Electoral Amendment Bill

I just wanted to speak briefly to the important contents of Part 1. It contains a number of substantive measures, as well as some technical and somewhat consequential changes to support those substantial changes.

The critical area to start with is clause 5 and the amendment there to section 83, which allows the Electoral Commission to treat a special vote declaration as an application for registration as an elector. This will make it easier for voters who are not enrolled and have to do a special vote to fill out one form, not two, and so that will expedite that process. And of course, because the bill also provides for election-day enrolment and voting, it will make it easier—particularly on election day, which, for the 90,000 people who turned up to a voting booth on election day in 2017, would make a huge difference.

Clause 6—in particular, the insertion of new subsection (3A) after current section 88(3), which allows a person who is present in New Zealand to both apply to be an elector and also to conduct a vote and to receive a ballot paper; that is the critical thing that this part of the bill is seeking to do. So it achieves the objective of election-day enrolment. I know some members in the Opposition were concerned that when they saw the advice of the Electoral Commission—the Electoral Commission had expressed a preference to make this change for the election in 2023, but, actually, when they were asked about it by me as Minister, they said it could be implemented for election 2020. And that is what we’re seeking to do. They are well apprised of that. The bill is here and I have total confidence their systems will be able to accommodate just this. There are a number of other changes that follow in the subsequent clauses. They are largely technical and deal with administrative requirements the Electoral Commission must do in an election.

The next, I think, quite critical and substantive section, or change, is in clause 14, inserting new section 155A, which is about the use of licensed premises as polling places. So we’ve now moved on from election-day enrolment in voting to the other thing, which gives the Electoral Commission more flexibility about where they locate polling booths, particularly on election day. The commission, in more recent elections, has allowed for advanced voting booths to be in places where, like supermarkets and malls, liquor is sold. But that hasn’t been allowed for election day itself. This will allow the Electoral Commission to continue those polling booths in those places on election day, subject to other provisions in this bill that allow the votes cast in those places to be counted somewhere else—and those are the next provisions. Clause 16, amending section 174(1), allows the commission or returning officer to designate another place to be a place where votes are counted. I’m very pleased to see the changes that the Justice Committee made. I think that tidies that up with the consequential technical amendments that are there.

The next critical bunch of issues, clause 17, cover off the situation where there is an unforeseen or unavoidable disruption that requires polling either in a particular polling booth, or perhaps even more broadly than that, to have to be disrupted and perhaps moved. There’s a process set out for that that includes consulting, before a decision is made, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as well as those experts with some knowledge about the particular event, and then, at the time a decision is made, to then notify the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition that a decision has been made to change arrangements for a particular polling booth or a number of booths, to deal with that disruption. The remaining provisions there are consequential and technical amendments that allow that to happen.

That’s a brief summary of, I think, the critical aspects of this bill. I think it goes a long way to adding further improvements to this great democracy that we call New Zealand, and will give more opportunity for more people to vote and to do so in a way that is convenient to their workaday lives, the sort of life patterns that people live these days, which makes for, I think, very good changes to our electoral system.

The first point the National Opposition would want to make about this bill is the very poor precedent it sets around making electoral law changes. We’re an unusual country: we don’t have a constitution, we don’t have a second House. We should not have a system, in a country that celebrates itself as being one of the best democracies in the world, where the Government of the day by a slim majority can change the rules for the next election. And that is why we’ve had a longstanding precedent around the process for these sorts of changes: that they’re done on a bipartisan basis. There were nine electoral amendment bills during the term of the Key-English Government. Every single one of the Government bills was consulted extensively with the Opposition. In fact, there was very substantive compromise on many of those Government bills. This is actually the fourth electoral bill from this Minister, of which there has been zero—no—consultation, at all. We only actually found out about this bill as a consequence of questioning during the annual review of financial Estimates.

Now, the most substantive change in this part is about the issue of same-day voting and enrolment. The first point, it’s very clear, is this: the Electoral Commission, which I think is well respected across this Parliament, said they did not support same-day voting and enrolment for election 2020. That is absolutely a matter of public record, and I’m happy to table the minutes of the Justice Committee where they are word-for-word what the Electoral Commission said. And so the Minister of Justice, I can only conclude for reasons of electoral advantage, is going against the advice of the Electoral Commission.

Here’s the second part of sneakiness around the same-day enrolment and voting: when the Minister announced it in a press release, he failed to mention that to be able to introduce same-day voting and enrolment, the date of the election result would need to be delayed by 10 days. Now, that’s very significant. The whole country sits on edge from election night to when the final election results are announced. Extending that by 10 days is substantial.

Now, it is the compromise. The Electoral Commission has said to the Minister, “Look, we can’t do same-day voting and enrolment unless you give us another 10 days to sort the issues through and count the votes.” It was sneaky and dishonest for the Minister to not mention that in his press release when he announced this bill, underlying the bad faith that goes around that provision.

💬 Michael Wood: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The member on his feet just reflected on the Minister through the use of the word “dishonest”, and I believe that is out of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well, yes, but it would be for the Minister to take offence at that, not for another member to take it. While we’re talking about the Standing Orders, also there’s a Standing Order around eating in the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would love the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, to give an explanation as to why when he announced this provision, he was not upfront with New Zealanders that the announcement of the election result would need to be delayed by a further 10 days for there to be able to be same-day enrolment and voting. That is what we now know was the advice that came from the Electoral Commission. That was in the bill. But, of course, the Minister did not wish to advise the public of that significant change to the way in which our elections would be conducted. There is a balance, and the balance that needs to be found is in terms of members on this side of the House, who want to maximise participation and we want to maximise the integrity of the vote and the timing of it. And here’s the trade-off: should 3.4 million New Zealanders have to wait another 10 days for the election result because 19,000 people couldn’t be bothered getting themselves on to the roll? The Government has chosen to take the views of the 19,000; we take the view of the 3.4 million New Zealanders who have done so.

Then the second question is this, and this is very effectively communicated in the advice from the Electoral Commission: the problem is that if you allow same-day enrolment and voting, why would anybody bother to enrol? We’re, effectively, changing the law with this bill that says there is no requirement now to enrol—don’t bother. You can front up to the polling booth any time you like and whether you are enrolled or not, you’ll be allowed to vote. Their concern, the concern of both officials and the Electoral Commission, was that if you allow same-day voting and enrolment, over time you remove any incentive for people to actually enrol and ensure that our overall electoral system works.

There’s a third part of the reason why we think it’s reasonable for people to be required to enrol to vote. Madam Chair? Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I haven’t rung the bell yet!

I’m just pre-empting you so that I can continue. [Bell rung] Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The Hon Dr Nick Smith.

The third reason is that there’s a requirement in the law that candidates are known at least 20 working days before the election. That’s fair enough. Of course, the voter has a right to know who the candidates are so they can go and check them out and make sure that they are reputable people, listen to what they say, test their policies. That’s at the heart of democracy. But there’s a quid pro quo: if the voters have a right to know who the candidates are, don’t the candidates have a right to be able to know who the enrolled voters are so that they can communicate with them and that they can present to them their policies, ideas, so that they can be persuaded to the merits to either vote for them or not?

So in my view, the reason the Government is advancing the measures around same-day voting and enrolment against the advice of the Electoral Commission is simply because they see that it’s going to make it easier for them to win the next election. It is as crude and simple as that. It is not principles-based.

💬 Darroch Ball: That doesn’t make any sense. Explain that a bit more. Explain how that works.

It was done without consultation, and it was not—oh, very simply. The member from New Zealand First, who won’t answer questions about what the foundation has been up to, but very happy for him to take a call—

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

Well, members opposite, I think he was listed as one of the bagmen, and I think the media would love to know what he was up to with the New Zealand First—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I think—well, I hope—that you were anticipating that I was about to call Dr Smith to order, because I made it very clear in this debate that we are not talking donations. That is out of order.

I understand that fully, Madam Chair, and I’d invite the New Zealand First member to, rather than interject, participate in the debate. If he’d like to answer some of those questions, the whole of New Zealand would love to know—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): And I would not allow it.

—the answers to those.

There are provisions in this bill that should have come through the proper process. Since 1946, the practice of the New Zealand Parliament is that we have an inquiry by the Justice Committee into the election. Following that inquiry, where issues—many of the issues that are covered in this bill, around flexibility, around location of polling booths, are then worked up through the select committee process and then provided for in a bill. National was perfectly up to cooperating in that process. We actually support the extra flexibility around polling booths, particularly the changes of a greater use of supermarkets, making some practical changes so that that’s more convenient for voters. We think that’s a good thing. In fact, it was National that introduced the notion of polling booths being able to be held in supermarkets.

We think the current law is rather puritanical in respect of the issue of alcohol outlets. In some of our back country communities, actually, the local pub is the centre of where people can most conveniently gather, and providing the Electoral Commission applies some appropriate conditions, we think it’s perfectly proper that some of those country pubs may be the appropriate place for those communities, and we support those amendments. Equally, we want practical provisions around where there are civil emergencies, of which we’ve had too many in recent times, with the Kaikōura and the Christchurch earthquakes. We do want practical provisions in the law, and we’re pleased with the changes that were made at the select committee stage of this bill, in which those provisions were improved.

So our argument is not that this is a bad bill; it’s that this has been a very poor process, that we should not have the Government of the day cherry-picking the various electoral law changes that it thinks will give it some sort of advantage. It sets a particularly poor precedent when we’re now on to our fourth bill in the term of this Parliament, of which there has been zero consultation with the largest party in the Parliament, about electoral law changes.

I spoke to the Minister 2½ years ago, and I said National was up to working cooperatively on sensible electoral law changes. He has not chosen to pick up the phone once. He has not chosen to have a single telephone conversation with me once. I simply say to the Minister in the chair: that door remains open. And I’ll give him another commitment: if National is the Government, which is a better chance than not after September, a National Government will maintain the strong tradition that we did during the Key-English years, treating electoral law with the respect that it deserves, developing electoral law proposals on a cross-party basis, because, actually, the democracy of New Zealand, the integrity of our elections, requires that we treat electoral law with that sort of respect, so that New Zealand indeed can say that it is the proudest little democracy in the world.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill Part 1. I intend to request a reasonably fine examination of the part—“fine” in the sense of a fine-tooth comb, not necessarily fine in any other sense. I’ll do my best.

The particular matters we’re talking about, and I’ll just say this by way of a prelude—not an apology exactly, but by way of explanation for the detail with which I’ll be interrogating the provisions, which is to say that the area of electoral law is so important that the detail really matters and can be contentious. It’s almost like a meta-law: it’s the law that enables people to come to this place to make other laws.

Passing then to the detail of what I’d like to raise with the committee of the whole House, in clause 6, amending section 88 of the Electoral Act, we see the bill talking about applications received after issue of writ. That’s the scenario where, newly, under this bill, we will have a situation whereby people can enrol to be electors and also cast their vote, essentially, on polling day, as well as up to that time. But I note that in replacement section 88(1)(a), that’s not the case on polling day from a person outside New Zealand. Bearing in mind that we’re talking about someone who is eligible to vote in the election, notwithstanding that they are outside New Zealand, I wonder what the thinking is behind the policy whereby we would preclude those who are outside New Zealand from enrolling to vote but we would say at the same time that, none the less, if they were already enrolled to vote, they could cast their vote from outside New Zealand.

If I’ve misunderstood that point then, obviously, I’d be grateful for the clarification, or, indeed, correction, but I would certainly be grateful to know the reasoning behind that if my question is, sort of, founded on a correct assumption. On a related point, the polling day that’s referred to in that same provision—I just want clarity, if I may, as to whether the polling day is measured as the calendar day, for example, Saturday, 19 September 2020 as it will be on this occasion, or perhaps it’ll be the time that the polls are open on that day, whether that be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or whatever is standard. I don’t know off the top of my head, but no doubt the officials or someone else with access to Google will be able to find out what is standard in that regard. It’s probably an obvious enough point that we’re talking about New Zealand standard time when we talk about the polling day, although I will note if we’re discussing the situation of voters, or would-be voters from outside New Zealand, that it’s our time zone and not the same calendar day but, for example, in the United States, some full day behind almost that that would apply.

Remaining within that same subsection—but just looking probably more out of interest than anything—we’ve got “a person” and then we’ve got “any person” in those paragraphs (a) and (b), respectively. I don’t think that’s probably intended to be a meaningful distinction, but if anyone can tell me otherwise then, again, I’ll be grateful for the information.

Moving then to the next aspect of clause 6, and its subclause 3. What we’ve got there is the replacement of section 88(3)(c) within the Act, and that’s the scenario basically where “the person may, … (i) be issued with a ballot paper” or a special vote ballot paper, according to the circumstances that are set out. I’m just interested—again, perhaps from a linguistic perspective as much as anything—that it says that they “may” be issued with a ballot paper. Elsewhere we have the active voice used—it talks about, for example, in the provision I was discussing before that it’s the Electoral Commission that may or may not do certain things, and here we’ve just got that the person “may, … (i) be issued with”. I presume it would be the Electoral Commission that would be doing the issuing, but the construction of that sentence doesn’t specify exactly who would be doing that. So I don’t know if that’s a deliberate piece of drafting or if it’s just intended that it might be—perhaps it could be issued by any one of a number of different authorities.

Finally, within this contribution—but, actually, I wouldn’t mind continuing; I’ve got a couple more other similarly interesting points. In subsection 4—again, within this section 88 of what is currently the Act—we hear that if a person who is present in New Zealand applies on polling day for registration, then certain things apply. So my question is why a person would need to be present in New Zealand for that to apply? It’s a similar point that I was making in relation to applying to be on the electoral roll from overseas. I wonder why it is that a person must be physically present in New Zealand when, after all, one can transmit a vote remotely. Then, actually, again, a similar point to that raised before—we’ve got that in that circumstance, the Electoral Commission “(a) may issue the person with a special [voting] paper;” but “must”, if they subsequently determine that the person is qualified to be registered, etc., “enter the name on the electoral roll.” I would have thought that it would be a matter of compulsion in both cases so that the Electoral Commission, if these various situations apply, should issue the special vote ballot paper and then enter the name on the electoral roll. So I would have thought that the word “must” would be appropriate in both cases and not in just one of those. But, again, happy to be corrected or given some guidance from the chair or elsewhere in the Chamber, and that would be helpful indeed.

While I’m on my feet, and with some time remaining—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Oh, not more.

—and to the delight of Kieran McAnulty, as always. He’s ducking down, I wasn’t sure if you were, in fact, ducking down or just—no, I won’t. At clause 8 we were looking at the amendment of section 99 within the Act, “Notice of alterations to roll”. We see there that the name of a person can be removed or entered on the roll; different situations in which that would be entirely reasonable. We see then that that notification of that must be delivered to the person immediately, either personally or sent by post. I wonder how strictly the Minister of Justice would envisage the word “immediately” to be interpreted. That’s a pretty high standard in this day, especially of non-immediate post, or, I should say, not regular daily post necessarily. I suppose in the context of electoral law, talking about the time that someone can register to vote and have a vote counted, perhaps if there’s some sort of final date by which that might be advised. So “immediately” in that context might mean by the date of the return of the writ or the date of the announcement of provisional results or whatever. So any guidance that can be given from the chair on that aspect would also be gratefully received.

Heading back a bit further up in Part 1, looking at clause 5, that’s the amendment of section 83 within the Act, that’s the “Application for registration”. Again, we’ve got the Electoral Commission being given discretion to treat a special vote declaration as an application for registration. Notwithstanding the fine reputation that the Electoral Commission have—and certainly not casting doubt on their use of such discretion—it seems to me that it’s entirely unnecessary for them to be given that discretion. We would hope that the criteria that are set out at 3A(a) and (b)—that they would simply follow through and do those things that are prescribed in that.

A couple of questions regarding that in the remaining minute and a half—the form that’s approved by the Electoral Commission for use as an application for registration, I envisage, presumably, that this would be a form approved in advance, but actually it doesn’t specify that. I presume again, but don’t know—and the officials may know if the Minister himself doesn’t readily—whether it would be standard to have that approved form published in advance on a website so that it’s available to all to know, as opposed to a situation whereby a person might complete their declaration in a form that’s not approved, but subsequently is deemed to be acceptable. Then, finally, looking at the formal requirements for the declaration to be made, certain details need to be filled in. That’s fine; we can look at the cross references for that, and then that form must be signed. Whether it must also be signed by a witness is not clear from this particular provision. It might be clear elsewhere, it might not. Indeed, that’s probably knowable by a bit of research, but not having done that—and, in any case, thinking that in the committee stage it’s helpful to have clarity in these matters for the benefit of those who will be applying the system later on—I request the Minister to turn his mind to that. If there’s any advice he can give the committee of the whole House in that respect as well, it would also be very gratefully received.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’m very pleased to allow my good friend and colleague, the member for Helensville, to sit back with his fine-tooth comb and take a well-earned rest.

I want to start by drawing attention to some of the things that the members of the Justice Committee were agreed upon, because I took part in the debate on the second reading last Thursday, which was at times a pretty tempestuous experience; it certainly highlighted where there are significant differences of opinion. But for those who are listening, it’s also worth pointing out that there is much that the committee was agreed upon and that we have recommended to the House in our report on this Electoral Amendment Bill.

If I could just give a couple of examples of that because they are significant—one is the recommendation for this bill to provide for voting to be able to take place in a wider range of places, and, in particular, with a focus on licensed premises and other areas where alcohol can be sold. In the past, there’s been an absolute blanket ban on that. I doubt whether there would be many people at least who would argue that it would be desirable to have voting actually in an area where alcohol was being consumed, such as a pub. But there are the licensed premises where it is quite possible to walk through to an area that is not being used for the sale and consumption of liquor, and I don’t think anyone would have much problem with that. A good example would be a sports club, perhaps an RSA or a service club of that sort.

But also there’s the issue of supermarkets, and, increasingly, particularly with advanced voting and many people taking advantage of their opportunity to vote in advance over the 12 days leading up to election day—most of us go shopping several times a week, and therefore the opportunity to vote in a supermarket makes perfect sense, if it’s a heavily populated area. At the moment, the legislation wouldn’t allow that because most supermarkets, of course, have a licence to sell liquor.

So I think there are some very pragmatic changes there that have been made, and there’s also, arising from that, a recommendation that there should be a new clause 16 to allow votes to be moved from a voting place to another area for the preliminary count of votes. Now, at the moment, the Act requires that the votes are counted where they are cast, and a typical example would be a school or perhaps a church hall, which has been set up by the Electoral Commission as a voting place in a particular electorate. It’s relatively easy, therefore, to make arrangements for that same venue to be used for the counting of the votes, but if we are, for instance, to move, as it would appear that we are going to, to allowing supermarkets to be used for that purpose, it would not be appropriate for the counting to be taking place in, say, the foyer of a supermarket, which is a very busy area. Therefore, there needs to be adequate provision within the law for those votes to be moved to a sensible area, which would perhaps be a workroom, staffroom—something which is secure—therefore enabling the count to be taken place without any interference or unwarranted interruption. Of course, you need then to ensure that the law makes adequate provision to ensure the security of the transfer of those votes. That, again, is a matter that the Justice Committee was able to agree upon, and I doubt whether there will be any opposition to it in this House.

There is one other aspect that I’ll draw attention to before I get on to one or two of the more contentious issues. Clause 5, which enables or would enable special vote declarations to be treated as applications to enrol or to update details—now, currently, the enrolment form and the special vote form contain largely the same information. So the committee is saying the Electoral Commission should be able to—not absolutely required to, because they may have reasons to believe it isn’t appropriate, but should be able to treat the special vote form as an enrolment form. Given the fact that many New Zealanders are nomadic—we’ve got so many people who are voting from overseas and all sorts of things—it does make sense, I think, to ensure that we continually strive to have the most accurate enrolment information possible. So I commend the Minister of Justice for putting this proposal before the committee, and the committee, as I say, warmly endorses it.

There’s also the provision, under the bill as introduced, clause 17, the new section 195(6), that sets out some situations that would be considered unforeseen or unavoidable disruptions. It’s interesting to have a look at some of the provisions that could be contemplated in that for a polling disruption. These include a natural disaster—well, imagine if, and we all pray it won’t happen, but if there were to be another Canterbury or Kaikōura earthquake on an election day, it would be inconceivable that the election activity could continue. It would be inconceivable in those circumstances that voting could be continued. There’s also adverse weather conditions—well, just in the last few days, we’ve seen the terrible flooding down south, and my heart goes out to all the people of Mataura and surrounding areas who are dealing with that. What a horrific experience that has been. Again, you wouldn’t have been able to have voting being conducted while people were dealing with a terrible weather event of that sort. There’s also the possibility of riots or disorder—well, fortunately, they’re not particularly common in New Zealand, but we’ve seen just recently, for example, in Hong Kong, which is a highly respectable democracy, where, nevertheless, rioting would, if we had something similar here, make it very, very difficult.

But I want to go on to the fact that the next thing is the inclusion of the provision for a terrorist act, because, again, we all pray that we will never see another terrorist act, but if the terrible atrocity, the anniversary of which is approaching just a month away, of 15 March in Christchurch—if anything of that nature were to happen on election day, it would clearly, again, make it impossible for voting to continue. So these are all sensible changes.

Now, I say that, and I’ve laboured those points perhaps just to emphasise that this is not a wholly contentious bill, but the point that my colleague Dr Nick Smith made before about process is one that we on this side of the House feel very strongly about, and we object to. As he mentioned, there were nine bills during the previous term of Government led by Sir John Key and, latterly, Sir Bill English, and all of those were measures that were brought through the House consensually with full consultation with all Opposition parties, and that’s the way it should be. Here we have the fourth example in less than three years where the new Government has put through changes to our electoral laws in a way that has not involved consultation with this large Opposition party, the National Party, or, presumably, with the ACT Party, and we find that constitutionally obnoxious. In particular, it is worth noting that it’s not just the Opposition that is opposed to it. The Electoral Commission advised the committee that the 10-day extension to the announcement of the final election result is a direct consequence of allowing same-day enrolment because of the extra complexity that it would add to the vote, and the commission had previously told the committee that it therefore did not support same-day enrolment.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: For 2020.

For 2020. So for this Minister and his party to be pushing ahead with this, for reasons that we believe have far more to do with their own electoral advantage than what is in the best interests of the nation, is obnoxious.

Now, Dr Nick Smith mentioned in his contribution earlier that it was just under 1 percent of potential voters who turned up on election day last year and were turned away because they were not enrolled, and that, therefore, just over 99 percent of the voters would be inconvenienced by having to wait another 10 days for the formation of a Government when this is introduced. That is a significant point, but I think that even more significant is the fact that because of this provision—i.e., to allow same-day enrolment—we will see over time a steady increase in the number of people in that category, and therefore the delay will get greater and greater over time. There will be no incentive for people to enrol in advance if we say, “Well, just front up on election day and even if you’re not enrolled, we’ll get it all sorted then.” That will add considerably to the time required, that will delay the publication of the vote, and, as I say, over time the whole process will become more and more cumbersome.

That’s where the point that Dr Smith also made is so valid: that it’s not just the fact that the voters need to know who the candidates are—and that’s why we have a provision for the final date for the closing of nominations for the election—but that the candidates have an absolute right and, I would argue, a responsibility to know who the potential voters are. Now, the moment somebody gets enrolled—

💬 Michael Wood: Nick Smith told us this about 15 minutes ago.

—on the Electoral Act—Mr Wood, as you would know; you are an electorate member of Parliament—you have the opportunity to contact those particular voters. One way that you might do that is by direct, targeted mail, and I think most candidates have at different times used that opportunity. Of course, you can’t do that if you don’t have somebody on the roll in the first place, and therefore the ability of the candidate to reach out to the potential voter to sell his or her message, to argue on the things that he or she believes to be most important issues of the campaign, is taken away. I don’t believe that that serves the interests of democracy at all well. I don’t believe that it results in a well-educated election—

💬 Darroch Ball: What nonsense. Just nonsense.

“Nonsense.”, says Mr Ball. [Time expired]

Oh, thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Electoral Amendment Bill and to speak to these changes which the Government’s ramming through this House in the lead-up to the 2020 election. I just want to take up from where my learned friend the Hon Tim Macindoe left off, speaking about the same-day enrolment changes which the Government is ramming through before the 2020 election, as he says, with a particular desire to try and create some form of electoral advantage in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

I was overhearing some interjections from the member for Mt Roskill where he was trying to tell Mr Macindoe to simply knock on people’s doors. Well, Mr Wood might knock on people’s doors to do electioneering on election day, but, actually, that’s against the law. We can’t go out there on election day and knock on people’s doors. I’m not sure what some of his union mates might do, but, actually, that’s not what our job is.

Election day in New Zealand is a day when all electioneering ends and when we go to vote. Every single other day of the year, all 364 days—well, actually there’ll be an extra 365 days this year—we can add enrol to vote and every other year you can enrol to vote on any day of the week, at any time, anywhere; it is up to you. But on election day, it is voting day. That is the day when we go to vote. And the implication of this bill is we are going to have up to a 10-day wait for the election results to come through—an extra 10 days that all New Zealanders will have to wait for the Electoral Commission to go through those potentially around 1 percent of people who didn’t enrol prior to election day. To check their enrolment, to actually make sure that they were actually eligible to vote, and then to be able to process their votes will create a 10-day delay.

And I think it’s important that we actually question the 19,000 who attempted to same-day enrol, because I don’t know whether there’s actually evidence to prove that all 19,000 were actually eligible to vote, if they could have voted. Some of those might have been people on working visas. Some of them may have been under the age of 18. There may have been a range of reasons why they turned up to vote on election day. I think we need to even question that number and I’d ask the Minister of Justice to take a call to explain the evidence behind that 19,000 to prove that they were actually all eligible voters. And I don’t think the Minister will have that because they would’ve had to have gone through the process, the 10-day, extra-long process to actually check to make sure that they would actually all be eligible.

And so you hear objections from people saying, “Well, yes, MPs, we’ve got a responsibility to get out there and reach everybody and to make sure we talk to everybody that we can.” and we do that. That’s the responsibility that we take very seriously—to talk to people regardless of whether they can vote. I don’t ask people when they come into my electorate office whether they’re on the electoral roll. I don’t ask people if they’re over the age of 18. I talk to everybody in my electorate who wants to talk to me. I answer their questions. I explain my positions, and I’m happy to meet with them. But actually, when it comes to elections, we have a responsibility, as people standing for office, to reach out and to engage with those people who have the responsibility and the privilege to vote for us. The right to vote is something which I take very seriously. It was something which has been fought for over many, many generations and is something which needs to be protected and something which needs to be honoured.

And I go back to the point where I started, and that is we have 364 days, or 365 days in a leap year, in which we are entitled to enrol and we have one day in which we have the privilege and the responsibility to vote. And in the National Party’s view—in the National Party’s view—that should be—

💬 Darroch Ball: You’ve got a fortnight now; two weeks now.

Well, yes, you have a two-week advance vote. Yep. You have a two-week advance voting period as well, but we are able to campaign during those times as well. Election day in New Zealand is a very special day in that we aren’t, like some other countries, Mr Ball, where you can campaign on election day and all sorts of other weird and wonderful things. Actually in New Zealand it’s a peaceful day. The campaign’s over and we go to the polls and then that night the election results, preliminary results, come through and then two weeks later, the results. Now, we are going to wait an extra 10 days under these provisions and that is unacceptable for New Zealanders who have a right to know what the results are and who will be forming that Government.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just take the opportunity to respond to some of the comments that have been raised and perhaps just in response to the member who has just resumed his seat, Simeon Brown. He is simply plainly incorrect that on voting days, you know, people can’t campaign and knock on doors. They do throughout the entire advanced voting period, which is a period of two weeks leading up to election day. The member is simply wrong about that.

But there’s another member who is wrong about a lot of things, too. So the Hon Dr Nick Smith said a number of things. For example, he said that under the previous Government, nine bills and electoral law changes—all of them done by consensus with an agreement. That is simply incorrect. It’s simply not true. So they changed the law to take away the right of those who have been sentenced to prison for less than three years. They took that away. That was a Government bill. Every Government member voted for it. It was approved by the Government caucus and they rammed it through Parliament. No consensus. No consensus.

We just have to tell the truth in this House—I think it’s very important—because here’s another thing, too. He said that the first time that he found out about this bill and what we were intending to do was when members of the Justice Committee questioned officials at the select committee. Again, not true. I wrote to the select committee on 4 December 2018, following the report of the Electoral Commission, which made a number of what it described as non-controversial suggestions and I said the Government would pick those up. I did that because the committee was way behind in its timetable for its inquiry into the general election and, as it turns out, it was another full year before that committee even reported on its inquiry. And it was important for these changes that are important—they are about promoting democracy in this great country of ours—and that’s why we’re doing this. And I’m sorry that members in the Opposition are so tardy and lax. They can’t keep up. They don’t want to help improve our democracy and will hold up inquiries. That’s very unfortunate.

Can I turn to very, I think, constructive questions raised by the member Chris Penk. He wondered why in, clause 6, the proposed changes to section 88 distinguish between those in New Zealand and those outside New Zealand, and this comes through in a number of aspects. Can I refer the member to the very first operative clause in the bill, which is clause 4 and section 60. This is about who may vote and it distinguishes in new section 60(g) “any person present in New Zealand—(i) who is qualified to be registered as an elector of the district; and (ii) applies, on polling day, for registration”. So after section 60(f) a new paragraph (g) just deals with those who are entitled to vote on election day. So if you are outside the country, because the whole notion of election day enrolment is that you’ve got to both apply and cast your vote and have that counted, it is too problematic for someone outside the country to try to do that. So the benefit of election day enrolment and voting is confined to those who are in the country and who can turn up to an election. I think that answers his other question about “present in New Zealand” and what have you.

Now, there was another question I think the member raised in relation to clause 5 and the form that’s used and approved in advance. It follows that in order for a form to be used, it has to be approved and it’s typically promulgated by Order in Council, hence the approval. And so the member need not lie awake at night worrying whether the forms that are going to be used—

💬 Hon Member: I have been.

I’m sure the member—I can see it on his face, but he can rest assured and tell his constituents that all the forms that will be used in the 2020 election will be fully approved, endorsed by Order in Council, and every member, perhaps bar one from Nelson, will be very happy with the approach that we take.

I thank the member the Hon Tim Macindoe for his adumbration of those parts of the bill that he finds agreeable and indeed his colleagues find agreeable. And again, I, just on the grounds that I’ve already outlined, challenge his concerns about process in relation to the Electoral Commission’s advice about same-day enrolment and voting. Their advice to me was very clear. They were agreeable to the idea. Their preference would be to implement it for 2023. They consider themselves under the previous Government to have been resource constrained and all these other things. We’ve worked with them to deal with their resource issues. But when I said, “Could, however, it be implemented for 2020?” they said yes it could. And let’s get the law on and let’s do that, so there’s that.

In relation to the extra 10 days, just to be very clear for those who are watching on from home about the extra 10 days. We already have a period by which the writs have to be returned, which is, I think, 50 days. So from the time of the polling, polling day itself, and the time when the writs are returned confirming the final result, it’s 50 days, so that is to be extended by 10 days to 60 days. The last time the time available for the Electoral Commission to ensure all the counting was done and was accurate was pushed out was in the 1950s. It was under Sid Holland; it was a National Government at the time. They pushed it out by another 10 days. Because the population’s getting bigger and more people are voting, we have to have more time to count these votes to get it accurate, and the same is happening now. So there is nothing unusual about this. The election night interim result will still happen. We will all go to bed on election night—with the odd exception of a few elections—knowing largely, with a reasonable degree of confidence, about who either is going to form the Government or could form a Government. And once the final results are through—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: 1993, 1996.

There are exceptions, and Mr Macindoe does highlight the odd exception. But by and large, our robust democracy has survived these little breakouts.

I’ve just been advised that my reference to the concerns raised by Chris Penk about forms in clause 5, they are not approved by Order in Council, they’re approved by the Electoral Commission, so let’s not undermine their role. But the Electoral Commission—because they are thorough and good at their job and very professional, and we are pleased to have the Electoral Commission that we do—will do a very good job with those forms.

In terms of the points raised by Simeon Brown, and again he’s expressed concern about the 10 days extra, and again, I think Mr Brown need not fret. There’s nothing unusual about this. No one is going to lose their jobs, Earth will continue to spin on its axis during this extra 10-day period, and life will carry on. It is interesting to observe in Belgium how they did not have a confirmed Government for, I think, 18 months—it might’ve been two years—and commerce carried on, people’s lives carried on, the kids played sport, the adults played sport, and life was generally good; that will continue to happen during those 10 days. I give that cast-iron guarantee to this House that ordinary life will continue for all citizens during that 10-day period, and no one need fret about it.

This, in the end, is the constant and eternal journey we are all on to perfect our imperfect democracy. We think we’re close to perfection but there’s more that we can do. These are just little extra steps so that we can just slightly perfect what we’ve got now. It would be good after the next election, when the Justice Committee does its next inquiry, for it, perhaps, to do it a little more speedily, and then we can kind of bring on these changes. Those changes and doing them in a timely way is important for the Electoral Commission because they need time to prepare, make the changes, organise themselves, and bid for extra resources, where that is needed, so that they can continue to conduct elections in the very expert and professional way that they do.

So on that note, I hope I’ve answered the members’ sensible questions.

The Minister of Justice, in that contribution, has confirmed all of the key facts around the concerns from National members.

The first concern we expressed was that this is the fourth electoral amendment bill the Government has advanced without any consultation with Opposition parties. We said that with all nine—and I was very careful with the choice of my words—Government bills that were introduced during the John Key - Bill English years, there was consultation, there was compromise, and there was across-the-Parliament support, and that fact has been confirmed by the Minister.

The second thing that’s been confirmed by the Minister is that the Electoral Commission recommended against same-day enrolment and voting for 2020. They said they could do it for 2023 but they recommended against it for 2020. Cabinet and the Minister overruled that because they thought there was an electoral advantage.

Then the third part we said about this bill is that it delays the provision of the final writ on the election result by 10 days. The Minister began by disputing it, and then in his contribution confirmed it. Again, National says that is a concern. That is a delay in which Government can do—my view is that of the three-year electoral cycle, the whole business of government is consumed with the process of the election and the formation of coalitions for too big a portion of that. I remind this Parliament that we spend $1.2 billion per week, and every week that we’re not providing the scrutiny and the focus on getting good value for money, and all those things, is a step backwards.

Here’s where I want to challenge the Minister. The Minister asserts that we need to extend the period to count the vote because the population is growing. That is garbage. Are we really saying that the United States, it’s got 340 million people, needs longer to count their votes than the country of New Zealand that’s got 5 million people? That doesn’t make sense. Are we saying the UK—it’s got 65 million people. Does that mean that they need 13 times as much time as New Zealand to count the votes? Oh, come on, pull the other one. There is no logical argument that says that as your population grows you need to extend the period of which you count the vote. Here’s the part on which I think the Minister isn’t correct, and that is that in an MMP environment every one of the eight elections that I’ve been involved in has actually been quite close; the determination of the special votes, one or two seats here or there, can make a marked difference. I’d give the example of 2017. In my view the change that resulted in two seats changing in the final count of the vote from election night was significant; equally so in each of the preceding elections. The argument that the 10 days makes no difference is factually incorrect.

Now I was very encouraged by the Minister’s strong support for the Electoral Commission. He said that they’re a strong agency, he said they’re an organisation that has integrity, and it’s an agency of which we’re proud, and National members support all of those. Here’s the question: why has the Minister been silent when the Deputy Prime Minister—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Chair. At the beginning of this committee of the whole House debate, the presiding Chair made it very clear that this debate was to be confined to the matters in this bill, and explicitly ruled out references to other peripheral activity, including issues about donations, and what have you. This member is straying right into the very territory that he was on notice about at the commencement of this debate, that this debate was not going to get into.

If the Minister wants to follow that strict rule there was no reason for him to give a set of comments about the competency and the confidence that he had in the Electoral Commission. It is perfectly proper for me to respond to the points that the Minister has made.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I thank both members. The Minister is correct. At the beginning of this committee stage for this bill the presiding officer did set out the boundaries for this debate. I’m going to ask all members to stay within those boundaries. I was hoping the member was going to not go there, but he should come back to the bill.

While I’m on my feet, all the comments and discussion around the—[Hon Dr Nick Smith standing]

💬 Hon Member: E noho—e noho.

💬 Hon Clare Curran: Sit down.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): —hey, I’m on my feet, OK; you don’t need to interrupt—processes are not what we’re debating. We’re debating Part 1 of this bill. If members have a new argument they want to discuss, now would be the time to start bringing it out.

I just want to reinforce that National members totally support the Minister’s comments, the Minister of Justice, and his confidence in the Electoral Commission. That’s important because the provisions in this part do give the Electoral Commission additional discretion and powers around emergencies and those things. But we do note, with deep concern, the attack by the Deputy Prime Minister on the Electoral Commission, that we think is inappropriate and wrong.

I want to raise a quite specific question in respect of clause 14 of this bill, and that is in relation to the issue around licensed premises. Members across this Chamber might have different views on the justification for the legalisation of cannabis, but it does seem anomalous to me that in this bill the attitude that is taken and being amended around alcohol being sold in premises is not going to apply to those premises—and I have looked at the copy of the Minister’s draft bill in respect of cannabis. So my question to the Minister is why is it appropriate that we are going to restrict the provision of polling places on premises that sell alcohol, as is provided in new section 155A, but there is—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Desperate.

Well, the member wants to say—well, should we be having a polling booth in a place that the Minister is proposing, a licensed premise to sell cannabis.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a reasonably quick one on this occasion, I think. Polling disruption, sir, remaining within Part 1, obviously—my colleague the Hon Tim Macindoe has already spoken about the kinds of situations in which this situation may arise, and I don’t intend to either try your patience or, indeed, embarrass myself by giving an inferior rendition of a song already well sung by Mr Macindoe, but it did occur to me that it’s interesting that we’re talking about disruptions that are unforeseen or unavoidable. It occurs to me now—and I’m embarrassed to say that it didn’t occur to me at the time of the select committee consideration, that the phrase “unforeseen or” is somewhat redundant. I mean, one might have a disruption that’s unavoidable and, notwithstanding that, one might have foreseen it. It’s of no consequence from the perspective of whether polling is disrupted.

Anyway, that’s sort of more by the by, so to speak, but the part that I was wanting to highlight for the sake of the nation is section 195, as it would be, within the existing Act—we’re talking about clause 17 of the bill—“Adjournment of poll on polling day”, and, actually, I don’t really have a question for the Minister so much as I’m wanting to speak to what I actually think is a good bit of lawmaking by the Justice Committee as a whole. The provision that we’ve created—and, yes, I do include myself in that first-person plural, so I’m patting myself on the back somewhat. What we’ve got there—actually, if I’m to be fair, the officials gave us some very good advice in this space.

Looking at the scenario where a poll might be adjourned on polling day, a pretty serious scenario of the kind that Mr Macindoe mentioned—so, without going through them all, they include a riot or disorder, a terrorist act, and so forth. In that situation, the Chief Electoral Officer must consult with a number of people, and they are listed as three items, but they could be more than three people. One is “the Prime Minister;”—well, that makes sense. That person is of course nominally in charge of the country, and I say “nominally” in the sense that one is somewhat a caretaker in that role. But, nevertheless, it’s as good an authority as we have, even in that situation in relation to the election. Also, “the Leader of the Opposition;”—I think that’s important for a sense of fairness and balance as between the Government and Opposition.

One thing we did discuss was the fact that that wouldn’t mean the leaders of other parties in the Parliament, including in the coalition—for example, if there was a Government coalition or indeed parties that make up the Opposition, notwithstanding that the Leader of the Opposition is not their leader—or Independents, but also similarly precluded would be candidates for the election who are outside of Parliament at that time. We thought that notwithstanding that we were not being fully comprehensive, that was a fair place to land, so to speak, because in the scenario that we’re talking about of extreme disruption, an adjournment of poll on polling day is a very serious consequence. It would not be right to force the hand of the Chief Electoral Officer to have to consult with a large number of people, and we thought it was reasonable that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition could brief their respective people and offer a perspective from their respective sides of the aisle.

Then, we come to the third category of person, which is “any person or organisation that in the Chief Electoral Officer’s opinion is able to give information about the scale and duration of the unforeseen or unavoidable disruption;”, so that’s a different rationale, really. The consultation, I think, in the case of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition is in the nature of giving advice about what is happening and keeping them briefed, really, as opposed to taking advice about the nature of what’s happening. But in the case of someone or an organisation that the Chief Electoral Officer might wish to contact and think is appropriate to find out, for example, the prospects of the terrorist act or the riot or the adverse weather condition, and so forth, abating, that’s something that we thought was valuable to provide at that time.

Similarly, in the case of a notice being given of adjournment, “as soon as is reasonably practical” after that direction, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are to be notified. Again, I suppose we’d have a reasonable expectation that they would represent the interests of a pretty large proportion of the population between them. Then, to give public notice in any way that seems appropriate—there’s a degree of flexibility there, recognising that in the case of a terrorist activity, etc., it might be possible to be a bit creative about the way that information gets out there.

I move, That the question be now put.

Jami-Lee Ross’ amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 324 are out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.