Local Electoral Matters Bill

I move, That the Local Electoral Matters Bill be now read a first time.

This bill amends the Local Electoral Act 2001 and the Electoral Act 1993. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. Local government representation in local elections is a key component of our democratic system of government in New Zealand. Improving civic participation in local government is one of my key focus areas for the local government portfolio.

Effective local democracy requires ongoing engagement between citizens and communities with their local councils throughout the local authority planning and electoral cycles. However, the reality is that for many New Zealanders, filling out their ballot papers every three years is the main way that they seek to influence decision making in local government. It is, therefore, vital that we look for opportunities to ensure that voting in local elections is as easy and accessible as possible.

When the Local Electoral Act was enacted, it provided for the two most popular voting methods at the time: postal voting and polling booth voting. However, the legislation still envisaged and made provision for the possibility of other voting methods in the future, such as electronic online voting. We are now at the point where trialling alternative voting methods is important for the health of local elections. The changing make-up of New Zealand’s postal services creates increasing challenges for local authorities to deliver postal voting effectively and affordably. Innovation is required to adapt to changing times, and technology will certainly play its part. Also, there is the changing public expectation about how people want to engage with central government and local government in the democratic process.

The changes in this bill are a first step in a wider work programme to improve the operation and effectiveness of local elections. This work will be undertaken in partnership with the local government sector. The programme’s objectives focus on two imperatives: the ongoing need to support local democracy by ensuring all electors have a reasonable and an equal opportunity to vote in local elections, and the need to develop a sustainable platform for the efficient conduct of local elections into the future.

The bill has been developed in response to requests from local government representatives for legislative tools to support robust voting method trials. In particular, the local government sector representatives wish to proceed as soon as possible with a trial of online voting at local elections. I support this objective and have asked officials to work closely with the local government sector to advance this goal. The Government and the local government sector partners intend that the experience gained from the first trials of online voting will inform the wider work on improvements to the local electoral framework that I referred to earlier.

The New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers and Local Government New Zealand were consulted during the drafting of this bill to check its workability, and they support its proposals. This bill includes several small, but important, amendments to the local electoral framework to enable local electoral arrangements to adapt to changing circumstances. The bill will enable better design for trials of new voting methods such as online voting, and these changes will support work with the local government sector to develop alternative voting methods, so that local authorities have more choices to respond to how their constituents want to cast ballots in local elections.

Specifically, the bill will allow for enabling regulations, so that a voting method can be offered to a specified subset of electors at an election for the purposes of a trial. For example, a large local authority could offer online voting alongside postal voting to named categories of electors, such as overseas electors, disabled electors, or electors within a particular ward, or a combination of these. This provides a mechanism to limit the risks of trialling a new voting method in a very large council district such as Auckland.

The bill will clarify that electors’ age group information may be provided and used for the purposes of analysing participation in local elections. This change has two benefits. Firstly, it will allow for effective evaluation of future trials of new voting methods, using age group demographics. This analysis will inform further iterations and improvement of the design of the new method. Secondly, this change will ensure that any local authority can access this information at any time in order to improve its understanding of voter turnout and to support efforts to improve voter participation in that local authority area. Finally, the bill will allow the Electoral Commission to provide date of birth information it holds to local authorities where this is required for conducting a local election. This will allow date of birth information to be utilised in the design of a new voting method as a factor to authenticate electors’ identities.

Maintaining public confidence in the integrity of local government elections is a critical consideration in any innovation such as this. Providing additional authentication options to use when designing a trial of a new system provides a larger tool kit of options to support that confidence. Of course, adequate protections are needed so this information can only be accessed by local authorities when necessary, and to ensure it is securely managed. This bill requires that the enabling regulations for any new voting method that use date of birth information also prescribe measures to prevent unauthorised access or use of that information.

This bill is an important first step to ensuring we have an enduring framework for efficient and effective local elections that can adapt to changing circumstances in the use of technology, for example. The changes in this bill, together with the wider work programme to improve the effective operation of local elections, will support local democracy and increase participation, we hope, by ensuring all electors have a reasonable and equal opportunity to vote in local elections. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. National will be supporting this bill to select committee, but I have to say that I am underwhelmed by the minor nature of this bill. Any member of this House that seriously believes these couple of minor tinkers are going to make any substantive difference to the participation of electors in local body elections is on the wrong planet. It really does speak volumes that the Government is only six months into office, and the biggest local government change we’ve got is minor tinkering, as is proposed in this bill. You could hardly justify the expense of Parliament’s time for how minor these provisions are.

Now, listening to the waffle of the Minister, let me provide clarity for the House about what the bill does. The Local Electoral Act already allows for trials of online voting. The only change we’re making is that they can conduct it in a ward rather than district-wide. The only other change of any substance that’s being made is that the Electoral Commission is going to be able to provide councils and researchers with age-related group data around participation in votes. I hate to use the phrase, but “big deal!” Really? Is that the substance of what the Government’s going to do to improve that important local government sector, that uses up more than six billion bucks of public money for each year? “Is this it?”, I say to members opposite.

Now, we are quite open-minded about online voting. We should be open about the fact that, actually, in countries like Norway, where it has been trialled, they subsequently have not continued with it. It has not given the expectations of increased levels of participation and there have been real issues with the integrity of their voting system.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.