Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 2 June 2020 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The reason for the shortened select committee time frame for this bill is that it’s appropriate considering the need to ensure that the Electoral Commission and the Department of Corrections have sufficient time to operationalise changes in the bill—

💬 Brett Hudson: You should have introduced it earlier. Do your job.

—in time for the 2020 general election, so that eligible prisoners can enrol to vote. For the benefit of Mr Hudson, I can point out that the Justice Committee, when it heard submissions—

💬 Brett Hudson: You’ve had two and a half years, Andrew.

—on the most recent Electoral Amendment Bill, heard a lot of submissions—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Full names.

—on just this very point. So the Justice Committee will have heard submissions from the public on the very points that are in this bill, so the Justice Committee has already given consideration to many of the issues in this bill.

Submissions on the issue of prisoner voting were made to the committee in that bill, and, indeed, at the time of that committee’s inquiry into the 2017 general election. So this is not a new issue to the House, not a new issue to the Justice Committee, and therefore the committee will be well placed and will have already given thought to the issues in this bill. I invite the House to support this motion.

Isn’t it an extraordinary day when the Chief Justice of New Zealand announces that, because of the coronavirus pandemic, all jury trials are to be suspended for the next two months, but there is such an urgency to give prisoners the vote that the Justice Committee is going to be instructed to go hell for leather and to meet as often as possible for the next eight weeks to ram this prisoner voting bill through Parliament? Doesn’t that strike you as incredibly unusual and a distortion of the reasonable priorities for the Government?

The bill requires that it be reported back by 4 June; that’s a bit more than two months. The Standing Orders require that bills go to select committee for six months. Why is it that the Government wants to reduce the time to a third of that normally required? There’s only one simple reason: they want to screw the scrum to make it easier for them to win the 2020 election.

If there was a fraction of principle in this issue—this Minister of Justice has been in that portfolio for over two and a half years; he gave speeches in 2016 and 2017 about this issue. If it was such an important issue, why did the Government not introduce a bill sometime in the last two and a half years, and hardly in the middle of the biggest health crisis that this country has faced?

But it’s not just that we’re going to pull back the time of report, the speech that we heard from the Labour chair of the Justice Committee said, hand on heart, “This is all about giving the public a say.” Well, let’s be clear: how many New Zealanders over the next two months are going to be focusing their minds on whether prisoners should be allowed to vote?

💬 Maureen Pugh: Not many.

“Not many”, says my very capable colleague from West Coast - Tasman, Maureen Pugh. Every New Zealander is rightly focused on keeping them and their family safe and keeping them and their family in business. The Government is cynically exploiting the coronavirus issue to sneak through the back door, in a mad rush, the laws that it thinks will suit its own narrow advantage.

I also have to challenge the House. How can we be saying to New Zealanders—how can the courts be saying that it’s not safe enough to have jury trials, but it’s safe enough for this motion to require that the Justice Committee can meet day in, day out to focus on getting this bill through that’s all about just getting a narrow political advantage for the governing parties? Doesn’t it smack of the sort of petty, small-minded lawmaking at a time when this country needs to be focused on the big issues?

The date that the Government is requiring this bill to be reported, effectively, will shut down any reasonable opportunity for New Zealanders to be able to submit on the bill. On normal bills that come before select committees, the House is required to be able to give good time for any amendments to be considered—that means it will only be a matter of a couple of, or maybe three, weeks that the public will get an opportunity to have a say. Do I think New Zealanders want to have a say on saying that we will be one of the few Western countries in the world that doesn’t include the exclusion of the freedom to vote as part of those that are lost when people are sentenced to prison? Of course New Zealanders will want to have a say, and of course this Government is about limiting that opportunity to have any realistic say with this bill.

The final point I want to make is that in the very first submission that the Justice Committee heard from the Electoral Commission, they said this to us, “Any changes being made for the general election in 2020 need to be settled at least six months prior to the election.” That is, in fact, how the very Minister of Justice justified rushing through the previous electoral bill, providing for same-day enrolment and voting. The Prime Minister has set the election day as 19 September; six months prior to that would mean that this bill needs to be on the law books by the month of April. So why is the Government ignoring the advice of the Electoral Commission around settled electoral law?

The last point I want to make is about precedent. We’re a country without a constitution. We don’t have a second House of Parliament. The long-established convention has been that Governments need to show extra restraint about changes in the electoral law. In fact, I’ve presented a view that says that the entire Electoral Act should be entrenched, requiring a super majority for change because we don’t have those other constitutional checks. At least previous Governments have observed the process around such bills and ensuring cross-party consultation and ensuring a full select committee process. This Government with this motion is setting very poor precedent, and they’re saying that it’s now fair game to change electoral laws on a narrow majority, and in a mad hurry closing off public submissions, and on a fast track process.

There are members of this House that view, for instance, that the Māori seats should be abolished; would it be OK for a Government to just rush through a bill? What would Labour members, Green members, and New Zealand First members be saying were they on this side of the House and a different Government proposed rushed changes to the electoral law in an area where they did not agree?

💬 Maureen Pugh: Apoplectic.

This is—my colleague says they’d go “apoplectic”, I think was the word used by Maureen Pugh, and every member opposite knows, of course, that’s what they would do.

The precedent that this Government is setting time and time again on electoral law is simply this: “We’re the Government, we’ve got the numbers; if we can jig the rules, jig the law, and give ourselves an electoral advantage, we will grab that opportunity.”, and that includes rushing through law only eight months away from a general election that they think will give them some slight electoral advantage. I say to members opposite, you’re better than this. The Parliament deserves better than this. Our democracy deserves better than this. If there are any laws which should have a full select committee process, it is those that are changing fundamental rights, the likes of the exercise of franchise—those that should and those that should not be able to vote.

My last concern is that there is important detail in this bill that does need scrutinising. I pointed out, for instance, that it gives the right for ex-prisoners to go on the unpublished, or secret, roll more easily than the general public. Now, that’s an issue that I’m sure people, from a point of view of principle, would want to have the opportunity to make submissions on and is absolutely an issue of which the select committee should have the opportunity for a full select committee process.

My challenge for Labour members is this: what is the justification for fast-tracking an electoral bill to give prisoners the vote. This is not an issue that arose yesterday; this is an issue that’s been around for more than a decade. It was an issue that was mentioned in all of the parties opposite’s policies at the last election. There is absolutely no justification for this bill being rushed through, for the select committee’s time frames being constrained, for the Justice Committee over the next two months being required to sit all over the times at a time when we’re dealing with the coronavirus issue. This is, once again, governing parties putting their narrow political interests ahead of the public interest, and that is one of the reasons why the voters, later this year, will reject them at the next general election.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Hon Dr Nick Smith is absolutely right: our democracy does deserve much better than this. So I too, as a member of the Justice Committee, rise to oppose as strenuously as I can this outrageous motion that the Minister of Justice has put forward for a truncated select committee process. I hadn’t been expecting him to be suggesting it would be quite as soon as 2 June, and I’ve just had a look at the sitting calendar—that is only six sitting weeks of Parliament. The Justice Committee is a very busy committee, and there have been occasions recently when we have had to meet on days other than the scheduled Thursday morning. Always we have long meetings, usually of at least four hours in duration, and that reflects the fact that it is a committee that already has a lot of business. There are some very challenging bills that are before the committee at the moment and that rightly should take precedence as we try to give them serious attention, and in particular give serious consideration to the views of the public of New Zealand, who want to be heard. I’m talking about matters as to the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill. That is a very important piece of legislation. We need to get it right.

Six sitting weeks is simply not enough for the committee to do justice to other business which is just being rammed through for the most spurious of reasons. I listened carefully to the very brief explanation that the Minister of Justice gave a short time ago in attempting to justify why he is wanting to force the House to approve this motion. But what it comes down to quite clearly is that this is a Government that is completely out of control. It has no control over its own legislative agenda. What’s the evidence of that? Well, for more than two years, we have had a Government that consistently filibustered on a whole lot of bills, reflecting the fact that when they came to office they hadn’t been expecting to be elected, they had not done the work in Opposition that they would need to do in order to be able to bring a coherent legislative programme into being from the outset. So they instead filibustered, often with senior Ministers, many of them in the House night after night dragging out things which had the complete support of all members of this House. And that is relevant because suddenly they realised that they are less than six months out from an election. They have lost control. They know that in six months’ time they’re going to be evicted from the Beehive—the New Zealand First Party is going to be evicted from Parliament all together, and maybe even the Greens—and so they’ve suddenly realised they’d better get on with it.

Well, the point that Dr Nick Smith made a moment ago is absolutely valid. This is—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Repetition!

An interesting interjection from Mr McAnulty there. I do hope that he’s going to stand up and take a call and explain why he would call out such a silly comment. This is an important motion because it gets to the heart of our democracy and, in particular, the way this Government is willing to ride roughshod over it so much. I had the privilege of being a member of this House for the entire nine years of the Key-English administration, and I listened to many pious speeches being delivered at that point by members of the Opposition—not just the Labour Party but also the Green Party—constantly bemoaning anything that they saw as perhaps a Government wanting to get on with things. Well, now here we have them forgetting everything that they used to say and riding roughshod over the rights of the people.

So let me remind Mr McAnulty and the others—most of whom now have their heads down—that a very important part of the legislative process is the right of the members of the New Zealand public to make a submission, and then, perhaps, to be heard by the select committee and to have those views considered. Now, in six sitting weeks, this Government is now telling them: “You must get your submission in, you must make sure that you turn up for an appointment”—that’ll probably have to be rushed because, if a lot of people want to be heard, they’ll suddenly be told they can have only five minutes, if that, and the whole thing will be an outrage when there’s no good reason for it. There is no urgency for this particular legislation. The idea that the Minister of Justice gave, that the Electoral Commission needs it to happen so that they can do their work, is absolutely contradicted by the fact that it’s not the Electoral Commission that is calling for this exercise and it isn’t the Electoral Commission who should be—with all due respect to them—dictating the way that Parliament undertakes its very important work. That’s for us as a Parliament to decide, and it should be a responsibility that all members of Parliament take very seriously.

Not just is it an affront to the democratic process, but even if these were ordinary times it would be unjustified—but we live in the most extraordinary of times. As we confront the daily reality of all of the changes to our lifestyle, to our processes, to our ability to hold public meetings, and so on as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, we must, surely, have at the back of our minds the possibility that this House may not be able to continue to meet for the next few months. We do not know, at this stage, just how many more—I won’t call them Draconian, because I appreciate that they are significant measures to deal with a crisis—very stringent measures may be dictated, with the best of reasons, that could force the House not to meet. And so to suggest that a select committee should have such a ludicrously unreasonable short time to consider a bill when we don’t even know what the state of the Parliament will be in two or three weeks from now is absolutely unjustified—in fact, it’s an outrage. I do hope that whoever is going to respond next from the Government side will deal with that point. Will any member of the Government be able to assure us that Parliament is going to continue operating as we usually do in this extraordinary environment that we have at the moment?

Now, the next point I want to make is that rushed law is invariably bad law, and so often where laws are rushed as a select committee process does—

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: This isn’t a new law; it’s just undoing something terrible that you guys did.

I can hear chirping from the Hon Julie Anne Genter; I’m afraid I’m not actually aware of what she’s trying to say.

💬 Matt Doocey: No, no one ever is.

Thank you, Mr Doocey. But, instead of just having a running commentary, perhaps she’d pay me the courtesy of allowing me to make my speech, and then I’d invite her to stand up and respond, as is her right, and I would be interested in hearing what she has to say when she takes her call, not constantly throughout mine.

I was trying to make the point that rushed law is invariably bad law, and frequently sees the Parliament—well, obviously not this Parliament, but the next Parliament—having to either repeal or amend the law because mistakes were made. And in this circumstance, where so little time is being allowed for the process that we’re being asked to approve tonight, I would suggest to you that that would be an almost certain thing to happen. There will be a lot of public interest in this measure, and I know that because I’m reflecting on the fact that in my own electorate, in Hamilton West, those members of the public who have heard that this is being suggested have said to me, “Why on earth would the Government want to make that a priority when, in fact, there are such significant things happening?”—particularly, obviously, in these extraordinary times as we all deal with the alarming threat of the coronavirus outbreak internationally.

So I would imagine from those comments that there will be members of the public who will wish to make a submission, who will wish to front up to the committee. Some may well support the bill. We know that that’s likely, and that’s fair enough. Many others will wish to oppose it. The important thing is that we need to allow them the time to do the job properly. We need to allow the select committee members the time to consider those submissions, to hear them, to reflect on them, to discuss with the officials the implications of them, to prepare a report that would come back to the House in order to be further debated, if it was recommended that the bill should go through.

It’s worth noting that the Justice Committee is a split committee and, therefore, it will not be easy for this particular committee to reach agreement on this bill, because the party’s positions are already very clearly understood. So I would predict that this will take longer, not shorter, than usual. Six weeks is just an affront to democracy. It simply cannot and should not be done.

So to members of the Government who tonight are looking to subvert the democratic process, I say this: get a sense of decency and stand up and say, “No, we will not support this motion.” Even if the members of the Government support the bill, they should stand up and say, “We will allow the full democratic process to be conducted. We won’t support trampling on the rights of the citizens to submit, or on the democratic process. We won’t support trying to put this bill through under urgency when there’s no public clamour for it. We will not continue to ride roughshod over the rights of New Zealanders.”

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I, too, rise to speak about the proposal that’s been made by the Government in relation to this report-back period for the select committee being considerably shorter than would ordinarily be the case. Like my colleagues, the Hon Dr Nick Smith and the Hon Tim Macindoe, I am fearful for the consequences of lawmaking in the context of a shorter report-back period, but I offer slightly different reasons for that.

The first is that there will be considerable interplay between the different branches of Government here. We’ve got legislative branches involved in relation to the New Zealand Supreme Court finding, essentially, in exactly this matter. We’ve got the Waitangi Tribunal, which made its own separate report—again, substantially in this place. So it will take time for the select committee to consider all these different factors interrelating and interconnecting as we consider the bill and its appropriateness in our broader constitutional framework. That’s the first point.

The second one is around the fundamental rights involved. Now, that was a point that was well made by Dr Nick Smith, so I won’t rehearse the arguments that he’s made in that, of course, but I will point out that there’s a technical reason that the select committee will need extra time to consider the implications of the serious rights at play. That’s because the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act establishes a mechanism where there is to be balancing of fundamental rights to see whether there is a justified limitation in a free and democratic society. That’s something that the select committee should turn its mind to. It should not do so in a rushed fashion. The advice that it seeks, and the consideration of Attorney-General’s advice in that space should be done in the amount of time that it would reasonably be expected to take, and not in a truncated fashion for the mere politically convenient reason that others on this side of the House have already spelled out.

My next point is about certainty. This goes to electoral law in general, which is to say that when we have electoral law, not only should there be, as far as reasonably possible, bipartisan agreement—a point that has again been made very well indeed by the Hon Dr Nick Smith—but also from the point of view of insuring against a system whereby every three years, with the change of Government or, at least, a change of Parliament, that we’re going to have different electoral law according to the numbers in the House at that given time.

That’s an argument in favour of the select committee—which is a split committee, which does represent equally both sides of the House—taking its time to consider in a very careful way to ensure that we will be less likely to have the matter essentially relitigated quickly in the following Parliament and beyond.

I’d also like to talk about the fact that with such a complex issue, and one in which there are politically partisan interests, the select committee is going to need a decent period of time to consider external evidence. If the select committee has the shortened report-back period as suggested by the Minister, it will be inevitable that we fall upon our own existing views—prejudices, perhaps. I don’t use that word in the ugly sense, but meaning merely the ideas that we already bring to the table.

We should not shorten a process whereby we will have more reason, more incentive to fall back on our pre-existing notions. Indeed, we should spend the time as a select committee to consider the full range of views out there in the general public and to allow them the opportunity to make those views known to us, first by way of written submission, second by way of oral submission, for those who wish to be heard—physically heard—in the matter.

Also for those of us who then want to obviously consider and debate—which I would hope would be all the members of the committee. Those particular views, again, as I say, go much further beyond our own views which, of course, if we were to rely upon our own views only, then we could do away with the select committee process entirely. So on a sliding scale from taking the full usual period of time, to taking no time at all, we are in danger of erring very much on the side of the latter, with the shortened report-back period that the Minister is suggesting and requesting today.

A related point is that in this matter we will be judges in our own cause. Famously, it was said that no man—to which, of course, we could update and say no person—should be the judge in their own cause. Well, as politicians, as those who are elected now and, in many cases, are seeking re-election at the next election, the question of prisoner voting is one that is dear to our hearts. It is a matter of vested interest. Now, that’s not problematic as far as it goes, necessarily, except that the more time that we have to demonstrate, as a matter of perception, that we have understood the issues at play, we have taken the time to consider them and to work them through, the less it will look as though we are merely legislating in our own interests—whether that’s the Government doing so, as we may say on this side of the House, but also equally, I suppose it could be said, any member of Parliament seeking re-election has an interest in the matter. So it is that a shortened report-back period would be inappropriate for that reason too.

Yet another reason that we shouldn’t have the report-back period shortened in the way that’s being suggested is the complexity of the legislation. There are details that are actually really seriously important. The Hon Dr Nick Smith has touched on some of those. I myself, in an earlier debate on the bill itself, as opposed to this procedural motion, talked about the subtleties around enrolment versus suspended enrolment versus automatic re-enrolment and so on. That’s a key aspect of the bill that we will be considering: the complexity of the matter involved, from a technical perspective, upon which we will need serious official advice—advice which it takes time to seek, to be given, to consider, and so forth. All these factors indicate, again, that we shouldn’t have a shortened report-back period in which to consider the bill.

Another point regards the current coronavirus crisis. I don’t think it’s too strong a word to use. I think that’s generally acknowledged up and down the land, and indeed on all sides of the House, that the nation is in a period of crisis with regard to that. That was a point that was made very well by the Hon Tim Macindoe. But again, I would pick that up and perhaps make some slightly different points in relation to that.

One is the possibility that various key players in the select committee process could be subject to the need for self-isolation. Not only that, they might be stricken with this wretched condition, but also it might be that as a matter of precaution and public safety as well as their own, that they are actually not able to be physically present at select committee hearings. That could affect our excellent advisers who need to give us the technical knowledge on how to inform the way that we proceed. It could affect submitters.

Now, admittedly, submitters could continue to use the mechanisms available at the moment in relation to phoning in or being linked by video conference. But for members of Parliament, that situation is not at all clear. So it might be that we need to take extra time, if anything, and certainly not less time, to have the ability to programme, an ability for us to hear all the different people that need to be heard, not only the submitters, of course, but as I say, the advisers and the MPs themselves.

A more general point in relation to the coronavirus outbreak and crisis is that naturally the attention of many would-be submitters will be distracted in other directions. To give them less time to make a submission in that context seems totally illogical, and, I would say, wholly inappropriate.

My final point, as a subheading of the coronavirus response would be that actually what we don’t know in the justice select committee is what other more urgent business we might have to contend with in the next two months. As I say, as others have said, six months should be the ordinarily mandated report-back time.

Mr Macindoe has pointed out quite rightly that we have a very full schedule of legislation which is pretty complex and involves some very fundamental rights. Of course, he’s quite correct to note that and I thank him for that. But I’d also add, respectfully, that we don’t know what other things might come up specifically in relation to the epidemic, or perhaps do I mean pandemic—in any case, coronavirus. For example, we’ve heard today that jury trials are to be suspended at least for a period of time. It’s entirely possible, indeed I’d say inevitable, that in some way, shape, or form, the Justice Committee will turn its collective mind to that. Again, that’s an argument in favour of allowing a normal period of time, if not longer, certainly not a shorter period of time, for the Justice Committee to consider this bill.

So like others on this side of the House, I argue strongly against a shortened report-back period for this very important bill that has serious implications, serious factors at play, and deserves serious attention and serious time.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wasn’t going to speak on this particular motion but in the complete absence of justification from the Government I feel it’s important that I do. Now, in current circumstances we’re all going through quite an environment of change and adaptation. I do note that Alanis Morissette was due to perform in Auckland but has had to postpone her concert, so it’s over to me to say on her behalf, isn’t it ironic? Isn’t it ironic that in Opposition that lot were lions defending the democratic principles of a six-month select committee process? Isn’t it ironic that in Opposition they were the defenders that New Zealanders should have every opportunity to have their say on any given piece of legislation, and they would roar in Opposition should the Government have proposed any shortening of that process?

Well, there are three items I want to talk about as to why this House should oppose this motion for a shortened report back. The first is our constitutional conventions, the second is the absence of any justification from the Government as to why this should be shortened, and the third is a new factor which has emerged over the course of the debates this evening, principally from that side.

So we’ll start with the constitutional conventions. It is true, of course, we don’t have a fully written constitution, but that just makes the conventions of this House that much more important, because if we sacrifice those we have no written pillar to fall back upon. We are not necessarily unique but we do shine through in Westminster-based parliaments, particularly that which we are born from, that we place almost every bill that comes through this Parliament before a select committee to scrutinise that bill and to allow public input. For instance, in the UK, they don’t. They form special committees when they want to scrutinise specific pieces of legislation. They, of course, have a second house—the House of Lords—whose job is to do a great deal of that, and to recommend back to the House of Commons ideas for change. We don’t have that. Instead, it is a well-established convention that instead, in almost every single case, legislation that comes before this House will be sent to a select committee, where not only a subcommittee of Parliament will scrutinise it, but where they will hear from interested parties and individual members of the public to give their views. To change that should require very special reasons, because to change it is to undermine the democratic conventions that have been established over time in this Parliament.

That brings me to my second point, which is a complete absence of any serious-minded justification from the Government as to why that constitutional convention should be abridged in this case. The Minister’s defence, when he introduced the bill, of a shortened process was that people have already discussed this. Well, here’s an absolute indisputable piece of fact: the public have not discussed this bill. They may or may not have traversed in any given inquiry or other commentary over the two and a half years this Government has sat on its hands over this matter. They may or may not have discussed any idea about the franchise and prisoner voting. But it is only when the Government introduced this bill that they had the opportunity to consider and submit on the bill as it is. It is not the responsibility of the public to anticipate with some great precognitive powers what the Government is going to do and the exact shape of what they might do will take. Instead, the Government proposes the legislation and at that point the public can comment on it.

So for the Minister to stand in the House and give one reason—one reason—to shorten the process, being that they’ve already talked about prisoner voting, completely misses the point that the public, until now, have not had the opportunity to have a say on the specific measures the Government is proposing. Instead of giving them the opportunity to have that say, they wish to take that away from them, by a process which is about three months, give or take a week here or there.

Look, under current circumstances, we cannot even guarantee the public how much time Parliament or a select committee may, in fact, be able to meet to hear what they have to say. It is foolhardy of us to be shrinking down a process when, in the midst of what is happening around the world and in our own country, we cannot give a certainty to the public that we will be able to meet often enough to give them an opportunity in such a shortened process. It is wrong. It is something this House should not accept. I do accept and acknowledge that in circumstances where the Government is able to prove a case, to show that it is worthwhile or evidence that sufficient debate on the specifics of their bill has already taken place, that a process could be truncated. They have not done so. It is inappropriate, I argue, for us to accept that as a justification, in this instance, to shorten from what is the constitutional convention in New Zealand of a six-month select committee process.

It will be over to the public to judge for themselves as to why they might think this is happening, because, of course, there’s an election, we presume, still in about six months’ time. So the public might think that the reason this is being rushed through is the Government is trying to scavenge up a few more votes to keep itself in power. Now, that is not something for us to judge. It is certainly something for the public to judge. The behaviour of the Government in truncating the process may have a very, very solid bearing on the decision the public reach on that particular matter.

The third point that I want to raise as to why I think we really need to ensure that we have a full six-month process on this is that parliamentarians in this House tonight have shown—some of them will be committee members for the Justice Committee, not on this side, I might add; it’s the other side—that, actually, they require more time to come to terms with the broader New Zealand law and how it affects consideration on this bill in the context of the law as it currently stands, which is that prisoners do not have the right to vote.

I heard a lot of comment about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and an adverse finding from the Attorney-General. What appears is that no member over that side of the House with the scant majority they’ve managed to cobble together, with a three-headed hydra of a Government—no member, it appears, on that side of the House has actually read the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, or at least they skipped over section 4. If they were to read section 4, they would know that the bill, as it was, a member’s bill that was passed and received that report—that Parliament is not bound by that report. In fact, section 4 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is explicit that Parliament has the right to legislate law that contravenes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And yet member after member speaking tonight said that somehow the fact that there was an adverse finding meant that that bill was never valid, should never have happened, and should be repealed.

So that third reason of why we need more time is because those members need to be educated under the current law of New Zealand, which they’re actually obliged—the rule of new law in this country is that the Government and all entities follow the law in New Zealand. Well, they don’t seem to understand it. Now, if they don’t understand it, then any rushed process is going to lead to a lack of proper consideration, both in the context of what they’re wanting to do but, more importantly, in the context of what already exists and why, and the absolute sovereignty of Parliament to have made the decision that it did, which has stood now for a number of years.

I’m going to finish now, but I’ll just say that if this was important enough to this Government, they would have taken action early, in coming into power. They didn’t. We’re six months out from an election. There’s only one reason they’re doing this and it is not good for democracy in New Zealand.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Much like my colleague Brett Hudson, I wasn’t coming down to the House tonight to take a call on this bill, but since listening to my colleagues Chris Penk, Nick Smith, and Brett Hudson make their calls tonight, I felt that it was important that I stand up and make a contribution. And the reason that I am so intent on doing that is because not a single member from the other side of the House tonight has stood up to take a call.

Now, we’ve heard from the other side of the House over the last few months how very important this bill is; how very, very important it is that we give prisoners the right to vote, and they’ve said it on many forums. They’ve said it many times. We’ve heard it from many members of Labour, of New Zealand First, and of the Greens. We’ve heard it from all of them. But tonight, Madam Speaker, utter silence. Not a single one of them is brave enough to get up and take a call.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

We’ve heard from—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Careful.

Sorry, Madam Speaker. I apologise. Not a single one of them has stood up to take a call. We heard from Minister Genter—Julie Anne Genter—across the floor, when she was interjecting, when the Hon Tim Macindoe was making his speech, over and over again, but she hasn’t stood up to take a call. We heard from Kieran McAnulty many a time during the speeches tonight—

💬 Matt King: Too often.

—too often, as Matt King says—but he hasn’t stood up to take a call, and we have to wonder why that is when they have been so vocal prior to tonight, and yet tonight we hear nothing but silence.

This is extraordinary. The fact that we are here tonight to potentially have a piece of legislation go forward in a truncated process, which normally, as Nick Smith pointed out, would take six months—a good process would take six months—truncating that down to two months. Now, we understand—I mean, when we were in Government that was required on a number of occasions. And just for the record, as Maureen Pugh pointed out, on those occasions, the Labour Opposition at the time went apoplectic at those times. Have I said it right?

💬 Maureen Pugh: That’s the right word.

Excellent. And you can imagine that if the tables were turned tonight they would be the same. But the point is this is not just any bill. This is voting rights. This is our electoral system. This is voters’ rights. And surely, of any legislation, of any bill, this bill should have the full scrutiny of select committee. We should allow the people of this country the full six months to have their say, because this is not an inconsequential bill. This is a bill of great importance. As I said, in Opposition, Labour and the Greens were so very ferocious in their opposition to any bill that had a truncated process, and yet tonight they sit with their heads bowed, saying nothing and not taking a single call.

I would invite any of them sitting on that side of the House tonight to stand up and give us a good reason, and justify your reasoning as to why we can’t have a six-month process, why we’re truncating this to two months. And indeed, if you’re so very angry about the fact that we understand that you want to do this to get it through well before the election so that you can make up those few extra votes—if you’re so incensed about that, as you have been in your interjections, then stand up, take a call, and tell everybody why we’re so wrong. Your silence indicates that, actually, we are very right, that we’ve hit the nail on the head and that, in fact, members on the other side want to get this through so that they can scrape through all of those votes from the prisoners, as we expected that they wanted to do.

Earlier this year we put through bills with truncated processes, and I remember that a few of them went through my Environment Committee. I remember getting up and taking calls and saying that, actually, these bills need a full process; it’s really important that we hear from the public on these bills. But tonight, more so than any other speech that I’ve made in the 2½ years that I’ve been an MP, I would call this bill the most important of any of those bills to have a full process.

We cannot underestimate the importance when it comes to the rights of people to vote to have a full process. This is something that the public are extremely interested in, and, as members mentioned earlier, there is so much going on right now and people’s minds are in other places—they are not going to have the time to submit on this or to think this through. I think that that is very important, and a six-month time frame would give us time to do that.

It was mentioned earlier by my colleague Nick Smith—and I’d like to elaborate on this—that jury trials have been put off for the next couple of months, and I expect that that may happen for even longer into the future. But what I can say is that it is quite extraordinary that the other side of the House expects the select committee to sit whenever, over two months and as often as is required, to get through this bill, when other such things have been put off. I’m just sitting here, absolutely astounded that the other side of the House would push this through in such a short time frame, and are expecting a select committee to sit whenever it is required for this bill to go through.

As I said earlier, I can’t understand why the other side of the House aren’t taking a call. I would suggest any one of them—Mr Clayton Mitchell, Deborah Russell, who’s yawning; maybe a speech would wake her up—get up, stand up, and prove what we are saying. You’ve been calling across the House at us. Prove us wrong just by taking a single call. I would invite any one of them to get up and explain to us why we can’t have a six-month process when it comes to such a very, very important bill.

I and everyone on this side of the House will not be supporting this bill. Thank you.

Thanks very much, Madam Speaker. I too came down to the House to speak on a different bill, but this one here has really irked me because we are seeing, again, from the Government benches a pattern arising. I think it’s very ironic that this is the second time today that I have been on my feet in this House debating the instruction to a select committee for a shortened report-back time. So twice today, we have been here having this same debate about a truncated select committee process. Now, that’s a strong pattern that is emerging from this Government. Either they are in a blind panic to get stuff completed in time for a campaign, or they have just woken up after 2½ years of sitting on their hands and they have got pins and needles and they are just shaking themselves back into life.

Now, the instruction to the select committee for a shortened report back is actually—

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: A narrow debate.

They’re so vocal. They’re so vocal when they’ve got nothing to say, yet they won’t stand up and actually defend their position.

The other ironic thing about today and the shortened report-back period for the select committee is that we are expecting the public, in a very concentrated time frame, to turn up to a select committee process and submit on these bills. At the very time this country is in complete lockdown and we’ve got people locked down in their homes, in their towns, and in their cities, here we are, saying “If you want to participate in this democracy in this country, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to risk your health and come and talk to us in Wellington to participate in your democracy, New Zealand.”

Now, we’re talking about the democratic right that this Government believes that prisoners have to vote, on one hand, and on the other hand, we’re talking about the democratic right of the public to participate in their own parliamentary process. So at a time when the country is in complete lockdown, the Minister instructs the select committee to have a shortened report-back time.

There has been no rational rationale for this instruction to the select committee. We are absolutely gobsmacked on this side of the House because there is no rationale for them wanting this process. It has been in their sights—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: All we want is a rational rationale.

—for 2½ years, and here we are now, at the end of their term, and they’re rushing things through. Now, Mr McAnulty always, as usual, has plenty to say and says nothing at the right time. Thank you, Mr McAnulty, for your very unhelpful contribution.

This is a typical pattern that we’ve seen develop out of the Government’s side of the House. They say all the right things. They talk about democracy and they talk about being kind, but, actually, when it comes to the action of democracy, we are bereft of action and participation for the people of this country to participate in the process.

The only way that citizens of New Zealand have to contribute to the development of legislation that goes through this House is through the very well-established select committee process—the process which would normally take six months if we were going to give it justice. But, of course, the Minister of Justice doesn’t see it that way, and sees fit to say to New Zealanders, “Your democratic rights are being truncated, and if you want to participate on this particular bill, risk your life and come to Wellington, and submit in front of the select committee.” It makes absolutely no sense to us on this side of the House and, as we have said, not one person from the Government’s side has been able to defend the position and the instruction of the Minister to the select committee to truncate their submission process.

💬 Brett Hudson: They don’t like democracy.

They do not like democracy, Brett Hudson. They do not like democracy—

💬 Erica Stanford: They like it in Opposition.

—yes—but when it is in terms of the democratic right of prisoners to vote, they make a unilateral decision, and here we are in the position that we are in here tonight.

We know that we have no ability to overrule and to vote down this motion, but it would be irresponsible of us not to at least put up a good, strong argument about why we should defend democracy in this country and why we should defend the public’s right to participate in it. I think that if the Government had any sense of decency about democracy, it would actually reconsider what it’s doing and allow the select committee the time that it takes every other piece of legislation to go through the correct process.

I think this is, again, a sad day when someone has to stand up and speak twice on an instruction to a select committee for a truncated process. The pattern that develops is not good for this country and for the legislation. We know—and we’ve seen it time and again, even in this one term of this Government—that rushed legislation is bad legislation, and we end up having to come back and amend that legislation because things have been overlooked, because they have not had the time to get the scrutiny of the select committee members and the officials and to dissect the terms and conditions and the clauses within a bill and give it the overall scrutiny that it absolutely deserves. I think it’s a very sad day for democracy in this country, and I—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: She’s run out of puff.

I have run out of puff. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker—what a great choice, I must say. Thank you for helping me take another five or 10 seconds off the clock.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s very late.

Yes—yes. Thank you very much for taking my call there, and starting the clock as well.

I want to take, in fairness, a brief call. I don’t think I will take the full 10 minutes, because I just want to raise a few succinct points that I don’t think have been raised so far in this debate. I don’t think I’ll need to take the full 10 minutes.

What I do want to say is the first thing I want to point out, and it is typical of a Labour Government: in a criminal justice scenario, for them the focus is on the prisoner or on the offender. Where is the voice of the victim? And why I raise that in this context of submissions—how many private or secret submitters will we have to this bill? We are going to have a number of victims who do not believe that the offenders or the perpetrators of the crimes against them should have the right to vote. Some of those victims will not want to make their submission in public.

So there will be a number of submitters, and I believe this will happen: they will be contacting the clerk of the committee and asking for a private or a secret submission. A private submission is one where they can come along and talk to the committee in private; a secret submission is one where they speak but, obviously, the information they relay is not made public once the bill is passed back to the House. When you have a private or secret submission, that is going to take time. That is going to take more time than a normal submitter.

We need to factor that in, because here we are not talking about a five-month or a four-month. When you look at it in weeks, we are literally talking 10 or 11 weeks. Now, you might think “OK, 10 or 11 weeks—that’s a reasonable amount of time.”, but you’ve also got to factor in how long it is going to take the clerk and the committee to advertise for submissions. The normal good practice is six weeks. Now, I accept sometimes that six weeks is shortened, but because no member of the Government or the select committee or the sponsoring Minister is getting up to advise us, we do not know how long that period is going to be. So if it’s the full six weeks, then, in fact, the time to hear submitters is greatly reduced even more. Now we’re talking a window of opportunity of only a couple of weeks.

Here we have a very contentious issue that potentially will have a number of submitters who might be victims of prisoners, who do not believe they should be getting the right to vote, and they will want to make submissions in private or in secret, and I believe that will take extra time. Maybe the Government has factored that in, but until they take a call, it is our right to scrutinise whether that has been factored in and the pressure that puts on not only members of Parliament but also the clerk of the committee as well, because it does speak of a Government that is out of touch.

At the moment, we have a Government telling New Zealand business and organisations it’s about business continuity planning with the COVID-19 threat. What’s every business going out there doing now? It’s continuity planning, working out if they’ve got plans in process to actually address some of the issues that will arise and the impacts on their business and organisations. So here we have a shortened report-back time where, potentially, it won’t be a normal submissions process, we’ve got no idea how long the clerk’s going to actually advertise for as well, and then throw in the mix whether there’s problems with Parliament.

How do we know that MPs are going to be able to access travel to come to Wellington? Well, if the Government took a call and said, “Actually, we’re looking into Zoom or other things to address that.”, then maybe the shortened report-back time is something that we could say “You’ve looked at things. You’ve done a risk assessment, and you’ve looked at a business continuity plan for this.” But because we haven’t heard from the Government in one call, we do not know what is going to be the continuity plan to ensure that members of this select committee are going to be able to attend with the challenges around their own health and safety but also just travel. I don’t think we can just rely on local MPs who might happen to be in Wellington at that time.

Now, is the Government saying that, in fact, because of the shortened report-back time, they are only going to hear submissions in Wellington, or are they going to hear submissions? So if they get a critical mass of submissions in my area of Canterbury, are they going to be providing a select committee process down there? Or, because of the shortened report-back time, is it only going to be to Wellington? That is why the Opposition has a number of questions, not only raising points in this debate, but asking the serious questions. What is the business continuity planning to make sure this committee will be able to go ahead in the shortened report-back date? Where are the committees going to be held? How are we going to address a number of submitters who might want to take private or secret submissions? But it would be interesting—instead of chipping across the House, if maybe they take a call, because the clue’s in the name: it’s a shortened report-back debate. Normally the debate is between both sides of the House.

As I said, I wouldn’t take up the full time of my 10 minutes, and I am going to sit back down now, but I would appreciate a Government member answering those questions. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I move, That the question be now put.

I move, That the date be changed to “6th July 2020”.

Now—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have a Supplementary Order Paper? You’re moving a motion—an amendment to the motion.

That’s right.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. You’re moving an amendment to the motion?

Yes, that’s right.

Now, I believe that this particular motion—I mean the Government’s motion—is not democratic. That’s why we need to move the date to 6 July 2020. Now—[Interruption]

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: They can move an amendment.

Sorry?

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Sorry, we’re just having a chat. You carry on.

I have noticed a pattern, because yesterday I was here in the House speaking on the referral of another bill, and that was the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill. Again, the select committee process was shortened, and then, before that bill, there was another bill, and that was the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill. So we have now one after another bill for the select committee process to be shortened. So this has become a pattern of this Government, trying to cut short all the bills in the committee. I do not think this is really what a democracy should have. So we believe we should respect democratic rights of other voters. This bill is trying to give more rights to sentenced prisoners, but, at the same time, we need to respect the rights of other voters.

Now, actually, I published a recent article about this particular bill just last week. I introduced the content of this bill on WeChat, and then we had a lot of feedback. People in the Chinese community had strong feelings about this particular bill. They may well want to be heard in the committee process. Now, we often say that people like Chinese and Asian voters, they are not particularly interested in participating in voting, but this is a process. We need to give them the opportunity to be exposed to politics, to democracy, and that is why we should encourage them to come to the committee and talk with members about their feelings. We need to give them the opportunity. And to have a very short period, I cannot see how the committee could accommodate the strong feelings of the Chinese community. So for them, they do need more time, because, firstly, they need to understand, really, the process, and understand the bill, and understand the system, so we need to be able to provide more information for them and more time for them so they can consult with other parties or other, better educated people to understand the system, the bill, and the way to talk to the committee. So to have a shortened period, I do not see this as really a way to accommodate their interests or their interest in participating in democracy.

So for that reasoning I believe we do need to postpone this, but, more importantly, I believe it is important for us to respect our democratic way of dealing with different bills. And this bill itself is particularly important because this group’s voting rights would have a strong impact on other people’s voting rights. So I believe this is democracy; I believe we should treat everyone in a democratic way. We can’t simply favour one particular group of people at the cost or expense of another group of people. So for that reason I think we should really try to stick to the full six-month select committee process.

This is core, not only for this category but also for other bills; however, today we are focused on this particular bill. So for that reason, I’d like to move that the date be changed to 6 July 2020.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just want to check that an amendment was actually moved. I didn’t hear a form of words that suggested an amendment was moved.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: He began with the moving of the amendment, and he will now be asked to table that so that you can check it.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are speaking—is it a new point of order or—

A related point of order. Can I just confirm that the amendment that has been moved by my colleague, providing it is tabled with the Clerk of the House prior to the vote being put, is in order and that my colleague has in fact complied by the Standing Orders by moving it when he first started his contribution, and by the signed, written motion that he’s provided to the Clerk of the House?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I believe that the amendment is in order. We have a signed copy. It is an altered signed copy, but it has been signed by the member who moved it.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.