Local Electoral Matters Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: I move, That the Local Electoral Matters Bill be now read a second time.

The Local Electoral Matters Bill modernises two pieces of legislation to provide greater flexibility and to enable local electoral arrangements to adapt to changing circumstances, such as developing new voting methods for the future. The bill is one component of a broader effort to improve civic participation in local government. On behalf of the Minister of Local Government, I would like to thank the Justice Committee for its constructive consideration of the bill. I would also like to thank the 27 submitters on the bill, especially the nine submitters who made oral submissions to the committee. The Government was particularly pleased to see that submitters from the local government sector and those on behalf of the visually impaired were supportive of the bill.

The 27 public submissions covered all parts of the bill and provided useful perspectives on the proposals. The Justice Committee has recommended amendments to the bill in response to some of the issues raised in submissions and to help ensure the bill achieves its stated objectives. The Government supports these amendments, and a number of amendments have been made to reflect these recommendations, which I will speak to briefly. I would also like to thank the National Party for the support expressed separately in the Justice Committee’s commentary and for their constructive approach to the bill in the committee. I can assure them that the Government is very aware of the risks in trialling any new voting method, particularly in an online environment, and especially under the pressure of an imminent local election. However, the Government is also aware that some risk will always exist, and these need to be managed prudently rather than preventing any form of innovation or progress occurring in this area.

For many New Zealanders, filling out their ballot papers every three years is the only way to influence decision making in local government. Therefore, it is vital that the legislative framework for the local elections supports opportunities to ensure that voting in local elections is as easy and accessible as possible. The Local Electoral Matters Bill makes changes to better achieve this aim. Changes to the cost and regularity of postal services are creating increased challenges to deliver postal voting effectively and affordably to New Zealanders. The Local Electoral Act 2001 was enacted to provide for the only two voting methods known at the time, and that was postal voting and polling booth voting. However, the legislation still envisaged and made provision for the possibility of other voting methods in the future, including electronic or online voting. It is in this context that the changes in this bill are the first step in a wider programme to improve the operation and effectiveness of local elections.

The bill has two parts. Part 1 of the bill amends the Local Electoral Act 2001 to make the explicit provision for local authorities to conduct trials of new voting methods. In particular, the bill introduces authority for trials of new voting methods to be limited to subsets of electors in a local election. Currently, a local authority running an election is required to consult with other bodies that are party to the election before adopting a voting method. The Government supports the amendment made by the Justice Committee to ensure that these consultation requirements also apply to local authority resolutions to trial a new voting method, including a trial that would only apply to a specified subset of electors.

Significantly, the Justice Committee also recommended the creation of new contingency mechanisms to be available in the event of a serious problem with a voting system. During the consideration of the bill, officials from the Department of Internal Affairs identified two scenarios that cannot be adequately provided for under the current framework of the Local Electoral Act, either directly or under enabling regulations, for a new voting method. The two scenarios relate to identification of major problems at different stages of the election: firstly, during the voting period; and, secondly, after polling has closed. Where a significant problem occurs during the voting period, there needs to be provision for the electoral officer to make a formal decision that a component of a voting system has been compromised or has failed, and that the component and votes already cast using it must be abandoned.

The critical aspect that cannot be dealt with under existing provisions is enabling electors to vote again when their votes have been abandoned. The Act is very clear that no person can vote twice. The explicit provision inserted by the Justice Committee circumvents this restriction where the initial votes have been formally abandoned. In the event that a serious failure of the voting system is discovered after the polling has closed, the District Court should be able to direct that an election outcome be voided and the election held again. However, the Act currently provides that a District Court inquiry can only be initiated by a candidate or 10 electors, and only after the full results have been announced. Relying on this provision would require official results to be announced and outgoing members to leave the office and elected members to take office while court action is in progress.

Obviously, this mechanism is not fit for purpose for developing a new voting method, and there should be a provision for the electoral officer to initiate a court inquiry without official results taking effect. The Government supports the committee’s recommendation that the electoral officer be given the power to apply to the District Court, after the voting period is complete, seeking a judgment that the election may be voided and rerun. While the proposed mechanism would apply to all local elections, the Government considers it to be particularly relevant to trials of new voting methods.

Part 2 of the bill amends the Electoral Act 1993 to allow people analysing voter participation in local elections to use age group information for this analysis. The Justice Committee accepted the suggestion from submitters that this clause be extended to also provide access to Māori descent information. The Government agrees that there is value in providing electoral participation researchers with access to details about Māori descent information in addition to age group information. The extension to the clause may assist in identifying and removing barriers to Māori participation in local body elections. Part 2 of the bill also amends the Electoral Act to allow local authorities to be supplied with date of birth information from the database of registered electors where this is explicitly required in order to conduct an election.

Clause 12 amends section 113 of the Electoral Act 1993. The clause requires the Electoral Commission to supply an electoral official of a local authority with electors’ date of birth information for the purpose of conducting any election, by-election, or poll. The primary reason for local authorities to require date of birth information is to support voter authentication at the time of voting. Date of birth authentication avoids creating a new barrier to participation or significant extra costs, and it is information held both by the elector and the Electoral Commission that is not published on the roll or printed on voting papers. This makes it an efficient means of authenticating electors. This information may also be used for other purposes related to an election, by-election, or poll using future voting methods. An example of this might be for scrutiny of the roll during the official count.

Local government representatives expressed that having flexibility in its options to authenticate voters was important. Flexibility will also allow local authorities to work with online service providers on the best option, allow for innovation, and potentially to trial more than one approach to authentication. The bill provides for the secure use and destruction of the date of birth information. This date of birth information is defined in regulations as “specified material” and, as such, will be placed in secure containers, with the electoral officer endorsing and signing a memorandum describing the contents. The Government supports the committee’s amendments also to further clarify the circumstances in which date of birth information can be provided to local authorities and to ensure that date of birth information is not supplied in any other circumstances.

Once again, can I thank the individuals and the groups that made submissions on the bill and the Justice Committee for its improvements to the bill. The Local Electoral Matters Bill benefits New Zealanders, because it will provide an enduring framework for efficient and effective local body elections that can adapt to changing circumstances. The changes in this bill, together with a wider work programme to improve the accessibility and effective operation of local elections, will support local democracy by ensuring all electors have a reasonable and equal opportunity to vote in local body elections. I commend the bill to the House.

I would be overstating this bill if I called it “small beer”. I would describe it as micro-brewing. So insignificant are the provisions in this bill that for the Acting Minister of Local Government, Kris Faafoi, to just have spoken and described this as a linchpin of the Government’s reforms for local government really does show just how feeble a programme this Government has in the important area of local government.

Let me begin by taking the House through exactly what the bill does. The law currently allows for the trial of novel voting methods. All this bill does is that you can try novel voting methods in the subset of a council. That is, if you wanted to trial internet voting in a local board area in Auckland, this bill would allow you to do it. Now, how many members of the House really believe that introducing that provision to the law is going to solve all the challenges that apply to local government? But there’s more—there’s more.

This bill is going to allow councils to be able to collect age-related data on voter participation. That’s not a bad thing—members on this side of the House support it. Councils should be able to know that there is a such and such participation rate of 20-year-olds and a high level of participation rate for older people. That’s information that might help councils. But when members opposite pretend that somehow this is the great breakthrough for improving the decline in local government participation that’s occurred over the last 20 years, I say to the Government to go back to the drawing board. You are micro-managing in the extreme.

Now, when the Minister of Local Government introduced this bill she said it was going to be the flagship for introducing internet voting into local government. National has said in its minority view that we have a real caution in that regard. These members opposite were very gung ho about conducting the census all on the internet, and we all know how that went. It was a flop, and the Minister of Statistics still has questions to answer in that regard. Actually, running our voting system is far more important. In the National minority view on this bill we draw attention to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the US that has produced a very comprehensive report on the very real risks of introducing internet voting. National is not saying we’re opposed; what we say in this bill is it needs to be done with substantive care.

The Justice Committee introduced quite extensive amendments to the Government’s original bill because of this caution, and these amendments were driven by National members wanting to be absolutely sure that we maintain the integrity of the vote. Nothing is more important in our democracy than making sure that people are not able to hack into the counting systems for votes, and that people are not able to pretend they’re voting for someone else. And that becomes very difficult to administer when people may be sitting at home on their computer casting a vote and you never know for sure who it is that is actually on that computer voting.

The last set of amendments in this bill provide for researchers being able to get some extra information out of our electoral system for them to be able to do research. Again, National members support that. But I say again to the Government: anybody who pretends that these very minor changes to the Local Electoral Act and to the Electoral Act 1993 are really kidding themselves if they think this is going to make any substantive difference to the major issues that face our councils.

I reflect back on those big, bold promises that were made by Minister Nanaia Mahuta when she first became Minister. There was 18 months of work and we end up with this micro-brewing bill that will make diddly squat of difference to anywhere in New Zealand. The reason that I will not take the first call is it’s not worth the time of the House. The way the bill has been tidied up makes a reasonable job on some reasonably minor amendments. I challenge the Government to bring some decent local government reform to this House. It is an area where we need improvement, and this bill makes such minor differences that it barely cuts the mustard.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Local Electoral Matters Bill. It is another excellent piece of legislation, making local government work even better than it already does in New Zealand. I like this bill that came to the Justice Committee, and I enjoyed hearing the submissions on it, and I very much enjoyed engaging with the members opposite on the select committee about how we refine and improve this bill. So it does come as some surprise to hear such complaints that this bill is “micro-brewing”, I understand was the term that was used.

What I see is an incredibly bold move to take a step towards a different way of voting. So we know the current provisions within the Local Electoral Act will provide postal voting and a polling booth. But what this bill does is it looks at being able to enable a trial of online voting, whether that be to a specific group. It might be those people in an area that have disability issues. It might be somewhere where there are people over 65. It might be younger people. So it enables a local body to make that determination as to how they would like to work with online voting. And it was interesting to note that Nick Smith, the member opposite, had such concerns that this bill wasn’t making any fundamental changes. But from that side, I also heard great hesitation in making that transition to online voting—great scare that technology would not be able to adapt to democracy and be able to provide that security.

We very much heard those concerns during the committee from those members, even though we heard so many submissions that really wanted to be able to embrace online voting, because of the benefit it provides for participation and because of the benefit it provides for increasing the current low levels of local government engagement that we see right across the country—down to 22 percent in some areas, which is really disconcerting. So I think this is a bold bill, because it goes to try and take the first step to enable local government to work by making online voting work in a secure way, in a way that they feel in control of, and in a way that they can determine how to roll that out gradually in order not to move too quickly or too fast. So I think that this does an excellent work.

When I think about some of those barriers to local government participation, I think of myself. I think of what I did in the last local election. I filled out my form. I read up on all the councillors and who I would like. I ticked my boxes, and I put it in the envelope, and I put it on the front seat of my car, and I drove around with it for over a week, because I couldn’t find a mailbox. The National Party got rid of them all, and we can only get the post three days a week. So the fact that we don’t have so many post boxes or such regular mail is a great barrier. So we do need to be moving towards online voting, because it will enable more people to be able to go about their daily business, in their work, and still engage in local government. We shouldn’t make it harder for people to vote. We should make it easier for people to vote, and that’s exactly what this bill does. It gives us a reality check.

So, specifically, it provides a mechanism to limit the risks of trialling a new voting method. Having that data is also a great asset to have for local government. Having better-quality data on voters will give better insight into voter turnout—why people did or did not turn out. Given the last bill that we’ve just been talking about, it will also enable local government to own that area and decide how they’re going to design those elections to maximise the turnout particular to their own unique circumstances.

It will enable better engagement, so I’m proud to see that. An area where we have some of the lowest turnout groups for local government participation are Māori, Pasifika, and youth, and we need to really up that. We totally need to up that, and we need to make sure that we just don’t continually have the same people representing a wider body that is not reflective of those people. So we want to move away from “pale, male, and stale”. We want to be able to have a far more diverse, informed, and operating local government that reflects the needs of the community and that builds facilities and things in their area that respond to those needs, and I think this bill makes an excellent step of moving in that direction.

One of the interesting ones, too, is it will largely benefit the next generation. The changes that we are putting through now will really be seen in the next group of young people coming up, who are so eager to be able to be represented. The communities that are being shaped at local government level in terms of what cycleways or what roads or what parks—if those young people will be benefiting from those, it’s so important that they have a say in that design and that they have a say in how that community takes shape in order for them to feel part of where they live and for them to grow up in a community that reflects what they want to be.

It’s really important that we acknowledge the good work that’s gone on from officials that enabled us to be able to make necessary changes, and—in conclusion—I would also like to acknowledge that we recommended some new contingency mechanisms. There were ongoing concerns raised by members of the National Party in relation to a serious problem occurring in the voting system, and so there have been amendments to the bill to enable an extra process in that level, should there be a problem.

We do see problems sometimes in our local government elections. Here in Wellington, I understand, there was a rogue postie who pinched a couple of thousand voting forms right during the voting time, and that caused a real upheaval. People had to get their envelopes again. So I’m just pointing that out to say that it’s not just online voting and not just the internet that has its challenges with meeting the needs of democracy. All forms of voting have those concerns, as well.

It’s up to us, as good members of Parliament, to be able to make sure that the system is as robust as possible, that people participate as much as they can, and that we have our local government and central government that work well in unison to give people the best possible services that they need. So, without further ado, I commend this most excellent local government bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a bit of a worry when a couple of minor clauses—a couple of minor changes to the Local Electoral Act and the Electoral Act—deserve such fulsome praise from Government backbenchers.

It is a bit of a worry when you consider that those two minor changes to clauses, one of which—so the existing law does allow online voting, and all this one does is to allow online voting to be trialled in a ward rather than in a local authority area. Then the other part of the bill is to make age-related data available to be provided in a statistical format by age band to a local authority—oh, my goodness me! It deserves its own bill, and it deserves fulsome praise and exposition by Government backbenchers, because, quite frankly, they need to show that this Government is doing something when, in fact, this Government isn’t doing anything.

Or—or—my other theory here is that the Three Waters Review reforms being cooked up by the Minister of Local Government, Nanaia Mahuta, are going to be so unpopular that they are just trying to lull the local government sector into believing that “Oh, yes, we’ve got a Government that’s supporting us. We’ve got a Government that’s doing things for us.”—that’s what they’re saying. No, just wait—just wait until Nanaia Mahuta brings her proposals for compulsory aggregation of water services to this Parliament, and then watch the fallout. But, anyway, in the meantime, we’re dealing with this most worthy bill, which makes the two most minor changes to clauses known to mankind.

Back in the day, back when the last, most excellent National Government was in, these two minor clauses fell across my desk, as I was the Associate Minister of Local Government. I had a couple of options, but my preferred options—well, let’s go through them. So they could have gone into a regulatory systems bill, just about. They just about would have fitted into a regulatory systems bill. There is one. The Labour Government have brought one into the House. It’s sitting on the Order Paper. It could have gone into a statutes amendment bill. It could have fitted there very well, but no, it needed its own bill. Well, how exciting for them and how underwhelming for the rest of us.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Just replying to some of the previous speakers like the Hon Nick Smith, who might be pleased to know that when we look at what the issues are around local bodies and the poor turnout, actually, his own electorate of Nelson, at 52 percent, had the highest turnout at the last election. So perhaps Mr Nick Smith’s passion in this House has outraged—perhaps the outrage at the Nelson market on a Saturday morning might just be having some effect. So, there you go—he’s very pleased.

The next one down was Dunedin, at 45 percent, and the numbers go down thenceforth, so that’s where we actually look at the need to have this bill to increase participation. In fact, it’s gone down from 2010, when there was a 49 percent turnout nationally, to 41 percent in 2013. It did consolidate in 2016, at 42 percent—up 0.2 percent. But therein lies the problem. We come to this House and we talk about democracy, and I think there’s no one in this House who would profess to be anything other than a great believer in democracy—that very system that has us all standing, or sitting, here tonight. But, like any democratic process, it’s participation that we really must ensure that we increase, because without participation, we end up with something of a pseudo-democratic system.

So it behoves us to look at ways that we can engage, particularly, our younger members of the public. It’s quite interesting that when you look at the demographic, of course, in the South Island, where the average age of people is higher, it’s a greater turnout, and if you go to Auckland, it’s very low. It behoves us to look at ways that we can get our younger population voting in local body elections and, indeed, what better way to do it. We are not a great example in this House. One only has to look around here at any one time to see how many heads are down, looking at our devices, but we probably are fogies compared to many of our younger contemporaries, who spend their whole lives on these devices. So it does make sense that in any attempt we make to increase their participation, we obviously have to look at modern methods, and, of course, electronic voting is the most logical way to go.

Look, at the Justice Committee, we did examine this. Obviously, we only have to look around the world to see examples of where other countries have used electronic methods to interfere with others and to influence others. So it is important that we do actually have protections in place, and that’s why with this bill—despite the criticisms of those opposite—whatever we do, we’ve got to make sure that it does stand the test of time. So what better way to test it than to give our local bodies the ability to use electronic voting, and that’s essentially what this bill does. It gives our local bodies the opportunity to decide—particularly locally—what will suit them.

Nowhere in this bill is it a substitute for our mail voting. In fact, when we talk about fraud and the possibility of fraud, one of the things at the moment is, of course, that virtually all local bodies use some form of postal voting. The old days of having voting sites are pretty much gone in local body elections. Of course, there is also how many forms turn up at different houses, and, truth be known, we will never know how many of those voting forms are filled out by one person in those houses.

Again, it’s something that, while electronic voting will not overcome that—it will be the same problem, but electronic footprints, in many ways, or electronic fingerprints, left behind in the case of any inquiries into such behaviour are more likely to be able to be tracked down than even doing so on a paper-based voting system. So I think this is something that its time has come. There’ll be those that are surprised we haven’t gone further, but I think, with electronic voting, you know, we do, and rightfully, need to be very careful to protect our democracy to ensure that as we build it slowly and learn from our experiences—and, in fact, if you have a look at this bill, there are safeguards within the bill to ensure that where there are unsatisfactory results, where it is believed that an election has gone awry for any reason, then there is the opportunity to ensure that there is a remedy put in place. That is, again, well covered in this bill. So I commend this bill to the House as a piece of legislation whose time has arrived, and I have no doubt that it will form the basis, the building blocks, of a much better voting system and, hopefully, will increase voter participation. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

I’ve got to be honest: I’m not even really too sure what the last speaker, Greg O’Connor, said, other than the fact that I got “building blocks” out of it. The reason for it is—he put up a gallant effort, I’ll give him that, but this is a lightweight bill. This is a lightweight bill. We saw the new Government come in, and they made big promises about online voting, but what did we get? We got this bill instead. We had poor old the Hon Kris Faafoi come down and, again, put up a sterling effort to make it look like there was some heavy lifting being done by the Government, but there’s not much; they’re low-level flyers at the moment, because, really, all this bill does is put up some trials. But you know what? I was reflecting on it, and I was thinking that’s probably a good thing, because we trusted the Government with our census, and that didn’t go too well. We’re still trying to get that fixed.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Who signed off on it?

What was that? We’ve got the Hon Tracey Martin in here. Boy, that’s surprising. New Zealand First—I thought they’d be off sorting out all their problems and trying to get their probity, integrity, and all those sorts of issues sorted out. But as they start to find their voice here—we’ll have to sort that one out.

This is a lightweight bill. They are trying to make some changes on the fringes, so we’ll give them that, but, actually, it doesn’t go anywhere near close to the promises that were made at the last election, and that was, quite simply, this: that there’d be an online voting system delivered.

So we do commend the bill to the House—we will support the bill—but we feel like there could have been a lot more substance to it. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. It is a bill that comes as part of a suite of measures that will be rolled out in time to modernise and make our local body electoral system more effective, and futureproof them—futureproof them for New Zealanders who know that, actually, democracy has to work at every level, not just in here but out there in the regions and in the super-city where I’m from, where we’re looking forward to the election and we’re still, I think, most Aucklanders, getting their heads around that system. So it is timely to say that this engagement has happened, and I do thank and commend the Justice Committee for the work that they did. I was heartened to see that they heard submissions from members of the public, members of the local government sector, and members of the disabilities community, who all came to have their voices heard in terms of what might help their communities in accessing their local democracy.

So this bill allows local body electoral systems to trial different types of voting systems. One such trial may—and everyone, I think, who has spoken so far has focused on online voting. That is one kind of trial that we foresee this bill will allow, and it is important, given we know the accessibility issues that different types of communities have, actually. We’ve talked about youth—they are a very underrepresented group in terms of engagement in every level of our democracy. So that may make our democracy more accessible to those who will benefit from it for the longest period of time ahead in their lives, but it may also help people who are in geographically remote areas, those with different types of disability, as submitters pointed out; it may help those in the aged community, actually, who may have different types of accessibility issues as well.

We’ve also heard that local body engagement is as low as 22 percent in some areas of New Zealand, and that’s frightening, given so much that comes from engagement at the local level, whether that’s civic planning, whether that’s public transport, our parks, the types of events that we can hold in our communities—which will in turn feed more and more democratic engagement. So it is really, really important that we allow for democratisation and modernisation of that system, and that has been a long time coming.

We also know that demographics that are least engaged in local democracy also include tangata whenua, the Pacific community, other migrant communities—again, a huge concern in Auckland, where I’m from: our most diverse civic centre, where we have so many local boards working on so many different issues in all the different areas, with so many different concerns for their communities, and all feeding up to local council, which deals with different issues again, and the mayoralty race, which will be watched this year with great interest. All of these will be able to have processes specially designed and trialled as time goes on by those most affected by them so that they might better engage their communities, who will, in turn, then benefit from the work of the local boards and the councillors, and kind of, in fact, shape their communities and their democracy as we go along.

The fact that there is so much rigidity in the way that local government and local electoral bodies are able to engage with their communities and to diversify the way that they allow both voting and engagement has probably fed the lack of engagement so far and has actually crippled our democracy. So we do need to remember that where the Electoral Commission makes recommendations, where our submitters ask for a different approach, we do need to listen. I’m currently trying to address that in a bill that will, hopefully, be picked up either by the Government or through the ballot to modernise this system, based on the same principle. We need to take politics out of the way we do electoral reform, and this bill, I’m happy to see, has that support from across the House, and the approach of the Justice Committee was really heartening to that. So let’s see more of that when it comes to electoral reform for New Zealand. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak at the second reading of the Local Electoral Matters Bill, a bill that promised much and delivered little—much like the Government, really. Minor changes well short of the mark—an online voting bill, I suppose, and while we on this side of the House think it’s a good idea to explore it, this bill really didn’t deliver a whole lot. Having sat on the Justice Committee, which considered the submissions and was involved in the consultation with the local government and other bodies that came through to speak about this, I think we do have to remember that the final decision on proceeding with an internet voting trial this year, following the passage of this bill—and it will pass, and we do support it—does rest with councils and local government.

There’s a lot to learn from what not to do with online voting. We’ve been very cautious about it in the past. I recall, as the Minister of Conservation, looking very carefully at how people who were on the conservation islands in remote locations would be able to have that opportunity to use the internet to contribute their vote in a democratic way. But sending voting papers from overseas, as with outlying islands; fishing vessels, as well, fall into that category—we still believe that there needs to be a paper ballot to be generated, and we remain cautious about using the internet to vote, generally, until the security issues, which many people spoke to the committee about, have been fully resolved, and they are not showing any signs of that occurring at this time.

But we do support the bill. We agree it provides some very useful additional tools for improving participation in local elections and, of course, participating in democracy is what we want people to be able to do, but we don’t believe it’s the magic bullet. We don’t believe it’s the only answer. I think there has been a lot of hype, a lot of expectations raised that this bill will deliver the solution to really, I suppose, the inertia and the antipathy—really, is what it comes down to on some occasions: people that are just not engaged and don’t want to bother voting. There are a lot of underlying major issues that we need to think about in regards to this.

Recasting the vote with an online sort of voting system: I think electors need, and we need as legislators, some form of a contingency mechanism in case there are problems because, there are problems—and other speakers have alluded to them—and they occur within postal voting as well. But when there are issues, you need to be able to put it right, as L V Martin once memorably said. What a character he was. But in the sense of something as important as your democratic vote being either lost or somehow misrepresented, there does need to be, in our view on this side of the House, a trial, but we need to be really careful, and we need to make sure that there are contingency reports and contingency measures, I should say.

So the Justice Committee did recommend that the bill be passed with amendments, which is why, on the side of the House, we’re not spending a whole lot of time on it. We have spoken about it at some length and it’s gone through the due process. As I said at the outset, this bill delivered not very much but promised a lot. I think that the less said about it the better. Let’s move through the progress of other important legislation in this House. With that I commend the bill to the House but with reservations.

Members, this is a split call, five minutes. I call Dr Duncan Webb.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m a bit confused because, on the one hand, the National Party is saying “Don’t leap into electronic voting boots and all.”, and on the other they’re saying it’s a missed opportunity. So I’m really not quite sure. Perhaps they should talk to each other and organise themselves.

But you know what? The other thing that strikes me is there they are talking about the need for paper voting. I don’t know where they’ve been for the last 20 years, because what we have here is a step forward. They might think that a postal system is going to be the future of voting but, you know what, I don’t. I can’t see all of the future, but I can tell you what, posting letters is something that most people under 30 have never done and never intend to do. So we need to catch up and move in to electronic voting, and that’s what this does. It does it in a very measured and a very careful way.

First of all, it gives the ability for a trial to be conducted, but what it also does—and this was the improvement that the select committee brought to the bill—is it puts significant safeguards in place because we recognise that when anything is under trial, there may be errors. And if there are errors, we need to be able to intervene. So the electoral officer is given considerable powers—and this was at the behest of the select committee—to intervene and say “Hang on. That’s not working. For the purposes of this trial, the people who have cast their vote electronically need to go and cast it again in the traditional manner. Now, that’s a really useful safeguard and, in fact, if the trial’s a significant one, the electoral officer has the power to apply to void the election—a very serious step; a step that wouldn’t be taken lightly, of course, and subject to judicial oversight.

But what we have here is a step forward, because we need to start engaging in making voting accessible, understandable, and easy. Whilst the majority of the National Party may have grown up with carrier pigeons, what we have here is a bill that uses modern, accessible technology, which is understandable by the majority of New Zealanders, by people who have grown up using emails, who have grown up using secure systems to buy things, to communicate with others, and all sorts of things. The suggestion that there is some fatal flaw; that electronic voting is not sustainable—there’s simply not the evidence to back it up. Electronic voting is used in important elections across New Zealand already. We only have to look at shareholder voting to see that. Those kinds of votes are important votes—absolutely secure; no suggestion of fraud. Notwithstanding that there are many millions of dollars at stake and, if it was susceptible, no doubt someone would have had a go.

So what we have here is a step forward. It gives the ability to local authorities to make these decisions, but it’s a great step in the right direction whilst, as Ms Ghahraman said, we are looking to further democratise New Zealand, to make our democracy—what goes on in local Government and elsewhere—more accessible to all New Zealanders. That’s absolutely a good thing. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the Local Electoral Matters Bill at this, the second reading. It’s been noted, I think, on both sides of the House that in terms of voter participation, this won’t be a silver bullet. Indeed, it won’t be a silver ballot, I suppose you could say and, in fact, pretty modest change is even attempted here. It’s transformational in the sense that the Government itself is transformational, which is to say “Not achieving very much indeed.” And if we’re talking about the trials of the new methods of voting, let us hope that it’s a trial and the sense of a pilot, and not in the sense of tribulation, as we’ve seen with other debacles or shemozzles as we might otherwise describe, for example, the recent census.

Other members on this side of the House have noted the New Zealand National Party view, as expressed in the select committee report, and we noted in that a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—I think not perhaps a submission before the select committee. Although I have to say it wasn’t part of that process, but it emphasized the need for human readable ballots to be able to maintain and guarantee the security and verifiability of the vote. So a couple of different aspects there: electoral integrity—to use that phrase in a more pure way than has often been used in the last 18 months—must be not only done but also be seen to be done. So it’s the ability to understand that we have a system with integrity—to be able to verify that that’s the case as well as, in fact, for that to be the case.

I’m not one to speak longer than is necessary on any bill, so therefore I conclude with the comment, as with others, that we support the bill with some reservations as noted and we look forward to seeing what further, if any, the Government might come up with in this regard, as they have indeed promised.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It gives me pleasure to rise and take a short call on behalf of New Zealand First and the Government on the Local Electoral Matters Bill. I just want to note the report back from the select committee. I will acknowledge that the select committee put a great deal of thought into the consideration of the bill. I notice the National Party minority view is in there as stated.

I also note with some interest that there has been a little bit of criticism of the Government when it has come to the matters of electronic or digital voting—one of the options, one of the matters that is covered in this bill, and a lot of reference, I understand, to the census that’s just recently been conducted, as though people are drawing parallels with the two options. It does strike me as a little bizarre that we should hear those criticisms at this point, at this reading of this bill, because the fact of the matter is this Government—when it came to the census and all of the provisions that have been put in place and all the decisions that have been made, they had been made by the previous Cabinet. We simply carried on with the work within the very short—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: You guys had to run it. You couldn’t run it.

There goes Mr Mitchell over there “yappering” away—the most ineffective Minister of Defence this country’s ever seen other than Mark Burton. So he can chip in, and if he wants to bring it on, I’ll say it to Mr Mitchell, “If you want to bring it on, Mr Mitchell, I have a lot of information for you, to share with the country.” and we might just do that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And now back to the bill.

So, Mr Mitchell, let’s be clear.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Now back to the bill.

Thank you. We are coming back to the bill and to their questions on digital voting. Mr Mitchell, the previous Cabinet made decisions. Within the short window of time that was left, this Government just continued with that work.

Now a lot of reservations have been have been raised around the whole question of digitalisation and it’s pleasing to see that all parties discuss those matters. I mean those of us who do live in the provinces know that out at Pongaroa, Porangahau it’s very hard actually to do anything digital because the last Government’s rural broadband roll-out was so pathetically inept—[Interruption]—and if that member, Mr Bishop, doesn’t believe me, come with me up to Gladstone, which is some 11 minutes from the main street of Carterton and try and use your cellphone. So digital voting for the good folk—the good country folk—of Gladstone is going to be a hell of a challenge, as we found out it was for people to complete their census online thanks to the ineptitude of the last Government when it came to rolling out rural broadband.

So I’ve just got to say that this bill quite ably gives the option to those councils. We know where Mr Bishop lives. Everything’s connected. He lives downtown, in amongst suburbia where the high speed broadband has been rolled out by John Key and his Cabinet Ministers for him. So digital voting might well suit Lower Hutt City, it might well suit Wellington City, but it is over to Carterton District, which has voters who live at Flat Point, out at Tora—OK—to choose themselves as to whether digital voting is appropriate, workable, worthwhile.

So it is good to see that the learned people on the select committee discussed these matters and, clearly, a majority agreed that if local government is going to go down a path of utilising digital voting, then that’s for them to decide and the legislation gives them that flexibility to do so.

I myself am not convinced. I think one of the biggest issues one faces in voting in local government elections is the big thick booklet that deals with everything—not just about the mayor, not just about the councillors, not just about the community boards, but also about the district health boards, the trusts, and gosh, we all know there’s a plethora.

💬 Chris Bishop: Are you voting for it or against it?

I think the thing, Mr Bishop, is giving people the choice: giving them the choice, empowering them to apply a local solution, and recognising that localism has its place as opposed to autocratic decree, which is what that member’s party more often talks about, although it touts itself to be liberal. It touts itself as being liberal, but in actual fact it’s all about autocratic decree and we see that in the way in which they whip the young ones into line over that side of the House and get the ones like Mr Bidois to parrot away to support the young Mr Bishop—the young misguided Mr Bishop. We’ve seen that in such things as the way in which they’ve championed other pieces of legislation.

Access to information about Māori descent—I do note that’s obviously a clause, an area where Mr Bridges is going to have a lot of interest. He’s just recently discovered that he’s of Māori descent, although his comments on Radio New Zealand the other morning did not go down well, so I wonder if he’s still going to be of Māori descent come tomorrow or next week because that language really was unbecoming him, but there’s access for information there for Mr Bridges, being of Māori descent, and he’ll be able to take the benefit of that whether or not yesterday he was a Māori and today he’s not—I’m not quite sure.

It’s a very short bill, befitting of shorter speeches. It probably does reflect—although there is a minority report from the National Party expressing some concerns in there—the majority view of the House. I think I’m happy that it does give local government the ability to themselves make decisions around electronic voting and on that basis I’m happy to support the bill. Thank you very much—Mr Bishop.

Well, that was a classic example of a New Zealand First speech at 9.45 p.m. at night, because it’s pretty clear that Ron Mark has not read this bill. This bill’s got nothing to do with localism. It’s got nothing to do with empowering local governments to come up with their own solutions—some grandiose phrase. This bill makes very small amendments to the Local Electoral Act and the Electoral Act 1993 to allow a specific ward within a local body to trial internet voting, right? A specific ward, because you can already do online voting, and local government can already do online voting. It was not clear from Mr Mark’s contribution—and I hesitate to use the word contribution because it was more of a sort of stumble through his prepared notes—if he actually supports the bill. The bulk of the speech was about the problems of internet access 11 minutes away from Carterton, where he lives, and about Pongaroa, where he says the rural broadband’s crummy. So—

💬 Hon Ron Mark: You don’t even know where it is.

I know exactly where Pongaroa is because the local—

💬 Hon Ron Mark: Well, I’ll see you out there.

I know exactly where it is, Ron Mark, because the local cop’s been removed from Pongaroa and not replaced despite the 1,800 extra police and rural cop—

💬 Hon Ron Mark: We had that under your time.

No, no, Mr Mark. It’s happened in the last 12 months. The locals of Pongaroa are very upset and have asked me to go to their town and run a public meeting about the removal of their local policeman. So I know exactly where Pongaroa is, Ron Mark. You should acquaint yourself with the electorate that you’re trying so inadequately to win.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Don’t bring me into the debate.

Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker. I was just responding to an interjection from a loud noise over the other side of the Chamber.

It’s not clear that New Zealand First actually supports this bill. Most of the speech was about the problems of doing things online. What does this bill allow? For people to do online voting. But they’re going to vote for it because they’ve become quiescent creatures of the Government. Whatever the Labour Party says they want to do, they will do, like they’re doing with police, like they’re doing with firearms, like they’re doing with everything else.

We just note the threats made to our former Minister of Defence Mark Mitchell. We note that the actually not so veiled threats from Ron Mark in that contribution to the House. We just note them, and they’ve been filed away. You know at some point, Mr Ron Mark, is going to get his comeuppance.

But for now the House is going to pass this bill. It’s a sensible piece of legislation. We remain sceptical about online voting like Ron Mark is. We remain sceptical about online voting. But it’s a sensible piece of legislation and we support it.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a short call to support the Local Electoral Matters Bill. The Justice Committee received and considered 27 submissions from interested groups and individuals. We heard oral evidence from 10 submitters. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our officials, advisers, and more importantly the submitters, especially Blind Citizens of New Zealand, Blind Foundation, and Local Government New Zealand.

There are 17 recommended changes, notably clause 5 “…Voting method for elections and polls…”, clause 11 “…Supply of information on age and Maori descent …”, clause 12 to supply an update of birth information, and recommendations 13 and 14 are a contingency mechanism with regard to recasting the vote, voiding, and rerunning all or part of any election.

I very much look forward to the committee of the whole House debate. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.