Electoral Amendment Bill

I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It is a great pleasure to be contributing to this, the third reading debate on this very important piece of legislation—some small changes to our electoral laws but some very significant ones in terms of the impact on people’s lives. The people I’m thinking about in particular are the roughly 19,000 people who turned up to a polling booth in the 2017 election but, unlike many of their compadres and compatriots who had turned up to polling booths in the two weeks before, who could both enrol and cast a vote for the general election, those people couldn’t. Those 19,000 people couldn’t. Then I think of the thousands of others who turned up but whose electoral roll details were wrong—the wrong address because they’d moved several times, because the National Party left the housing market in such an abysmal state—and their votes weren’t counted at all. So this will restore the democratic right to those people.

It is interesting seeing the debate through this House, because I would have thought this would be something that every member of Parliament—this, the crucible of our elected democracy, the place where people celebrate democracy—that every member of the House would like to see democracy maximised and that every citizen get the benefit of their democratic rights, but it turns out that’s not the case. There are some people here who think that New Zealand citizens of voting age should actually be denied the right to vote. The argument from members opposite seems to be “Look, if people can’t organise their lives,”—when it’s in a complete shambles because of the housing market the National Party left us, and the labour market and all those other things—“then the response we should have to that is that they should be punished by not being allowed to vote.” That’s the National Party.

There is a very strange sort of thread that runs through much of what the National Party stands for, and that is that they love punishing people. They love to punish people. Now, some would describe it as a fetish. I’m not going that far at this point, but I do say it is a common and consistent characteristic of the sorts of arguments that the members opposite put up. They don’t like some people having rights that they themselves and various other people in positions of privilege have. They love to punish people, so they think that it is right that the thousands of people who have not had their vote counted in the last election, and for whom we could make some minor corrections and some minor changes—that they should continue to be punished. Well, that will not continue with the passage of this bill.

So we will allow people who have not been able to organise themselves and sort themselves out but who turn up, willing to participate in our great democracy, on election day to a polling booth—that they can both enrol and also cast a vote that will then be counted. Likewise, those who haven’t been able to renew their details or update their details but who are otherwise on the roll—they also will have their vote counted.

As part of a general approach of trying to make it easier for citizens of voting age to vote, we’re also allowing the Electoral Commission to determine that they can put polling booths in places like supermarkets and malls and what have you. Now, they can do that during the advance voting period—nothing wrong with that—but, on election day, the law as it currently is means that if it is a place that sells alcohol, a licensed premises, even if it’s a place where alcohol is not consumed, the polling booth cannot be there. That will change so that polling booths can go into supermarkets. A consequent change is that the votes, at the conclusion of the voting day—at 7 p.m., when the polling booth closes—can then be carted off to somewhere, fully witnessed by the scrutineers from the various parties so that there’s no hanky-panky or, you know, that sort of behaviour that the National Party clearly likes to indulge in. They will then be taken somewhere else in order for the votes to be counted.

So these are all quite sensible things. Then, of course, because there is extra administrative work required in the days following an election, where a fair number of people—19,000 in the 2017 election—will both enrol and cast a vote by way of special vote, a little bit of extra time is required to finalise the result. So the return of the writ, which I know exercises the Hon Nick Smith—he’s really exercised by this return of the writ period. No one in New Zealand—no one in the history of New Zealand—has lain awake at night during the days after a general election wondering how the return of the writ is going. I can say that as a matter of fact. I’ve asked scholars from every university, “Can you please find me the research into people who, in the days following an election, lay awake at night, were anxious about or spoke to radio talkback show hosts about the return of the writ and whether it is coming along nicely.” No one could find anything—no one could find anything. I asked friends to put up surveys on Facebook. I canvassed people, talked to people in my street, and no one—no one—could identify anybody who had a sense of anxiety about just how the return of the writ was going.

So we are extending the period by which the writ has to be returned. The interim result, which is largely known on election night, with the odd exception—1993, somebody recalled the other day. People know what the result is or where it’s going, and so that will continue to happen. The world will continue to spin on its axis during that extra 10 days, and that’s been guaranteed—not in the bill, of course, but I’ve had assurances from good authority that, in fact, that will happen. So that is also provided for in this bill.

In the end, these are good changes. The great thing is they will be put in place for the 2023 general election. I know Dr Nick Smith—he gets into this high dudgeon and has faux constitutional concerns. He hasn’t articulated a single credible, real constitutional principle, I think, in the two years since I’ve been the Minister, but there we go. We will hear more this afternoon, and we’ll all sit here entertained, because that’s pretty much all you can be about it. But the good thing is the Electoral Commission, having said that they would prefer to implement these changes for 2023, when asked said, “Look, this is actually quite important—19,000 people missed out in 2017. How many more thousands in 2020 before we implement for 2023?” And they were happy to accept it. You know, we could do it, but we need to get the legislation passed.

Of course, it would have been nice to have passed this legislation earlier. In the end, because of the delay in the inquiry being conducted by the Justice Committee, I wrote to them at the end of 2018 and said, “Look, you know, the Electoral Commission have done their report; they’ve made these recommendations. Look, we’re just going to proceed with these things. They’re not actually controversial; they’re actually good and sustain and support our democracy, so we’re going to go through with this.” Of course, there was no demur from the committee—no demur from the committee. No member of the committee wrote to me and said, “Oh, how dare you, Minister, writing and saying we’re doing these things and we haven’t even approved it.” No one said that. No one said it—that is, until the debate this week, and then Dr Nick Smith rewrote history and came up with a different account of events to say that he was opposed to it.

That’s the sad state of the National Party. They’ve given up on democratic principle. They’ve given up on democratic values. They don’t care about a whole bunch of people, and that’s very sad, but we care about people. We care about people being able to exercise their democratic rights. We care about people being able to exercise the full range of their citizenship, which means participating in our democracy, which means being able to vote. This bill paves the way—just a little bit of extra help to get more people participating and exercising their vote.

There is more to come in terms of electoral change, but what I really look forward to and really hope that we can cooperate on with members opposite is the ground-up rewrite of our electoral law. That is well overdue and well needed, and we should be able to have a discussion about the process with that, what that looks like, the sort of experts we want in place to do it, because that is much needed. But in the meantime, for the 2020 general election, a whole bunch of people now who previously would have had their vote discounted will have it counted, and that will be good for all of us. I commend the bill to the House.

The first concern that National has around this bill is it is the fourth time that the Government has advanced an electoral bill without any consultation with the Opposition.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: Well, that’s hopeless.

I agree with my colleague Nathan Guy. It’s not just hopeless; it’s actually quite serious in a country where we have no constitution. We do not have an Upper House like most democracies, and so it’s been well accepted in this Parliament that electoral laws should be developed on a cross-party basis.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The member knows that’s not true. Prisoner voting—prisoner voting.

I challenge Mr Little that the current Electoral Act, passed in the Parliament by 1993, was 400 clauses under a National Government in which there was a complete consensus of the Parliament. So it proves that, with goodwill and a competent Minister, you can get over 400 pieces of law agreed on a cross-party basis. In the last Government, the John Key - English Government, we had nine electoral bills from the Government. Every single one of them had cross-party support, and yet this is the fourth electoral bill from this Government being rammed through by a thin majority without any consultation, and that is a real black mark against Minister of Justice Andrew Little.

But here’s the second part: there’s been a very sound parliamentary convention around the Justice Committee inquiries. Actually, it started back in the 1940s after Labour cheated on the 1946 election. There’s a huge controversy about the boundary changes in the law. So as it developed, after each election there would be an inquiry, work would occur in the Justice Committee on changes to electoral law, and a bill would be introduced.

The changes in this bill completely ran roughshod over that select committee process. The Justice Committee had a big discussion about issues of supermarket voting, about extending issues around overseas voters and making it more convenient. That wasn’t good enough for the Minister. He simply said, “I’ll do what the hell I like. Our Cabinet will do what it likes. We’ll just cut National and ACT out and introduce the bill.” before that process was complete.

Now, the Minister complains that the select committee process went for too long, and here I want to set out why it went for too long. The first thing was it was the latest select committee inquiry into an election to ever begin. They sat round for 10 months and did nothing. Now, that can only rest with the Government and the Labour chair of the committee that didn’t get on with the business. Then, six months later, the Government and the Minister decided that he wanted to extend the terms of reference, and then we had the fiasco over Labour then not just blocking witnesses like Anne-Marie Brady, with whom I think many people will maybe agree or disagree, but they would not question her academic credentials. It was extraordinary that members opposite did not want to hear her evidence.

Then we had the extraordinary situation—the biggest question over the election in 2017 is the New Zealand First Foundation. We received a letter from the president and the treasurer of New Zealand First, who wanted to be heard by the committee, and Labour members voted against them being heard. That was the very sad, disappointing, and delayed conduct of that select committee inquiry that rests entirely with Labour members.

Now, the most contentious issue in this bill is the issue of same-day enrolment and voting. National has repeatedly asked a question of the Government that they have not been able to answer, and it’s this: why would anybody bother enrolling if you no longer have to enrol to be able to vote? The incentive that is being created is: don’t bother enrolling. You can turn up any old time and vote and enrol at the same time. That’s not just me raising that concern; the Electoral Commission has raised that concern, and their fear with this change in the law is that over time we’ll get less and less people enrolling, and that, ultimately, will undermine the integrity of our electoral system.

Then the Minister completely dismisses the issue of the count of the vote, the writ on the final election result, being delayed by 10 days. He gave a rant a moment ago and says nobody sits up at night worrying about the writ. No, they don’t, but I’ll tell you what they do worry about: they worry about who’s going to form the Government—enormous media interest.

I remember watching for 100 days the nonsense that went on the last time New Zealand First controlled the balance of power. There was huge unease across New Zealand that the functioning of Government—I’ll tell you why it matters: the Government of New Zealand spends $1.3 billion every week, $1.3 billion every week, and that money belongs to New Zealanders. We think our job as Government and parliamentarians is to be on the job looking after the interests of New Zealanders, making sure we’re getting value for money and being on the job. What the bill does is, by delaying the outcome of the election by 10 days, it means for another 10 days elected representatives are twiddling their thumbs, not getting on with the business of running the country, while we wait for an election outcome. We make no apologies for saying it is a detrimental measure that it is going to take an extra 10 days for a Government to be able to be formed and for we politicians to get on with the important business of running the country. There is no question that the 10-day extension to the election outcome is consequential to the Government’s change to allow same-day voting.

Now, the Minister has tried to excuse all this behaviour and said, “I wrote to the select committee last December saying that I wanted to introduce this bill.” What he doesn’t say is that there was no mention in that letter of the issue of same-day enrolment and voting, the most important provision in this bill.

Here’s the second part—and this is where the Minister’s been sneaky—when he issued the press release announcing this bill, there was no mention of the 10-day delay in the election outcome.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: Oh, that’s tricky.

It’s being tricky, eh? It’s not telling the full story, not telling the trade-off, and nor has the Minister acknowledged the advice of the Electoral Commission right at the beginning of the select committee inquiry, where they advised against same-day enrolment and voting for the 2020 election.

Members have just got to say this: why do we think—and I’m one of those that’s got huge respect for the Electoral Commission. I take real issue with the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand attacking the Electoral Commission and questioning their impartiality and their integrity. Having the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand doing that speaks volumes about New Zealand First and the Deputy Prime Minister, not about the integrity and good work of the Electoral Commission.

So why is it that the Government is going against the advice of the Electoral Commission? It’s very simple: they’re trying to screw the scrum so they might get an electoral advantage. That is at the core. Well, why did Labour pass the bill taking away the right of members of Parliament to sit here without being fired by their leader, the waka-hopping legislation? Why did New Zealand First do that? It’s because the New Zealand First Party is such a Mickey Mouse outfit that he’s terrified his MPs will leave. He wants to have them in a straitjacket. If any one of them dared stand up—it’s just another example of bad electoral law being driven by narrow political interests rather than actually acting in the interests of improving our democracy.

Now, I’m more than relaxed about the minor changes that we supported at select committee around the supermarket voting, around making it easy for our Defence Force personnel to be able to vote, making changes that will make sensible provisions in the event that we have a civil defence emergency in the middle of an election. They are all quite reasonable. I openly acknowledge this is not the most obnoxious of the electoral reform bills that has been passed by this Government, but I do say that our democracy is one of the most precious, important things that New Zealand has. It’s what makes our country a cut above most in the world. We’re very proud that we are the fourth-oldest continuous democracy in the world, and our view is that electoral law needs to be treated with far more respect and far more care than by this Minister and by this Government. I just say to the Minister—

The member’s time has expired.

Democracies around the world are lamenting the lack of participation, lamenting the poor voter turnouts. This Electoral Amendment Bill will allow 19,000 New Zealanders who weren’t able to vote last year because they turned up a day later—had they turned up any stage in the two-week pre-voting period, they would have been able to enrol, and vote on the day. This allows them to do just that. It means that we will have 19,000 more people—or would have had 19,000 more people—participating in the very democratic process that we are all intent on preserving. This is good, logical legislation. Those who passionately oppose it are really opposing improved democracy. I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to follow up on some comments that were made by the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Nick Smith—the Minister of Justice responded to some of the comments that he was making; I’m not sure if the viewers at home could hear or anyone else in the House could hear—and they were around the fact that when it comes to electoral legislation like this, there has been a convention in this Parliament, and that is that parties do work together because we don’t have a constitution. And it has been observed, it has always been observed, and this actually is a major departure from that. The Minister called out when the Hon Dr Nick Smith was making that point. He called out and he referred to a piece of legislation that was brought to this House, I think, in the first term of the National Government, and it was a member’s bill that was brought here and it took away the right of prisoners to vote. And he’s correct. That’s right. But it was a bill that affected only a very small part of our population. It affected—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Oh, so that’s OK then?

Well, yeah. Most Kiwis actually feel it is OK. It affected a very small part of our population. And it was a member’s bill. So what the Minister just did is that when he was challenged by the Hon Dr Nick Smith about the convention that we’ve had in this House, in a country without a constitution, that we work across party when it comes to the important issues around our electoral system and the integrity of it, the only example that the Minister could actually put forward—the only example that the Minister could put forward was the example of a member’s bill that removed the right of prisoners to vote. That’s something that we still in the National Party on this side of the House—we still firmly support that. We still support that.

We feel that if we have people in our society that offend against the laws that we pass in this House, if they offend against our communities and the offending is so serious and so bad that it means that they get a custodial sentence—it’s very hard to get a custodial sentence in New Zealand, to actually go to prison—we feel that there’s some rights that you give up, that you forfeit. You’ll get those rights back when you return to the community—hopefully, rehabilitated and ready to integrate and to make a proper and genuine contribution back in society. But one of those rights is the right to vote and it was brought to this House as a member’s bill.

The House had the opportunity to debate it. It did go through a full select committee process and there was a majority in the House that voted for that bill. If that is the only example the Minister can give—if that’s the only example that the Minister can give of a departure from what has been a convention that’s been recognised in this Parliament for decades, then it’s a very weak and a very poor example to actually put up and shows just how weak the argument the Minister actually has in terms of what has been a massive departure in convention. And that is, fundamentally, one of the main reasons why we couldn’t support this bill. It is that, combined with issues like—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That is bollocks—total bollocks.

—same-day enrolment, which again the previous speaker highlighted. Well, the Minister said “total bollocks”. But, you know, I’m not too sure if that’s a nuanced argument or adding much to the debate—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s not very parliamentary.

No, actually it’s not, Minister. The other point that I want to make very quickly before I finish my contribution is the fact that he hasn’t really thought through same-day enrolment other than the fact it means that on election day he can jump in the van and he can rush around and grab a whole lot of people that haven’t enrolled, that haven’t engaged, because I believe—I do believe—yes, our right to vote, our ability to vote is a right. I do believe that. It is a right that we’ve had because we’ve had generations of Kiwis that have gone offshore to defend and fight for that.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: So you want to take it off criminals and you want to take it off the innocent, right.

But it’s also a privilege—but it’s also a privilege. They fought hard to give us that right, but it’s also a privilege. And actually, if you want to take it seriously, if you want to take that vote seriously, make the effort to actually get up and enrol. Make the effort, the physical effort, to actually enrol and go out and vote. And what the Minister’s saying is “If you haven’t really given it much thought, if you’re not really thinking too much about, if you haven’t made that effort to enrol, don’t worry. We’ll rush around on election day”—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: How many of the 19,000 were those people?

—“and we’ll pick you up and we’ll rush you down to the polling booth so that you can enrol and you can vote.”

💬 Hon Andrew Little: So here’s the prejudice.

And the issue that the Electoral Commission put up is: is that going to actually diminish—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just ask the Minister, who has had his 10-minute contribution, to just taihoa.

Well, I would actually like to hear what he was saying. I’m not sure it’s adding much to the debate, but thank you, Madam Speaker.

So the reality is—and the Electoral Commission highlighted it—we should be proud of our democracy in New Zealand. We should be very proud of ourselves as a nation. We lead everyone in terms of transparency and lack of corruption, and we take a great pride in what we do. But I can tell you now that if you start making little incremental changes like this that start to erode the system, people slowly start to lose confidence in our democracy, then we start to move towards, in my mind, a very bad place. And I think that’s why some of the decisions that have been made and some of the things that appear very self-serving by this Government and are being pushed through this bill are not good for us as a nation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I’ll just take a short call. It’s really interesting and I’m absolutely sure that the public who are driving home from work today, having had a hard day at work on a Thursday at 25 past five are absolutely glued to their crystal sets listening to this debate, or maybe not. Maybe they’ve flipped to Magic or maybe they’ve flipped to Coast and are actually doing something sensible like listening to some good music.

If one was to just quickly analyse the speeches that have been given thus far, we know this: the National Party’s opposing the bill because they weren’t consulted in the writing of it. We know this—that the National Party is in agreeance with the amendments that have been made during the select committee process, which they participated in, and they’re happy for them to proceed, although they’re going to vote against them, OK? We know that the National Party is opposing this bill because in their eyes, their thinking, they believe that this is potentially Labour rejigging to give themselves some sort of electoral advantage because it will allow people who haven’t bothered to enrol to enrol on the last day. And it might allow Labour campaigners to rush around in a van, pick up all these people, and get them to the polling booth where they can enrol and vote.

I quite well imagine that National themselves will be doing the exact same thing, given it’s National that’s proffered that idea here on the floor this afternoon. So both National and Labour support the Defence Force having the enhanced ability to actually exercise their democratic right. And I do recall listening to a couple of speeches from the other side of the House where they made it very, very clear that those women and those men who wear our uniform and who ensure that we continue to live in a free and democratic society, a country where they have liberty, are forever guaranteed an ability to vote and that their opportunities are not denigrated through what could be described as incomplete legislation or legislation that doesn’t offer a system.

So, in general, I can say listening to the debate that everybody actually agrees with what’s happening here. There is a debate and discussion around same-day voting—I get that. From the New Zealand First perspective, look, we would agree that the voting turnout in some parts of the country is terribly poor, and we would agree that some people have every opportunity to get themselves on to the jolly roll. They’ve just got to get off their jolly backsides and jolly well do it. But there are those people who—for a range of reasons—do not get enrolled on time. Maybe they’ve just returned from five or six years’ OE and they’ve come back, they haven’t engaged, they’ve forgotten to do it, polling day’s upon them, they rush on down only to find that they’re not on the electoral roll and they cannot vote.

We will continue to support measures that enhance the opportunity for people to exercise their democratic right. We will support measures that enhance participation on election day. I mean, crikey, Madam Speaker, we all sit there and scratch our heads about what’s going on in local government elections and the absolutely appalling—I’m looking at the former president of Local Government New Zealand, Lawrence Yule, and we’ve had this discussion so many times. How do we get the citizens of this country to participate in local government elections at the same level that they participate in a general election? Maybe it’s got something to do with postal voting. Maybe if we actually had one day where everybody fronted up at local government elections, and the day was considered so significant that they had to front up, people might do that. There’s a novel idea, maybe we should vote in local government elections in the same way that we vote in central—no, that would be too sensible, because that would be consistency, that would be easy. I don’t understand why we’re not doing it.

What is clear is we’re not moving to electronic voting, and that’s another message which highlights a contradiction between some thinking in local government and central government. We are all standing here today saying the same thing: we want to enhance participation; we want to make it easier. And I think, actually, one of the novel things is making more venues available to be used as polling booths—one of them being sports clubs; it is a jolly good idea. Trusts, you know, the workingmen’s club, what a great idea, actually, because on a Saturday—I know this.

For those of us who have been mums and dads and have been rushing round on a Saturday trying to get our daughter to the netball courts and our sons to the rugby—or nowadays it’s actually the daughters and sons to the rugby—and we are so busy on a Saturday morning, fitting in getting to the school to go and vote is an exercise; you’ve got to work around that. Imagine if all of the families who were going to the Carterton Rugby Football Club to watch the rugby could go there and cast their vote at the same time. I actually think that’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool. So if these things are going to enhance, or make it easier, then that’s a jolly good thing.

I think the conversation that the Hon Nick Smith raised around 10 extra days of forming a Government being catastrophic and referring back to the time when New Zealand First was negotiating with National and Labour to form a Government in 1996 as being a reason why we shouldn’t do this, because it took nine weeks, well, there was still a caretaker Government, Mr Smith. Actually, it was your Government.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What was Parliament doing?

Your Government, Mr Smith, continued to govern, and I think, Mr Smith, you were still a Minister governing at the time that you were also negotiating and, Mr Smith, you became the Government again. The sky didn’t fall in, the waves didn’t come crashing over the oceans and destroy the city, there wasn’t pestilence. We carried on. Why? Because, in Dr Smith’s own words, New Zealand has a proud record of undisturbed democracy and smooth transition of power after elections from one party to another, and we have become internationally renowned for the way in which we manage transfers of power and a change of Government. In fact, Mr Smith’s own comments right at the end of his speech undermined some of this interesting argument in the middle of his speech.

I would conclude by saying this: there is much ado about nothing here today. Actually, by voting for the amendments and saying that they support them, the Opposition is signalling actually that it supports this legislation in the same way that New Zealand First does. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just reflecting on a couple of contributions, being concerned—or not concerned—about the transfer of power and negotiations that might take place following an election, of course, the safe thing to do is to party vote National so that it’s a very straightforward equation after that. If enough people do that we can spare ourselves all of this. Just in case that should be construed as an election advertisement, I’d like to say that this message is authorised by Chris Penk, and, if I’ve got that right, the ticker along the bottom of the Parliament TV thing will have my name about here. [Indicates bottom of screen] So I’ll say authorised by this—of 365 Main Road, Huapai.

Anyway, the Electoral Amendment Bill has been discussed at some length in the last few days and at even greater length at the Justice Committee, of which I was privileged to be a member, and I use the word “privileged” a bit loosely, but it’s Friday afternoon.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thursday.

It will be tomorrow. Well, it’s the last day of the Playschool week, Madam Speaker. I’ll start again—I’ll start again.

💬 Hon David Bennett: He’s only a new member and he’s on a three-day week!

Ha, ha! That’s right. Well, actually, it’s funny—I’m being given grief about three-day weeks, but it’s funny you should say that, Mr Bennett, because I’m actually going to be speaking about a number of days. I’ve made a few calculations and it’s relevant to the question of how many opportunities a person has to get on to the electoral roll and being denied one day in a three-year cycle from doing so.

So let’s hope that my mathematics are better than my ability to read a calendar, and I’ll say that in a three-year period—roughly speaking, we have three years between elections, obviously; it can vary a bit, but let’s take an average. There are 365 days a year. There are three years. We’ll add one for a leap year; we’ll round it up. Three out of every four years, that sort of seems reasonable to me. So that’s 1,095 days in which one has the opportunity to enrol and only one day in which one does not.

So 99.1 percent of the time one is able to get oneself on to the electoral roll and less than 0.1 percent of the time one is not, and this is the nut that’s being cracked by the bill here today. So at least in statistical terms, and I think more generally than that as well, it’s looking for a problem that is not particularly needing to be solved but one that the Government is sort of looking to go after in any case.

Actually, if you think about it as well, given that one only needs to enrol once, given that if one has enrolled in a previous three-year cycle, by the time the next election day comes around, if one is already enrolled then one doesn’t need to do it again, then that means that given the average age of a New Zealander, according to no less an authority than the first webpage on the Google results list—the average age of a New Zealander is 37 years. They can’t enrol before they’re 18, so that gives an average period of time of 19 years in which to get enrolled. Three hundred and sixty-five days in each of those years, except we’ll add five leap years of one day extra each. So by my calculation—if I can encourage you to wake up, it will be worth it, I can assure you—6,940 days the average voter has had the opportunity to enrol, minus the 12 days in those—

💬 Hon Member: How are you going with this, Greg?

💬 Hon Member: Can you keep up, Greg?

—19 years. Mr O’Connor’s got out the back of a fag packet to write all this down. Anyway, the long and short of it, to cut a long story short—as a friend of mine would say, after doing anything but—there are many opportunities that one has to get on the electoral roll. One day every three years that one is not able to do so because one is, in fact, doing something else very important in our democracy, namely voting, seems to me not an unreasonable thing.

Other aspects of the bill have been canvassed pretty thoroughly. I would summarise the bill as good, bad, and ugly. I’ve given you the bad bit, and that’s just my speech—no, that’s sort of the unnecessariness of the statistical breakdown, really, the amount of opportunity that one has to get on the electoral roll versus what’s now been added.

The good bits have also been covered a little bit, and I’ll just touch on those briefly, namely the broadening of an ability to vote in different places that are currently subject to a blanket prohibition—licensed premises and so on—but with sensible restrictions on the way that would take place. The movement of ballot boxes, but again, in a pretty sensible, thorough way that’s been canvassed. So that’s the good. The bad, I’ve already covered.

The ugly, I suppose, is really just around that process with the Justice Committee inquiry taking so long—about a year, I think. That was before my time on the select committee, but a very long time, even to get under way, which has left us squeezed for time, as we now are, such that we are legislating this in election year, which is unfortunate. So that brings my debate on the matter to an end and, like the rest of us on this side of the House, unable to support it, notwithstanding the good elements that are within it.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Last election, 19,000 people took time out of their busy lives, family, work, sports, life, to take the time to go down to their local polling booth to exercise their democratic right. And you know what happened? They were turned away at the ballot booth because they hadn’t enrolled.

I think that’s a tragedy. In a democracy, in a country where a million people didn’t vote at the last election, some members want to make it even harder for those people that do want to exercise their democratic right to have a say on their society, the way their country is run, and this party is actually happy for them not to have their say, not to exercise their democratic right.

For me, it demonstrates the fallacy of their thinking. Now, there are countless reasons why people can’t enrol. People have busy lives. They’ve got families. They could be caring for a sick family member. They could be trying to navigate the bureaucracy and the complex information. Perhaps they’re one of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealand households that still don’t have internet access in this country. Perhaps English is a second language, and they had difficulties navigating it. There could be countless reasons.

Now, the fallacy of their thinking is that that party over there thinks that all those barriers shouldn’t count for anything and that, actually, what’s more important is that the administration and the bureaucracy—which that party seems to be prioritising above all else—somehow is more paramount than their God-given democratic right to be able to cast a vote and have a say in their country. I think it’s a fallacy. I think it’s wrong. I think it’s actually deeply distasteful and deeply damaging for democracy, because once upon a time in this country, if you didn’t earn enough, you couldn’t have your say, and you couldn’t vote. Once upon a time in this country, if you were the wrong sex, you couldn’t have your say and you couldn’t vote.

People put up all sorts of barriers to stop some people being able to vote. That’s exactly what we’re debating today—whether it’s more important to be able to have your say and to vote on election day, or whether you should have navigated all those hurdles and barriers to be able to enrol. Now, I urge people to enrol. It makes the system more efficient and easier, but I do not think that that should be a barrier to be able to exercise your vote. It’s deeply distasteful.

Overseas, people talk about voter suppression—all the barriers that are put in place to stop people being able to exercise their rights. I urge members to look at what’s happening right now in the US South, that has happened for countless decades, to stop some types of people being able to vote. It’s called voter suppression. It’s deeply egregious, and I don’t want to see it happening in New Zealand.

Now, what we’ve seen is National bending over backwards to come up with intellectual excuses, mental gymnastics, to try and articulate why they’re voting against it. I think it’s a sad day that they’re putting so-called process problems above the fundamentals and the principles, which is this House should be trying to enfranchise more people. This House should be making it easier for people to vote. In a country with such a democratic deficit, we should be making it easier for people to have their democratic say.

Now, I think it’s deeply hypocritical, because it was the National Party and their members that actually stopped allowing prisoners to vote. Now, again, another example of putting up further barriers to stop people being able to vote. I’m proud to be supporting this legislation, which is making it easier for people to vote.

I want the next time that people take time out of their day, out of their busy lives, and they go down to the polling booth, maybe for the first time in their lives, they’re nervous, they’re worried what’s going to happen. They’re worried what’s going to happen with their data if they put their name down on paper—all sorts of very legitimate fears and concerns which don’t just happen in the intellectual fantasy world of the members across. This is what happens in the real world. I want them, when they go into the booth, to be treated with a smile, to be treated with respect, to be given their ability to be able to vote.

Now, what the National Party has demonstrated is the problems of political point-scoring and political games when it comes to electoral law. What the Green Party wants to do is clean up our electoral law, particularly our donations, and make sure that we have a robust, transparent, and fair regime. That’s why we’ve articulated the policy of actually putting it out to the people. I think politicians have demonstrated that we shouldn’t be the ones to actually make decisions that affect us. That’s why we think we should go out to the citizens through a citizens’ assembly—which have happened overseas, including in Canada—which have been so successful at finding solutions to intractable problems where you have some players with vested interests. So here is an example of the political game scoring, which does put people off politics. But here’s a tangible, effective solution that the Parliament should adopt.

The Green Party is very proud to be supporting this legislation. We want to encourage more people to have their democratic say. It’s wonderful that there are other changes, such as allowing supermarkets and sports clubs to be able to host polling booths. What we want to see on the next election day, no matter who they vote for—and if you vote for National, congratulations, I celebrate your God-given democratic right to be able to exercise your say—the key thing is that anyone who wants to vote for anyone should be able to, and today we’re making it easier. Kia ora koutou.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to stand and oppose this Electoral Amendment Bill. The points which have been raised by the previous speakers—I would like to touch upon one of the very crucial points, which is democracy and the right to vote.

I come from a country which is one of the biggest democratic countries in the world; people queue up, up to a kilometre, to exercise their right to vote. Just now we heard from the member of the Green Party Gareth Hughes that we are trying to deny someone the right to vote. They could have registered; as the calculations were presented by my learned friend, there are more than 1,000 days available when that person could have gone and registered himself. We’re not saying that it is wrong but we’re saying that there is ample opportunity available for everyone to go and register themselves so that they can exercise their right to vote.

We went to see the chief election commissioner in Delhi, and Greg O’Connor, my good friend, was with me. They told us how difficult it is to maintain that system when they go into the phases to let people come and exercise their vote. About 700 million people exercise their vote, and there are polling booths which are far flung, and people carry electronic voting machines on their backs to make sure that every person can have that right to exercise that vote.

Why can’t we have people go and register themselves? There were many excuses given by the Green Party member. Yes, I agree that there are challenges, but they have time. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes to register for their voting right and the enrolment roll. So those are lame excuses that the person can only register himself on the very last day of the election.

Whereas we have got a system—we are very lucky to live in New Zealand—where we have got a right to vote two weeks in advance. We can go and vote at any polling booth and register ourselves and exercise our right. But why on the last day?

💬 Hon Members: Why not?

Why? I’m asking you why. You answer. No, why are you asking me? It is your bill—it is your bill. I have given my logic that they have got 1,000 days to register themselves. Why don’t they register on those 1,000 days; why on the last day? So these are the lame excuses being taken on.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Why not? No answer.

I have given you the reason. If you don’t understand, it’s your problem.

The Minister was saying that there has been a tradition over the years that the Government comes to the Opposition to discuss the Electoral Amendment Bill. But this time, in this term of the Parliament, this is the fourth bill where the Opposition was not consulted. Again, it is a denial of democracy and a denial to the Opposition to participate in such—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Oh, rubbish!

—process. It is not rubbish. I think the Minister should have explained why he did not take that opportunity to come and talk to the Opposition, whereas when he was in Opposition he had all the opportunity when the Government of the day came to the Opposition to talk about it.

This bill has got some good things, which I did mention during the contribution of the committee of the whole House. The opportunity for people to have access in supermarkets is a great idea, and we should support it, and the National Party supports that. Another aspect which is part of this bill is that the Electoral Commission has got the right to make some decisions if there is a civil emergency, and it is very important that the Electoral Commission has got that right. As we have seen in the past, there could be a flood, there could be an earthquake, and those things we should keep in mind and give the opportunity to the Electoral Commission to make sure that people have got the right to exercise their vote.

I think there are, as Chris Penk mentioned, good things, bad things, and the ugly. So we are not able to support this bill at this stage. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak, and the fact that 19,000 people, as we’ve heard already, were denied the right to vote on election day and the National Party are strongly arguing that it should stay that way shows the deep internal contradictions and the actual underlying hypocrisy that we are faced with. There is no way you can stand up and say that this side of the House does not support democratic processes when voting against this bill does exactly that.

This Electoral Amendment Bill is a very interesting bill, and it reminded me about how I started my week down at Canterbury University at their O-Week. All the political parties were there, and that was democracy in action. I was engaging with a lot of these students, as all the political parties were there represented, and what I found really interesting was that the Electoral Commission was there and they were enrolling people. They had a steady flow of people that were coming into their tents and enrolling.

I was heartened to see the Electoral Commission there, because that was the appropriate place for them to be represented, and all of these thousands of students that I witnessed coming through the Hub, it’s called at Canterbury University, engaging with political parties, engaging with the Electoral Commission, popping into the Cannabis Society there and talking about the referendum that’s coming up—I just thought, well, there’s ample opportunity for these 19,000 people that chose to try and enrol and vote on election day in 2017 to actually enrol prior to E-Day. And as Chris Penk rightly put out, and he did the arithmetic on a bit of an average, admittedly, but I thought the stats were quite compelling, voters have 1,095 days on average between elections to get themselves enrolled. Isn’t that ample opportunity for New Zealanders who want to partake in our democracy to get their personal lives in order to go and enrol?

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: What’s the problem, though?

Well, the problem is, really, twofold, and Nick Smith did a fantastic job of outlining that this afternoon: that, actually, there was a massive review after the 2017 election and this bill wasn’t part of that. We’ve heard examples where Andrew Little put out a press release and said, “Oh, we’re going to do this Electoral Amendment Bill reform.” But he didn’t mention the fact that, actually, it’s going to take another 10 days as a result of this for the Government to be formed, and that’s called the writ. So when you consider that—

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Nothing new there.

Yes, there is a caretaker Government in place, but New Zealanders want to get on and get their lives back to some form of normality and know who the hell the Government is going to be, and yet what we hear on the other side of the House, on the Government side, is that they think that it’s no problem—it’s no problem to have an extra 10 days, to create all this uncertainty. Because, typically, what happens in an election campaign, houses don’t get sold, people get nervous about tax rates, and spending reduces. So what we hear from the other side of the Government is they are prepared to allow that uncertainty to run on for another 10 days.

What is important in this bill that we are supporting: there are some good, practical changes, and I just want to go through some of those now. Allowing supermarket voting, because there was a concern in the past that you couldn’t have a polling place in a supermarket because the supermarket also sells alcohol. So that has now been sorted through this process. That’s important because we know there’s a huge amount of activity that goes on in a supermarket—typically in shopping malls. Having polling places in those busy areas makes good, practical, logical sense—tick. Easier for the Defence Force to vote: yes. It’s practical, makes sense, tick.

Then, of course, there’s quite a section in the bill that talks about—it could be a natural event, a disaster, it could be a terrorist attack, there’s numerous examples in here in the bill whereby the Electoral Commission can make a decision to postpone the election or, indeed, the particular polling place.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In his contribution, Mark Mitchell said that this bill shouldn’t pass because it makes incremental change—some sort of a slippery slope argument, but that’s what we’re here to do: to make change that is beneficial to New Zealanders. This bill will make it easier for people to enrol and vote. It enhances New Zealand’s democracy. It’s a good bill and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I appreciate the opportunity to stand and take a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill third reading and reflect on the contributions that have been made across the House, actually. It’s interesting; this is a fundamental change to our electoral processes, particularly, of course, leading up to, and on, election day. What have we heard from the contributions from the Government side? They’ve got their little talking points, they jump up, and they give 15 seconds’ worth of unbridled resentment, and then quickly sit down and resort to Twitter and Facebook. But, actually, there are some fundamental issues that need to be addressed.

I mean, I’d like to take issue with the Hon Ron Mark, who says this is “Much ado about nothing”. Actually, when he said that out loud, I thought that would be a good title for his autobiography when it appears in time. It will be a good read because I heard—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: He’s writing it down!

He is writing it down, because, actually, when you—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: It’ll be a best seller in Carterton!

Ha, ha! Sorry, I’m supposed to concentrate here but I’ve got someone to my left—

💬 Hon Ron Mark: I’ll write a song about it!

Yeah, write a song about it. Actually, the member’s contribution last week, when you reflected on some of your own political history and connection with the great, late, Rt Hon Mike Moore, suggests that when you do put pen to paper it may well be a book worth traversing for those who are waiting for political autobiographies.

So the issue that I want to touch on today is really just reflecting on the approach that the justice Minister has taken. Now, I have been in Parliament—now, this is my second term. I can recall many times that he stood up as the Opposition justice spokesman on this side of the House, and he was always the first to stand up and talk about the importance of appropriate process, of respecting convention, of ensuring that the way we approach the issues that are—everything that we debate in this House is, of course, some degree of seriousness and moment, but there are certain others that are more constitutional in nature and convention in nature that actually deserve considered reflection. The justice Minister, Andrew Little, would be the first, many times, to stand and hold the previous Government to a very high standard with respect to those principles, but here we have a bill that sits in his name where—as you’ve heard through the contributions from particularly the National Party side over the course of this whole debate, not just here in the third reading—he has, in my view, deliberately distorted that process and ridden roughshod over a process which we have always followed, where the Justice Committee reflects on the outcomes, on the learnings, and the opportunities to improve—

I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come to leave the Chair. This bill is set down for committee stage next sitting day. This debate is interrupted and the House stands adjourned—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It’s not committee stage.

I beg your pardon. This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 March 2020. Kia ora tātou.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.