Local Electoral Matters Bill

This is a very minor bill that makes some very narrow changes to provisions of the Local Electoral Act. The first issue is the issue of electronic voting. The bill proposes no more than extending the provision that exists in the law right now for there to be trials of novel voting, and for it to be able to be done in a subpart of a district. In other words, all it allows to take place is rather than a trial of, for instance, internet voting occurring in all of a district, it could occur in just a ward or a local board area of a council. In anybody’s terms, that’s a very minor provision. I commend the officials on the work that’s gone into the technical drafting to enable that to occur in a sensible way, as well as the other provisions.

I do wish to make a brief contribution on the debate in respect of foreign interference in elections. It is National’s view that this issue has raised its head internationally with the high-profile case of Hillary Clinton in the US and her emails being hacked, allegedly by a foreign power. There has been a recent announcement, last month, by the Prime Minister of Australia about the potential for external powers to try and hack a Parliament. There has also been commentary around the issue of electoral donations. Now, my view is the select committee is diligently going about its business of an inquiry into those matters, as is evidenced by their work that has gone on since last November. It is not appropriate for a bill that has nothing to do with those issues to be trying to tag amendments on in the committee stage. But we as a party want to see through, with the proper consideration and as much cross-party work as possible, ensuring that both our local and parliamentary elections are protected from those potential risks.

So while we have voted down the motion seeking to extend this bill, and the Supplementary Order Papers that you have quite rightly ruled out of scope, that is nothing less than taking this issue very seriously and having a robust process for dealing with those issues. Finally, I say the select committee did a lot of work with officials on these quite detailed provisions around local elections. We think we have got them in good shape, albeit we remain cautious as a political party as to whether internet-based voting is sufficiently secure and robust for New Zealand to be able to contemplate that at this stage. We should keep a watching brief of international developments. We should be cautious of ensuring the integrity of our electoral system, which is consistent with the provisions in these parts of the bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I picked up on a word that Dr Smith used that was used in a previous debate on a previous bill in committee stage: “inappropriate”. I thought it was just an aberration. I thought Jacqui Dean was just saying Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) are inappropriate to get through a sticky situation, but now that we have a second example of a member of the National Party saying SOPs are inappropriate, I’m starting to wonder whether there’s a new standard there where anything that is proposed by way of an SOP isn’t something that should be considered by the Parliament. That’s, effectively, what Dr Smith said—he said it would be inappropriate.

When it comes to whether we consider matters in this Chamber and whether we consider matters in debate, it shouldn’t be a case of a select committee is looking at something by way of an inquiry. There’s the opportunity to do something when there’s a bill, and it’s a time-honoured tradition for members of Parliament to put up SOPs on things they are passionate about and things they care about. For goodness’ sake, the Opposition has done that the whole time this Parliament has been here, and it will continue to do that.

I absolutely reject the arguments from my old friends in the National Party who think putting up things by way of an SOP is inappropriate. It’s inappropriate to suggest members of Parliament shouldn’t raise issues and to try and get off the hook politically for the way in which they voted earlier this afternoon by saying, “Oh, we’d like to table some documents; it’s going to show how seriously we’re taking an issue.” They voted against doing something. They voted against something which their leader has been in public saying they want to pursue. So I think the inappropriateness in this debate is for members of this Parliament to suggest moving SOPs and moving amendments—that members of Parliament doing that is wrong.

It’s wrong to suggest we can’t raise issues, it’s wrong to suggest that these issues shouldn’t be discussed, and it’s wrong to try and use points of order and tactics like that because they didn’t want to vote for something and then they felt guilty about it afterwards. So I wholeheartedly disagree with what Dr Smith has said. We should have been debating and voting on these issues, and I provided a mechanism for it. They chose to vote against it. They should own the fact that they voted against it, and not come into this House and use that ridiculous “It’s inappropriate to put up SOPs.” argument.