not on the electoral roll, who cast a special vote, and whose special votes were not counted in the election either because they were not on the electoral roll or their details were different from the details they had previously provided. The estimation is—as you can see—that that graph is going to go up to 35,000 people. It may even go up further.

This is the party for participation; that is the party for exclusion. This is the party for all of us; that is the party for a few. This is the party for enfranchisement and enablement; that is the party for disenfranchisement. This is the party for streamlining and simplifying and making processes easy; that is the party of confusing and deliberate attempts to disenfranchise a part of the community that it knows is unlikely to vote for it. That is why it is blocking them from having access to democracy.

In following on from that hectoring lecture from Clare Curran, the poor man’s Diane Abbott, I want to respond by saying that this is the party that has been doing such good work in enabling New Zealanders to come and electronically enrol by implementing the RealMe system—by rolling that out. It has never been easier to do the right thing and fulfil your obligations and your responsibilities as a New Zealand citizen by identifying yourself online and enrolling properly on the electoral roll. I think there is harm in this bill. I do want to commend the member Meka Whaitiri for, I think, a well-intentioned bill, but there are not only moral hazards but practical issues with the measures that she proposes.

The electoral roll is an important—in fact, fundamental—part of our voting system in New Zealand. We are among the most liberal jurisdictions in the world, in that we do not close the rolls many weeks before a general election, as they do, sometimes for practical concerns, in some parts of the world, where you have printed rolls as your main means of registering people—then there is a practical reason you need to close the roll. But I think having a roll that is not simply a self-determined one on the day by turning up in the ballot booth is important, and it is important that we preserve the integrity of that roll and actually encourage New Zealanders to fulfil their obligations. They have an absolute right to cast their vote, but let us not forget that there is a legal responsibility and an obligation in this country to register on the electoral roll.

If you are not registered on the electoral roll, you will not receive the published booklets and literature that are issued prior to a general election. So we are actually saying that you will turn up and vote on the day without having received any of the literature that is provided, and I think that is problematic. The Electoral Commission coordinates and compiles lists of, for instance, the party lists. This might be information that people have not yet seen through the media, through online browsing, or through going to the parties’ websites—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: This is waffle. It’s not literature. The member’s waffling. Give us a good reason.

—because not every member of the general public is as politically obsessed and politically aware as members of this House.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Stop waffling and give us a good reason.

And if Mr O’Rourke ceases his incessant heckling and actually turns his ears on, he might actually have some intelligent remarks to make to my comments.

Also, I think there is a significant problem in the signal this sends to people, which is that it is OK not to fulfil something that is currently a legal obligation—to be registered as a voter—and we know that it would create significant difficulties in increasing the number of unregistered voters to be processed. That could lead to significant issues on election night and the days and weeks after an election, when we will have a number of seats where it could be quite unclear who the winner was on the night. We have that as it is, but this could become a significantly larger issue when we come to coalition negotiations and those other very important parts of the political process that we have under MMP.

It is far better that there is a comprehensive roll and that people cast their vote and those are counted, where possible, on the night, and there are obvious exceptions—those votes that are cast in our missions overseas, at high commissions, consulates, and embassies; votes cast in hospitals; votes cast by members of the military. It is important that those people who are serving the country in those capacities, in particular, have the right to have their views heard. We accept that there is an administrative burden in allowing those votes to be cast in that way and counted in that way. However, if every single person who turned up to the ballot box and cast their vote without having been properly enrolled—that is, if more votes become special votes because of this perverse incentive that has been created—I think that would be highly problematic for counting the votes.

I am not entirely convinced that it would lead to a massive, sudden increase in turnout. We know that there is something special about our voting system in New Zealand. We know that if you go to a postal ballot, there is significantly less public interest and lower turnout, as is demonstrated in local body elections. We know that in countries that have tried an electronic system for voting—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Irrelevance. Irrelevant to this bill.

—this lowers the value. It certainly lowers the public perception of the integrity of the vote, and this was the case, Mr O’Rourke, in Scandinavia, in Norway, where a trial of electronic voting was so unacceptable and so disastrous that they overturned that and they have actually gone back to a system much closer to the paper-based system we have. This is a well-intentioned bill, but it would not achieve what it wants to achieve, and I think it should be voted down.

I am pleased to stand to inform the House the Greens will be supporting this bill, and doing so quite willingly. We think it is a useful addition to our electoral law. It will achieve some good outcomes. It is disappointing that the National Government has seen fit not to even allow this to go to a select committee. I have to say that when our friend Mr Foster-Bell uses an absurd argument to oppose the bill, it suggests that even with National’s second speaker it is scratching the bottom of the barrel to find a reason to oppose the legislation. The notion that everybody will suddenly not bother to register to vote but will just all turn up, 3 million - odd of us, without having registered—I do not think that is a very profound or a very sound objection to the legislation. Similarly, Mr Naylor in his contribution seemed to imply that if someone is not on the roll, does not bother to get on the roll, then somehow they are not deserving of a vote. I think that is a very slippery slope indeed. What is next? Shall we have some sort of a qualifying exam before we allow people to vote? That has been done in some countries in the past, and it is a very unfortunate proposition, I think.

This National Government is almost becoming a bit of a serial offender in terms of disenfranchising people or apparently being unwilling to maximise the number of people who can vote. We know that this year there will be in excess of 10,000 people who will not be able to vote simply because they are in prison, and that is a direct result of a very unfortunate member’s bill passed in the last term of Government by a National member. We know that that blanket banning of prison inmates from voting is inconsistent with our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, unjustifiably so. We know that because the High Court has said so, and, more recently, the Court of Appeal has said so, and I hope the National Government will think long and hard on that. When our Court of Appeal agrees that a particular legislative provision around voting is inconsistent with our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it should think long and hard about reversing that legislation.

But to return to this bill, I believe the purpose of this bill is twofold. The issue around special voting I think is genuinely confusing to some people. The Electoral Commission’s report implied that some people actually think that turning up on the day and doing a special vote does also enrol them. Unfortunately, that is not true, but it would be good if it were true. There will certainly be a very small number of people who might simply not bother to enrol on that basis, but I think that number would be vanishingly small. The cost of validating their votes after the election day would be minimal in terms of the value of actually having people participate in the electoral process.

The other major point, of course, is to increase turnout. Turnout fluctuates from election to election, but the trend in recent decades has certainly been going downward. In only one election in the last several decades—in fact, since 2004 only once have we got above the 80 percent barrier, where in previous decades New Zealanders turned out to vote in much larger numbers. It is a somewhat worrying trend. Anything we can do to encourage and enable voting has to be a good thing if you believe in participatory democracy. If you look at all the OECD countries, the countries we commonly compare ourselves with, in terms of voting turnout we are about halfway down the list. Our friends across the Tasman rate very highly, with something often in excess of 90 percent turning out to vote. It would be a good thing if we could get closer to emulating that. Anything we can do to increase turnout, to engage more people in voting, and to make it easier for people to considering voting a good habit—something they should do and will continue to do—I think would be a useful thing to do, and this bill does facilitate that, at least a little bit.

I came across an interesting piece of information along the way of reading about some of this. New Zealand at one time had a Second Ballot Act, at the beginning of last century. This meant that in electoral contests candidates had to get an absolute majority. If nobody got that in the first round of voting, there was a run-off between the top two. It occurred to me that it actually might have some legs, some value, to reconsider something like that. For the moment, though, limiting ourselves to this, the Greens are happy to support this legislation.

Well, it is slightly strange that David Clendon criticised my colleague Paul Foster-Bell for making what he described as terrible arguments in the second National speech on the bill, while the member who has just resumed his seat finished his speech by talking about how we should introduce alternative vote into the New Zealand political and electoral system. Given even he cannot bring himself to make any arguments in favour of the bill, I think that says quite a lot about the merits of the particular proposal we are talking about.

The critical issue with this bill is what the purpose is of an electoral roll. Why do we have the electoral roll? I would put it to the House that there are three very good reasons why we have an electoral roll. First, it is to allow political parties and third parties to furnish members of the public who are enrolled on the roll with information and content that is relevant to them about the upcoming election, about the things that the party stands for, and about the things that individual candidates stand for. That is very important. Secondly, it is to enable the Electoral Commission to furnish voters with information, to send out the EasyVote cards, to tell them where the polling places are, to tell them when the election day actually is, and to do all of the things that the Electoral Commission, very rightly, does. Thirdly—and this is important as well—we have a roll so that we know that people who are entitled to vote do vote and that people who are not entitled to vote cannot vote. That is actually really important, otherwise we would just let anyone turn up with ID and say “I’m over 18 and I’m entitled to vote.” You know, we have a roll for a reason, because we have restrictions around who can vote in New Zealand and who cannot vote.

Given we have the roll, the question is: should we get people on to the roll so that we can fulfil all of those important functions? Should we get as many people on to the roll as we can so that parties can communicate with them, so that the Electoral Commission can communicate with them, and so that interested observers and people who are interested in the credibility of our electoral process can scrutinise the roll? The answer is absolutely yes. And what does this bill do? Well, it completely diminishes the utility and the importance of getting on the roll, because what it says is that you can rock up on election day itself, and you can simultaneously or at least contemporaneously vote and enrol yourself at the same time. It absolutely diminishes the incentive for anyone during the non-political campaign period to enrol themselves and to get that information and to make sure that they receive information during the 3-year parliamentary term.

It is not just in the campaign period when political parties and candidates want to communicate with voters; it is during the 3-year period that Parliament is sitting. It is what MPs do with parliamentary funding to communicate with voters. It is what every MP—or, at least, I hope every MP—does in this House. So we have to make sure, and we have to send the message to people: get on the roll. It is really important for scrutiny, for communication purposes, and for the reasons I have just outlined. What this bill does is send the message that you do not need to do that—that, basically, it is OK just to turn up at any old time on election day and enrol.

You have got 364 days of the year to enrol. We now let you do it during the advance voting period, and, actually, there are arguments, I think, to be fair, about whether or not that is a wise thing to do, because for a lot of first-time voters, the evidence tends to suggest—for a lot of first-time enrollers and first-time voters—that they are waiting till the advance vote period opens to enrol and then vote. And, actually, that means that for the other 2 years and 9 months when the parliamentary process is ongoing, they are not on the roll and they cannot be communicated with, because of political parties. So there is, I think, a legitimate question around whether or not that was a good idea, but that is the way the law works now.

The question, really, for this House is whether we should extend that step even further and say that not only can you enrol during the advance voting period, but you can enrol on election day itself. My view—my personal view, and the view of the National Party, actually—is that that would be a retrograde step, for the reasons I have just outlined, and also because of the complications it would introduce on voting day. Voting day is for people to turn up and vote. It is not for people to rock up and enrol at the same time. In fact, the Electoral Commission staff are not competent or qualified to deal with both things at the same time. I do not mean competent in an intellectual sense; I mean institutionally competent to deal with it. It would introduce extraordinary complications. There are 364 days to enrol; people should do it on those days, not on—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

New Zealand First will support this bill, and with some enthusiasm because New Zealand First wants to enhance democracy, whereas the National Government wants to restrict it. National wants to restrict applications to enrol, especially on polling day, even if the person concerned is entitled to enrol and entitled to vote. It will not accept a special vote as a valid application to enrol. All of that is wrong.

The reason why the National Government takes the position it has is it says there are issues about security and there are issues about the integrity of the roll, whatever that might mean. Apparently, there would not be enough time to check validity, but that is not a valid consideration, since, in fact, all that happens with any ordinary application for enrolment is that there is complete reliance on the statutory declaration to say that “the facts I give here about name and address and so on are correct”. There would be absolutely no difference between that and doing this on election day as part of a special voting process—no difference whatsoever. So that argument does not really work.

All this bill actually does, when you think about it, is allow polling day enrolment—and why not? Why not? Why is that different than any other day? You should be able to enrol as a voter on any day of the week. There is no reason why not. Secondly, it uses a special vote application, 2B, which is also an application for enrolment—again, why not? There is exactly the same information contained in both processes—special voting and an application to enrol—so why duplicate it? Why not allow both on one piece of paper, to be processed straight away, given that it relies entirely on a declaration?

Now, the speakers opposite have said that one of the reasons why they will not support this is what they call perverse incentive—that is what Paul Foster-Bell said. What he means is that people might wait until election day to enrol instead of doing it before then. Well, actually, I do not think many people in this country would want the hassle of having to do a special vote on election day if they could have enrolled a long time before that. Almost everybody will want to do that. Paul Foster-Bell is talking utter rubbish, and he ought to know it, because the rest of the population does.

The other reasons given were those given by the last speaker, Chris Bishop. He talked about information being required. Nobody needs information to vote. Nobody needs information to enrol. Information is nice, but it is not necessary. The right to vote is paramount and much more important than those minor considerations.

It is a common-sense matter and a democratic matter to allow enrolment and voting at the same time. There is absolutely no reason why that should not happen, and, as I have said, it is all a matter of correct information that is verified by a statutory declaration, not by any process of checking that goes on, because that does not really happen anyway. People believe that if they cast a special vote, then it will count, because they believe they will have applied to be on the electoral roll at the same time. Try to tell anyone in the public why that should not happen—it just does not make sense. This is a common-sense bill, and it should be supported for that reason alone.

The effect, by the way, is something that National should want. The effect will be to add thousands of people to the roll who would not otherwise make it—people entitled to enrol and entitled to vote. Why would National want to stop people who are entitled to enrol and entitled to vote? Ask it that question, and let us hear a more decent answer, rather than the absolute nonsense we have heard so far from the other side of the House.

I stand to speak to the Electoral (Registration by Special Vote) Amendment Bill tonight in its first reading. I am a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I joined in 2016, and every 3 years this committee undertakes a review of the general election. It is a public process, it is advised by the Electoral Commission, and it is open to submissions from the general public. The last review was initiated on 30 October 2014, 1 month following the last general election, and the submissions to that process closed in March 2015. The feedback from the hearings was worked on for over a year by that select committee, and the findings were reported to this House last year in April. There were quite a few recommendations that came out of that process.

One of the issues highlighted in the review was that the availability of the roll is important to ensure its integrity, and we heard that late enrolment would, in fact, prevent effective scrutiny of that roll. It could affect how we even deal with fraudulent voting. We do not like to think that that is a possibility, but we need to protect the roll in that case. In the open democracy that we live in here in New Zealand, we cannot afford to do anything that would compromise the integrity of the voting system that we have in place. It works well, and the review is conducted after every general election. That ensures that the details that are thoroughly investigated as an outcome of that review and the learnings from the previous election are fed through, considered, and acted upon where appropriate.

The advance voting system is relatively new to this country. I would just like to read a section from the report that I think is valuable to this debate: “The commission advised us that because of the numbers potentially involved, it would not be confident it could validate election day special vote enrolment applications with integrity without delaying the official count. The commission instead recommended that the question of whether election day special vote enrolment applications could be included in the official count should be reconsidered for the 2020 election in light of lessons learnt in 2017.” It is clear that we are going to be looking at the results of the 2017 election, and that will feed through to a further review on advance voting and enrolment. Thank you.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I am disgusted—disgusted—with what we are seeing tonight, which is National members who care more about the electoral roll than about New Zealanders voting. At a time when we have got the lowest voting in absolute generations, and when the second-biggest party in this Parliament would be “did not vote at the last election”, National is voting against making it easier to vote. I am disgusted with the arguments we have heard tonight, because they are all in electoral and political self-interest, not in the national interest. I am rising to support this bill, but disgusted with what we are seeing tonight.

Outside this Chamber is a giant painting of the Glorious Revolution. In the middle of this Table is the Mace, the symbol of when once upon a time the Speaker’s representative of Parliament in the UK had his head lopped off for exercising the right to vote. At a time when we know throughout history and even today people are beaten and killed trying to exercise the right to vote, National wants to make it harder for 27,000 Kiwis to exercise their right to play their part in the democratic process.

I want to say thank you to Meka Whaitiri for putting this bill to Parliament. I want to say thank you for standing up for the 27,000 Kiwis who last election went to the ballot box, cast their vote, filled in the forms for a special vote, but then got a letter in the mail from the Electoral Commission saying: “I’m sorry, your vote didn’t count.” Can you imagine how that would feel? It may be the first time in your life that you have gone to a ballot booth to vote, and then you get that letter in the mail. No wonder so many people are not voting. No wonder so many people will not vote again. This bill is about making it easier. It is about making it easier for Māori, when we know that in the Māori electorates 3 percent, in fact, got that letter in the mail because they were turned away from voting. We have a massive voting problem—a massive democratic deficit in New Zealand. We should be discussing how to make it easier, not harder, and my fear is tonight that because of the National Party we are going to be making it harder.

It must have been incredibly hard in the National caucus room to come up with arguments—“How do we argue in Parliament against enfranchising voters?”. Well, they literally scraped the barrel with their arguments. Mr Naylor came out and said “Well, look, quite frankly”—and to paraphrase—“if you can’t be bothered to enrol you shouldn’t deserve to vote.” Then Paul Foster-Bell came out and said: “But if you are not on the roll you are not going to get the literature.” What literature? All the information about where to vote and the ballot box is all online. That must be the weakest argument I have ever heard for stopping making it easier for people to vote—because they are going to miss out on some literature.

Then Mr Bishop came out and said: “Well, we need the electoral roll because parties need to be able to send letters outside of the election.” We all know what Mr Bishop means—these faux surveys, right, where political parties use the electoral roll to harvest the contact data of Kiwis. That was the reason, blunt and frank from Mr Bishop’s own lips. I think that proves if you can argue for the tobacco industry you can argue for almost any issue in this House. What we heard from all the National speakers was that they cared more about “the sanctity and the integrity of the electoral roll” than actually voting. They care more about a bit of paper—the roll—than electors, the people of New Zealand who want to cast their ballot. That is why I say I am disgusted, without exaggeration.

Let us look at the track record. We see in the previous Parliament this Government disenfranchised 10,000 New Zealanders currently in prisons from being able to vote. I believe every New Zealander, no matter where they are, should be able to vote. This is the Government that sacked democratically elected councils in Canterbury. This is the Government that does electoral deals to rort the mixed-member proportional system to get their zombie parties in. This is the Government with the worst ever abuse of the Official Information Act in our country’s history, and it had the gall to say efficient light bulbs were nanny State. You want to see nanny State? You will see councils being sacked, Kiwis disenfranchised, and abuses of official information.

But it does not have to be this way. I am proud that the Green Party will be voting for this bill. We believe we should be making it easier for Kiwis to vote. We want to see people not go into the booth and cast one vote but vote the next time and the time after. We want them to tell their friends to care about what is happening in their country and exercise their right, which we saw people around the world throughout history, and even today, die to exercise. I believe we can promote voting. I believe we could see civics education in schools. I also believe we should consider lowering the voting age, because this democracy is bigger than all of us in this House.

Well, that last speaker, Gareth Hughes, completely got the messages wrong, made a huge drama, and the dramatic notion of not being able to vote is just not right. Anyone in this country can vote and is entitled to vote. They need to be enrolled. That is all they have to do. They have to take some personal responsibility and get themselves enrolled, put themselves on the roll—simple as that.

So let us be clear—most people are capable and do just that. This inquiry into the 2014 general election is a very good read and traverses exactly the issue that Meka Whaitiri is raising today. It is clear that it does not recommend that people should be able to enrol on voting day. I think there are a couple of issues here; there are two issues. There is the ability to vote, and there is the roll and the role of the roll—if I can use the two words together—in the election process.

It is important that the roll is accurate. It is important that the roll is accurate for the purposes that have been traversed by both sides of the House. I would like to pick up on one point that Mr Bishop said. Arguably, we should not be able to enrol a day before the election—or 2 days, 3 days, or 4 days before the election—because the accuracy of the roll may not be as accurate as it could be or should be. I accept and agree with Mr Bishop on that point. Therefore, to be able to enrol on election day goes against the purposes of the electoral roll for the purpose of this bill.

I see what the member is trying to do in getting more people to vote, to get them enrolled as late as possible so that they can vote, but I think the means is incorrect. If we want to have everyone vote, why not suggest a member’s bill that makes it compulsory to vote? Perhaps that is the answer. That would have been more useful. And I am not advocating that, but to me that would be a much more useful discussion around how we are to get a high participation rate in our general elections; other countries do it.

Over 90 percent of us are enrolled to vote—so most of us are enrolled to vote. About 80 percent of us do vote. So just because you are enrolled on the ballot does not mean you are going to exercise your right to vote. There was said in a discussion that 27,000-odd people thought that they could vote because they enrolled on the day. To me, those 27,000 people should have listened to all the adverts, taken their personal responsibility seriously, and got themselves enrolled on the roll. That is the key to it.

I think there are better ways to ensure people do participate, education being the primary motive, to make sure people are enrolled, but to say, as the Green Party member said, that we are hindering people, we are trying to slow people down, disabling them to exercise their vote is just a total nonsense—a total nonsense. As I say, they are able to enrol; it is very simple. At the moment they can enrol up to the day before election day. So there really is no excuse to be able to rock up on election day to say: “Oh, I forgot to enrol. I am still entitled to vote.” Well, I am sorry, that is not the case. To be entitled to vote you must be on the roll. I think it is very simple to do so. The little orange man comes round and there is a hell of a lot of stuff that goes into your letterbox.

There are some very good other recommendations in this report regarding those people who change—

💬 Pita Paraone: So what if they become eligible on the day of the vote?

Good point. Or people who are not in their electorate, or who have changed address prior to the election. There are more efficient ways of dealing with that, which are recommendations in the report. So those things are positive and they will make the system more efficient and effective. But to enable people to special vote on the day and enrol completely goes against the purpose of the roll, and confuses the purpose of the roll with the person’s right to vote.

💬 Pita Paraone: So the moral of the story is hope that your birthday does not fall on the day of the vote.

So the moral of the story is to ensure that you are enrolled before election day.

Just in response to that last speaker, Mr Scott, 27,000 people voted—27,000 people on election day in 2014 went to vote and to do what every other New Zealander did throughout the election period last election. There were 27,000 people who cast a special vote, on the understanding that their vote would count, and, of course, it did not. It did not.

This bill, despite what the members on the Government benches are saying, is not going to create anarchy. People are not going to jump off the electoral roll and leave it until the last day to rock on up, as many of those members have said, on election day to cast their vote. We are talking about 27,000 people who did that for the last election.

Can I remind the House of the reasons why I gave those 27,000—and there are multiple reasons why 27,000 people in the last election cast a special vote, on the understanding that it would be counted. I gave a couple of reasons. One is that they may have been enrolled in the wrong electorate. They may have voted in the wrong electorate because they failed to understand which electorate they were enrolled in. There could have been some reason that I do not know—maybe they had no fixed abode; maybe they were homeless. Maybe they were part of the 40,000 people in this country who have no fixed abode, which is an issue when you go and register. “What’s your address?”. “Well, I’m actually sleeping in the car—oh no, no, hold on, I’m sleeping in a garage. Oh no, I’m in a crowded place.”

Let us bring up the whole core problem with this bill that the Government is creating. There were 27,000 people who went to the polling booths in 2014 to exercise their right to vote by casting a special vote, and there are multiple reasons why people found themselves there. This is not an open slather for every man and their dog to give up enrolling through the normal process and leave it for the last day.

I want to just go through some of the comments that the National members contributed in this debate. Jono Naylor talked about how this bill undermines the electoral process—that, all of a sudden, people will disregard the electoral enrolling process and just turn up on the day. Well, I was waiting for his evidence to show that that would happen. No, I did not hear it.

Then we went to Paul Foster-Bell, who talked about the “perverse incentive”. He talked about online voting and all these moral hazards, the practicality and the signal it will send, and the administrative burden. Again, he is creating a mountain out of a molehill—we are talking about 27,000 people. As the Electoral Commission said, the number could rise to 35,000 people. This bill would address the multiple reasons of New Zealanders all around this country who find themselves on election day unable to go through the proper process. This bill was to address that need.

Then we go to Mr Bishop, who talked about the importance of the roll, the information of parties, the Electoral Commission sending out stuff, and who can and cannot vote. If people can register and vote through early voting, then what I cannot understand is why this Government is so opposed to extending that to election day. I did not hear any justification or rationale as to why it thinks that this bill would not address the very issue that I have raised in my contribution.

There are 27,000 people, in a country that purports to support democracy—the very country that first gave women the vote. And when we are looking at those who, for whatever reason, cannot register in due course and want to vote on election day—this bill would enable them to practise their democratic right to vote. I am disappointed that the National Government has come up with very lame reasons as to why it is voting against it.

In the half a minute that I have got, can I please thank the parties whose members got up and spoke in support: the Greens and New Zealand First. I was hoping that the Māori Party members would come down and take a call, because, as I said in my opening speech, 8,600 Māori voters in 2014 were disallowed and this bill was going to address that. I was hoping that they would take a call. I want to thank all the parties that supported it. I was hoping to hear from the others. It is still a good bill. I present it and support it in this stage. Kia ora tātou.