Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends the Electoral Act 1993. The purpose of the bill is to enfranchise and better facilitate participation in the electoral system for people in or recently from prison—those sentenced to sentences of less than three years.

I want to thank the Justice Committee for their consideration of the bill—in particular the chair, the Hon Meka Whaitiri, and in fact all members who sat on the committee to consider this bill. I know some were a little concerned that they sat throughout part of the lockdown period and took submissions, but I think the number of members of the public who responded to the bill is very telling. So the committee received 2,578 written submissions from interested groups and individuals, and heard oral evidence from 86 submitters through video and teleconference, and I think what is clear also is the number of those submitters who supported the bill was at 78 percent. That’s pretty unusual, actually, because, in a reasonably controversial bill—or at least a bill around this place that is regarded as controversial, especially by members opposite—78 percent of submitters supported the bill, which means that 22 percent were opposed, and the members opposite, no doubt, were representing that particular view.

Of the 78 percent who wrote to express strong support for the bill, of those in support, over 500 submitters commented on the bill upholding human rights. The reality about this bill is that it is a grounded and a very fundamental principle, and that is that you must have a right to have a say or to elect those who are going to run the country that you are freely exercising your rights in. If you are in prison at the time of an election and sentenced to less than three years, you are going to leave prison before the next election and re-enter society as a free person, and the principle is that you must have a right to have a say on those people who are governing the country that you’re going to be a free citizen in. That’s the underlying principle—it’s about upholding democracy.

Now, there are those who argued—submitters and others who argued—that the bill doesn’t go far enough. They wanted that right to be extended to all prisoners, and that’s not the principle we adopted. We adopted the principle that those who are in prison at the time of a general election and who are sentenced to less than three years and who will be released ought to have a say on those who are running the country that they are going to be released into. There was a very good set of submissions from Andrew Geddis and Graeme Edgeler, who commented on the arbitrary nature of the voting disqualification, and their argument was that that’s why the disqualification should be removed at all.

To the extent there is a disqualification—and it was before 2010—that re-entered our statutes in 1993, when the then National Government, with the then Minister of Justice, the Hon Doug Graham, now Sir Doug Graham, argued that the old disqualification was not justified on any grounds and that there ought to be an acceptance that those prisoners sentenced to a sentence of less than three years ought to have a right to have a say on those running the country that they’re going to go back into. That’s what this bill does.

The change made 10 years ago was never properly justified, and that was confirmed by the Hon Chester Borrows in his submission—a former senior National MP who, without giving too much away, clearly intimated that there was a problem when the governing party of the day 10 years ago championed that law. He was uncomfortable with it and he’s come clean and said that, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be members opposite, even today, who will be uncomfortable with it, but they won’t be allowed to say so. But there is a good reason to change it, and that is that we need to value our democratic principles and democratic rights as citizens.

Of those who submitted against the bill, there were some important arguments raised. There were some who were just opposed to prisoners voting, and that’s not what this bill is about. They said, “Well, you’ve broken the rules of society. You should have those rights and privileges withdrawn from you.” Although the reason you get sentenced to prison is that you forfeit the right of freedom of movement, the right of freedom of association, and some rights of freedom of speech—you have a lot of rights taken off you—you don’t actually stop being a citizen. No matter how bad you’ve been or how ugly you are in terms of your behaviour, you don’t stop being a citizen, and, in a sense, what this bill does is restore that cherishing of that right as citizens.

Some argued that giving prisoners the right would be hurtful to victims. There’ll be plenty of victims who will say, “That person caused me harm egregiously and has gone to prison. Why should they have the same right as I do—the right to vote?”, and I think the important thing there is to say that the purpose of a prison system doing its job is the corrective actions: taking somebody who has caused harm, calling them to account, and assisting them with their behaviour change so they turn out to be a good citizen. So that’s what this bill is seeking to do.

What I might add as I’m crediting the select committee for the work they’ve done is to note that the committee heard 18½ hours of evidence. They did a tremendous job, and, as I say, I know some of them were concerned—including the Hon Nick Smith, who seemed to want to have his level 4 lockdown period and have to do nothing. But, actually, as other select committees did, they used the technology. They were able to do their job as public representatives and engage with the public on this particular sort of issue, and so here we are.

Over 400 submitters submitted that allowing prisoners to vote would have a rehabilitative effect—there’s a judgment call there—and participating in the electoral process will be a way of building engagement and investment in society. The reality is that of people who get sent to prison, most of them come out, and we want them to come out with a positive attitude as a citizen towards the community that they’ve previously caused harm against. So this, if it helps, and maybe it does—but, in any event, it goes back to the important, cherished right to vote. Ensuring that our electoral system engages all communities is vital for a healthy democracy, and equally so is ensuring that our laws uphold all New Zealanders’ fundamental rights. That’s why this Government is committed to ensuring that people who will be re-entering their communities within the length of a parliamentary term will be able to have a say on who governs them.

I should also note the ruling of the Waitangi Tribunal. They investigated this very thoroughly, and, like the Attorney-General in 2010, who at the time said that this was inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the Waitangi Tribunal said not only was it inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but it breached rights under the Treaty of Waitangi. We either value these important constitutional documents, or we don’t. We can’t sort of mouth off constitutionalism—like the Hon Dr Nick Smith does every now and again—but actually, in reality, not respect constitutional rights and constitutional norms. So this will have a rehabilitative effect on those important constitutional documents: the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Treaty of Waitangi.

This bill will go some way to addressing a law that is presently unjustifiable and that causes a significantly disproportionate effect on Māori, because it doesn’t just take away the right to vote; it takes away the right to be on the roll. It deregisters voters, because the reality is they seldom ever come back on to the roll, and that’s what the Waitangi Tribunal pointed out—that if you are a Māori and sentenced to prison, under this law you are 11 times more likely than a Pākehā to be permanently removed from the roll and, therefore, denied the right to vote. That’s how insidious this law was—never justified, never proper—and now it’s being rectified.

I just want to talk about the one issue that did come up in the deliberations by the select committee related to whether or not prisoners going back on the roll should go on the unpublished roll. We have an unpublished roll. It is there for very good reasons, as it is about the safety of some voters. The bill as previously drafted, I accept, actually gave a virtually automatic right for prisoners, if they elected to go on the unpublished roll, to go on. That wasn’t the original intention.

Officials have given advice to the committee that it is possible to correct it. It was unfortunate that the committee could not reach agreement on that correction, but I will be introducing a Supplementary Order Paper that will correct that so that there is no automatic right for a prisoner going back on the roll to go on the unpublished roll. They have to meet the same test as anybody else, and it has to relate to their personal safety and security. So that will happen. There is also an obligation on prison managers to communicate very clearly to prisoners about enrolling so that that is clearly understood. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

National opposes this bill on principle. We oppose it in respect of its impracticalness. We also oppose it in terms of the appalling parliamentary process that the Government has used again today, in urgency, in ramming this legislation through.

We come from a very practical perspective in respect of what happens when someone goes to prison, which is that they lose freedoms. They lose the right to go wherever they wish, the right of association, and the right of being able to receive information. It is absolutely proper—as in the case of the UK and as in the case of most democracies—for people, while they are serving their sentences in prison, not to be able to vote. It is part of the punishment for breaching the laws that make for a civilised society. Members opposite have argued—and the Labour Party came to the select committee and said that even people like the murderer in Christchurch should be able to cast a vote—that it is their basic freedom and human right. Well, we disagree. That individual, who killed 51 people, has removed the right of others to vote.

But it’s not just appalling offenders of that sort. At the select committee, we heard evidence that to go to prison in New Zealand, you actually have to be pretty bad. The number of offences that a person needs to commit to end up behind bars averages 24 convictions. This sort of soft line from Labour that someone’s committed some minor offence and they end up in prison and they remove their democratic rights is a gross misrepresentation of the position. Our law and our judges send people to prison only when they have, multiply and on many occasions, broken the law of this land, and members opposite are so focused on the rights of the prisoner and the offender that they forget every time about the rights of the victims. We heard from victim after victim at the select committee of people who have taken lives who will now get to vote in the 19 September election, but their victims will not get to vote, and that caused offence.

I remember from my period as Minister of Corrections about how impractical it actually is for people to be able to vote in prison. Members opposite need to explain: are you going to be able to have candidates’ meetings in prison, and are prisoners then going to be able to claim they have a right to free access to information and get on the net? Many of those prisoners may have, in fact, committed porn offences and other such offending. The reality, and what I found as Minister of Corrections, is there is almost a universal view from our prisoner managers that, actually, there are all sorts of practical problems with trying to have prisoners fully participate in our elections. There is far more to elections than just filling out the form. It’s about engaging with the public and it’s about learning what the policies and the issues are, and that is not compatible with prison.

I also want to talk about the absolutely appalling process around this bill. I take offence at Minister Little saying that I was not prepared to spend 13 days under lockdown working on this bill—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: It’s true.

—because I didn’t want to work. The member says that that’s true. Well, I want to tell the member what I was doing in lockdown. I’ve been a constituency member of Parliament for my community for 30 years, and I have never been as busy, working from 7 in the morning to 10 at night, dealing with hundreds of constituency cases, life-and-death issues—issues like people with COVID-19 who are not able to get personal protective equipment for the carers of them, people who couldn’t get tested when they should have been tested, and people that needed access to foods that were essential to their life. Madam Speaker, you say that it might not be relevant to the topic, but I tell you it is relevant to the debate and the process that’s occurred with this bill, because it was wrong that when New Zealanders were in lockdown and when members of Parliament were legally confined to staying in their homes, the Government’s priority was rushing into law the right for prisoners to vote.

What a warped—what a warped—sense of priorities, and it’s worse than that. The Justice Committee delayed its consideration of the sexual violence legislation, and this is about the rights of rape victims to get a fair trial. Well, that wasn’t a priority, nor was the bill about protecting first responders: ambulance officers, police, and others that work on the front line. Oh no, members opposite said, “We’re going to defer that bill—that’s not important.”, but when it comes to the rights of prisoners to vote, this was something that the select committee had to do under urgency, and it rammed it through this Parliament during the period of lockdown.

In other words, at the very time when 5 million law-abiding citizens were being required to stay in their home—effectively, under house arrest—the top priority for the Government was our criminal offenders being able to get a right to vote, and let’s not pretend that there is any great principle in Labour’s position on this. They simply see it as a cheap, easy way to change the rules to make their re-election on 19 September a little bit easier. This is a cheap, dirty way for them to score several thousand votes more. I make no bones about the fact that members on this side of the House prioritise the rights of victims ahead of the rights of those that criminally offend, as compared with members opposite, who always put the rights of criminals ahead of those that are victims of crime.

Now, when this bill entered its first reading, I raised the issues about clause 8 of this bill and the unpublished roll. Let’s remind ourselves what this bill says. It says that if you are a prisoner—a criminal—you have an automatic right to go on to the unpublished roll, but if you’re a victim of crime and if you’re a law-abiding citizen, you have to apply and you have to meet statutory criteria. When I pointed that out at first reading, the Minister of Justice said that I had it all wrong. He did his best to ridicule me and challenge what I had said. Actually, at the select committee, the officials accepted that what we said was absolutely correct, as did a number of legal experts.

I say to Government members and I say to the Green Party, what is possibly in your head that somehow you think that people who commit crimes should have greater legal rights than those who are law-abiding or who are victims of crime? That is morally repugnant, and that part of the bill—

💬 Matt King: Unbelievable.

—is just plain wrong. As my colleague said, it is just plain unbelievable.

The last point that I want to make is that this issue of whether prisoners are allowed to vote or not has been debated many, many times over in this Parliament. I think it was the Kirk Government—prior to the 1970s, it had always been that if you were in prison, you couldn’t vote. That Labour Government, a bit like this one, thought they could get some easy votes by changing the law prior to the 1975 election. It didn’t work. They got biffed out and the law was reversed, and it’s gone back and forward. But why is Parliament doing this law under urgency?

This isn’t a new issue. This issue was debated in 2008. We’ve had four electoral reforms in the interim. Why is it that just a few months out from the election, under urgency, the Government is ramming through this electoral law?

The last bit with which I have got huge difficulty is this. National, in its nine years in Government, with every Government electoral bill, took the view that we would not advance law changes on simple majorities and without consultation with parties opposite. It is not right that the governing parties rig the laws for the next election to make their re-election easier. We observed that principle, we consulted, and we actually changed a number of bills to ensure we had that. This is simply the Government again trying to distort the laws to make it easier for their re-election. It’s a bad process, it’s badly principled, and we will oppose it every step of the way.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, e ngā mema katoa o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to take a call on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill, and can I first start by thanking the 2,580 submitters—2,580 submitters—made up of individuals and organisations who submitted on this bill.

The Justice Committee, of which I am the chair, spent 18½ hours in hearing oral evidence—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: During the lockdown—during the lockdown.

—so I do want to commend the clerks of the House in that we heard 18½ hours from submitters on this piece of legislation—and, yes, we weren’t the only select committee hearing during lockdown—but I want to commend those submitters that took the time. I want to commend the clerks and the advisers, and I also want to commend the committee members, who at the time of COVID were facing a lot of challenges in their electoral offices. I’m not doubting that, and the previous speaker has raised that, but we turn our minds to this particular bill.

To remind the House, the bill is essentially three clauses—clauses 5, 7, and 8—and we will scrutinise that during the committee stage. But, essentially, clause 5 is around disqualifying who this bill doesn’t cover. So it doesn’t cover those in life imprisonment, it does not cover those in preventive detention, and it doesn’t cover those serving terms of three years or more. Clause 7 ensures that the prison officers work with eligible prisoners before they are released so that they are enrolled to vote, and, of course, clause 8, which the former speaker just mentioned, is around the unpublished rolls.

I heard the Minister of Justice say in this House that in terms of that particular clause, he is bringing in a Supplementary Order Paper. We as a committee talked and debated that particular clause very closely. The advice was given to the officials. Labour members of this committee agreed to those changes and the National members did not, but the bill that the Minister presents here is a reflection of those thousands of submitters and those hours of oral evidence presented to this House. Without further ado, I am pleased to recommend the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. For those listening, the House is sitting in extended hours on a bill which gives prisoners the right to vote. This is the priority for the Government coming out of a lockdown. Prisoners, those who are locked up for what they have done—the fact that they have committed crimes against victims in our country—are having the right to vote given to them, rushed through this Parliament as we head into the 2020 election.

I don’t try to be cynical, but that’s incredibly cynical of this Government to be spending the last few weeks of this Parliament in extended hours giving prisoners the right to vote. This Government has been in power for almost three long years. They’ve had three years to address this issue, but here we are, three months before an election, giving prisoners the right to vote as they seek to get their coalition of voters together prior to this election.

I’m proud to be on the National Party side of this argument and to be opposing this piece of legislation, because we take a principled view that those who commit crimes in this country, those who commit crimes worthy of being sentenced to prison, lose a number of their rights. They lose their right to freedom of movement, they lose their right to freedom of association, and they also lose their right to vote and participate in the democracy whilst they are in prison. They commit their offences in full knowledge, knowing that that is what will happen if they commit a crime. Ignorance is no excuse before the law. So I’m proud to be opposing this piece of legislation.

The second point I’d like to make is how this Government not only is rushing it through before an election but whilst the country was in lockdown. Whilst New Zealanders were fighting COVID-19, a pandemic the like of which we have not seen for a hundred years, and whilst New Zealanders’ lives were being transformed—people were losing their jobs, their livelihoods, their businesses; losing everything that they had—the Government was ramming this bill through the Justice Committee. Most other parliamentary business was put on hold during COVID-19.

Most other select committees put their business on hold. I sat on the Education and Workforce Committee and we had a number of pieces of legislation before that committee, but it was non-urgent in the light of COVID-19, and we did not continue progressing that legislation. Chris Hipkins, the Leader of the House, said that Parliament would not continue to push ahead with non-urgent pieces of legislation, so what was urgent about this? Did this have something to do with COVID-19? Did this have something to do with New Zealand’s response to the pandemic and helping New Zealanders get through COVID-19, helping restore jobs in our economy, or helping ensure that people had livelihoods to look forward to, to protect people’s futures? No. The only reason why this bill was pushed through during COVID-19 was for one simple reason, and that was to ensure that it could pass prior to the election.

That brings me back to the point of why has the Government not progressed this earlier. If this is such an important piece of legislation to be using Parliament’s extended sitting hours to be pushing this through now in the lead-up to the election, why did they not deal with this earlier? Why did they not sort this out sooner? Why did they not sort it out before the local government election last year? Or does it not matter because the Government’s not up for re-election in local government elections? Maybe it only matters when Labour Party politicians’ jobs are on the line.

The next point—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: So cynical.

Yes, I am a little bit cynical of the Government’s intentions around this piece of legislation. Who couldn’t be? I think most New Zealanders are, because during lockdown, submissions were open, and during lockdown, submissions closed. During lockdown, the committee was hearing submissions. During lockdown, this was the one priority the Justice Committee was continuing to progress through Parliament. Now, I find it incredibly, incredibly cynical that that was their number one priority. I want to echo the words of my colleague Dr Nick Smith, who made the point of the number of constituent queries and the issues which were affecting his electorate. Not one person was coming to my office or calling me up, emailing me, or whatever else, getting in touch—well, they couldn’t come to my office because we were in lockdown. But they weren’t getting in touch saying, “Oh look, I just hope, Simeon, that you’re prioritising prisoners voting right now.”

💬 Dan Bidois: How many queries did you get?

Mr Bidois, I got no queries—no queries during lockdown with people coming to my office and saying, “Simeon, I just hope the Justice Committee is focusing on making sure that sentenced prisoners are registered and are able to vote in the upcoming election.” But that’s what the Government was prioritising whilst New Zealanders were fighting for their livelihoods.

I do also want to make the point that Nick Smith made around the number of convictions it takes to be sentenced to prison: an average of 24 convictions to go to prison—an average of 24 convictions. We’re not talking here about people who went a little bit over the speed limit. We’re not talking about people who may have committed some low-level offence. We’re talking about people who committed a substantial number of offences and who have been sentenced to prison.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust said in their submission that it was asserted when this debate began that it would not apply to prisoners who are incarcerated for serious and/or violent crime, and it would only be applicable to those prisoners who’ve been sentenced to three years or less. They put to the committee a very important point. In the fiscal year 2018-19, prisoners sentenced to three years or less, who would be now eligible under this bill—there were 6,657, of which 1,929 are in for serious violent crimes against the person. I just want to raise that point here, because we’re talking about people who’ve committed serious violent crimes. Under this bill, not only do they get registered but they also get the opportunity to be put automatically on to the secret roll. They get additional privileges which the victims of those crimes don’t get.

Last year, the Government statistics showed there’s been a 9.6 percent increase in victimisations here in New Zealand. This bill does nothing to put those victims anywhere into this debate. The select committee heard from victims, it heard from people who have had serious crimes put against them, and they’re shocked to see that those people who perpetrated those crimes are now going to be given additional rights during their time of imprisonment and will be given special privileges upon their registration.

I find this bill to be something which this Government clearly has an agenda to support in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Issues around electoral law, issues around registration to vote, and issues around our constitution should be issues which are dealt with in a bipartisan way. They should be dealt with in a way which is done with reasonable periods of time so that full consideration can be given to the debate and full consideration can be given during the select committee period. They should be done at a time when people are able to fully engage in that debate, because I dare say there are many, many, many victims of crime who were unable to submit because they were focused on their livelihoods, on their jobs, and on their businesses and would not have even been aware that this Parliament was ramming this bill through during the COVID19 pandemic. The National Party continues to oppose this bill and we’ll continue to oppose it through the remaining stages here in the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. New Zealand First rises to support this bill, and, in doing so, to acknowledge the 2,578 submissions that went before the select committee, 86 of which gave oral evidence, 78 percent of which—or 2,000—expressed strong support for this bill. Five hundred of those submitters acknowledged that it was a bill that upholds human rights, and over 400 submitters said that allowing prisoners to vote would have a rehabilitative effect.

I think it’s worth reflecting on this, because this is the core of this bill. Former National Prime Minister Bill English described prison as a moral and fiscal failure, and one of the efforts that the Minister of Corrections, Kelvin Davis, has been putting in within this term of Parliament is to up the rehabilitation rates and help to transition prisoners back into society, because while there is a punitive element to it—and there needs to be, actually—we need these people to be coming out of prison ready to re-engage in civil society, and this bill, by re-enfranchising them and giving them a connection to the democratic process, is part of that effort.

I would like to reflect that this bill merely returns us to the former status quo, as was passed under the Bolger Government of 1993, in the 1993 Act. The status quo that we have now is only in place because of a member’s bill by Paul Quinn in 2010. If the members opposite in the former Government had been so convinced that this was a huge priority for them, they would have put that through as a Government bill, but they did not. So the catastrophising that I’m hearing from the other side is completely overblown.

I would acknowledge that this bill has had some very high-level support through the select committee process. The Law Society has advocated on behalf of this bill. In fact, to quote the Law Society, “The Law Society generally supports the Bill, having opposed the restriction imposed by the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act 2010 … that disqualified all prisoners from voting. The 2010 Act was subsequently … the subject of the first ‘declaration of inconsistency’ [with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act …] made by a New Zealand court.” So the courts, the Law Society, and even the Auditor-General of the day, when the 2010 member’s bill was passed, spoke against this bill, saying it was a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

So New Zealand First supports this bill on the basis that it assists transitioning prisoners back into civil society, and a more decent society. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. This is a difficult area. This is an area in which we have considerable intersection of constitutional rights, including electoral rights, as well as a lot of issues that affect many other areas of society. So I want to take it very seriously in acknowledging some very key points made by submitters on both sides, to be fair, albeit ultimately, of course, I support the position that this side of the House has taken in relation to maintaining the status quo and not changing the electoral law at this stage.

The discussions about criminal justice often reflect a narrow view whereby submitters or, indeed, politicians tend to emphasise the purpose of criminal justice that is most important to them. Deterrence is a legitimate aim of the criminal justice system, so is punishment, so is rehabilitation, and so on. Like every other aspect of criminal justice, this proposal has a complicated relationship with those, but let me state clearly for the record that I think that probably very few people in this House believe that there is a good deterrent effect to be had either way by amending the electoral law in respect of prisoners. I don’t believe that many people would be more likely or less likely to commit a crime on the basis that they would be able to vote more frequently or at an earlier stage, and so on.

But I do think that the aim of punishment—even though that term is rather heavy—is a valid aim, of course, of our criminal justice system, and there is a symbolic element of that. The removal of the electoral right for the period that a person is incarcerated is symbolic of the fact that the person has divorced themselves from the rule of law such that they have failed to follow the law of the land made by those who have been duly elected in previous elections. So it’s not a mere matter of punishment for the sake of punishment; there is a direct, logical connection between the act of saying that a person should not be able to vote while they have been imprisoned for committing crimes against the State and, indeed, against their fellow New Zealanders in a previous period and at a previous juncture.

In that context, it’s significant that people who have been incarcerated for any period of time, including beyond the three-year mark but also up to the three-year mark, have often dozens of different offences against their name, which would indicate a repeated denial of the electoral or constitutional mandate, the so-called social contract that we are governed by, which are the rules of this place, for better or worse and whether we like it or not, on the basis that we have the opportunity every three years to change the Government or, indeed, to reconfirm it—or re-elect it, as the case may be—and, of course the quid pro quo is that we play by the rules of the game. So for those who have not played by the rules of the game to be able to continue to elect a referee, if I can strain a sporting metaphor—here we are in New Zealand and it’s compulsory, of course, to get some sort of vaguely rugby-related reference in there—it seems, to me, a bit stretched.

A couple of other issues I think do deserve and require the serious attention of the House. One is the Treaty of Waitangi angle and, specifically, the tribunal’s finding in relation to the law as it currently stands. I do want to acknowledge that it is a problem for this country and, indeed, for those of us who sit in this House, if we take the problems of the country seriously, that there are a disproportionate number of Māori in our criminal justice system. However, to me, it seems appropriate that this be addressed by this House and by the Government of the day in relation to the underlying factors that lead to crime, as well as criminal actions themselves in the moment—frequently expressed as causes of crime versus crime itself. So in policing, in the practice of convicting in a court of law, and, of course, in sentencing, the law should of course have no disproportionate effect on any person relative to the outcomes that have transpired on the ground.

But I think it’s a mistake to say that because we have these prior difficulties whereby we have a disproportionate number of a particular ethnicity in prison, we should change the law or we should take that into account in the law that applies to those people. I believe that those are separate issues within the criminal justice system, but I do want to acknowledge that a number of submitters did make points about the disproportionality, at least on a numerical basis, and, of course, the constitutional implications from that.

I’m less persuaded by the argument that the law has been said to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That may be so, but, of course, this legislature is in the business of making law—indeed, that’s exactly what “legislature” means. So it’s consistent with my views more generally on the right or the desirability of our senior courts to be pronouncing on the suitability of laws in this place, such that I would be troubled by the thought that we legislate here to keep on side with the judiciary, who, rightly, apply laws and, rightly, consider human rights implications, but who do not have the role within our constitution of deciding what legislation ultimately is appropriate, given all the factors at play that of course we must take into account here.

It’s worth noting that a large number of the submitters who were in favour of the bill actually would have had it go much further and to say that if you’re going to have those who have been incarcerated for less than three years voting, then, actually, logically speaking, we should allow it for prisoners who have been incarcerated for any length of time. Of course, that’s a perfectly logical argument, and I think it probably speaks to the political dimension of what the Government-related parties have been grappling with, such that they have reached a compromise, I believe—and I use that term “compromise” not in a particularly kindly fashion but also just to reflect the reality that they’ve had to, basically, come to something that will get across two different views on either side of the Cabinet table, or the Government table more generally.

Really, I think there’s a good argument to be had for saying that prisoners should either be able to vote or not be able to vote, according to whether it is, as the Waitangi Tribunal would have it, a matter of proportionality for the Māori population, or if it’s a matter of New Zealand Bill of Rights Act consistency. So why we have this strange halfway house whereby prisoners with up to three years’ worth of incarceration should be allowed to vote but not those who are in longer makes no sense in terms of the arguments that we’ve heard from the other side of the House today.

If we were being logical, and going with the argument that we’ve heard previous to today from those on the Government side, whether it was through questioning at the Justice Committee or other advocacy in this House, the logical outcome would be to say that, well, if we want people to be able to vote so that they are having a say indirectly on the laws of the land at the time they are released, then the logical thing to do is to say that prisoners should be allowed to vote in their last three years of their sentence. So we’ve got an anomaly with the bill that’s now in front of us for its current reading that says, in fact, what we’re going to have is a bill that says it matters when you were convicted as to the number of elections, potentially, that you will vote in, but if you were convicted for more than four years, you won’t get to vote in the last three years of your sentence. So that argument doesn’t stand up in terms of what has actually been put forward.

I do just want to touch on a couple of other issues that have been made at various points of the debate, a little bit today and a little bit of previous engagement as well. One is the point about enrolment on the electoral roll. I think it’s a good one, and the select committee members on both sides of the select committee table were in agreement with points made by those who say that, well, if we want people to reintegrate into society after they have been released and to be fully functioning, fully participating members of society, then they should be re-enrolled automatically. That was not a contentious point among the committee, so I think that is a thing that we are able to agree on.

The Minister has emphasised it from the angle of the Treaty of Waitangi. I would say that as a matter of double jeopardy, we don’t want to continue to punish people after they have been at Her Majesty’s pleasure. They’ve served their time, they’ve done their time, and they can move on, but until such time as that’s taken place, it’s not appropriate.

Other arguments in relation to the unpublished roll I think are fair, but we should have an equal system whereby everyone is judged on a criterion of safety for that.

I thank the gallant member for his contribution.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I think it’s really important, firstly, to contextualise this Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. What this bill does primarily is reverse a change that was made under the former National Government in 2010, notably by way of a member’s bill in the name of Paul Quinn, a former National Party MP. But this bill reverts us mostly to the status quo that New Zealand electoral law was at in 2010, that being having an arbitrary level of serving a prison sentence of under three years meaning that you have the opportunity to vote.

I just will front-foot the fact that of course the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand will be supporting this. We have always supported the human rights of New Zealanders to engage in our electoral system. We also currently have a member’s bill in the name of Golriz Ghahraman, Green MP, which would take this further to instate the rights of all prisoners to vote, to have a say in the society that we will seek to ultimately reintegrate them back into.

I want to address a few of the points that were raised by members of the Opposition, and I really have to ask them if they genuinely believe this stuff or if they’re just attempting to rationalise this position of opposition. The first one: I want to shout out across the aisle to my contemporary from the Auckland University law school, Simeon Brown. Neither of us, I believe, actually went on to practise law, but Simeon has the same level of understanding that I do with regard to criminal and advanced criminal law, that being primarily academic. On that point, you heard from the member Simeon Brown that, apparently, folks who are committing crimes are somehow going to contemplate whether they are going to have the right to vote when they’re deciding to commit this crime. Interestingly enough, that was a point that ended up being contradicted by another speaker of the National Party, that being National MP Chris Penk, who said that that equation wasn’t quite a calculus that came across people’s minds when they were committing crimes.

The other thing that I just really need to ask the member Simeon Brown—who, I’d note, I’ve actually come to speak to in his office about something such as drug law reform and different approaches to it, noting that our criminal justice system is broken and tackling with these very deep social issues. He made the really interesting statement that, you know, these people who commit crimes deserve to have the vote taken away from them. But even Mr Simeon Brown, who I sat in law school with, will understand that two people can commit exactly the same crime but not receive the same punishment. That is why, Mr Speaker, as you rightly called out, I offered across the Chamber the point to Mr Simeon Brown that he should be reflecting on how sentencing operates, that being, in this country—for those who aren’t aware—you go before the courts to be found guilty or not guilty of a crime. If you are found guilty of that crime, you then go through a process known as sentencing. In sentencing, you are to be considered within the context of aggravating and mitigating factors. Those aggravating and mitigating factors are largely things such as access to familial support. They are things such as having a home to go back to. They are things such as the ability to enrol in education or to have an employer that will stand by you.

By any other name, these particularly mitigating factors are, in essence, a semblance of support or, arguably, privilege that certain people have access to and others don’t. This is a really core, fundamental point for us to reflect on about continuing to perpetuate intergenerational injustice and trauma, as our criminal justice system has continued to do and therefore failed communities on—particularly Māori—for so long. So I find it really rich to be hearing about something such as the rule of law so frequently being invoked by speakers such as Chris Penk, because, in fact, you can have two people who have committed the same crime, and one of them may go to prison and the other may serve home detention or receive some other form of sentencing. So I really just need the National Party Opposition to reflect on that.

The other point that has been bandied about is around the purpose of prison, and the argument so far progressed by the Opposition is that this is about some furthering of that form of punishment—that people don’t deserve to participate in society, in the social contracts, because we’re punishing them. But, ultimately, regardless of whether you think the purpose of prison is purely punishment or not, you have to reconcile that with the reality that prisoners will ultimately get out, and surely it is far better that they have a stake and an investment in the society that they are seeking to reintegrate back into.

The other argument that’s been raised rather flippantly—and I think is rather disingenuous and quite sad—by members of the Opposition is the point that this is somehow about this Government seeking to rush through all of these new voters to get them on the roll in time for the 2020 general election. I did a wee google and I found out—you know, this is publicly available information, which I’d absolutely suggest that members of the Opposition look into should they like to seek out some evidence, for once—that there are currently registered an eligible 3,772,100 voters in Aotearoa New Zealand. This bill will enable approximately 1,900 people the ability to vote. If we break that down, that is 0.05 percent of the population. Even if they all were to vote for one party, we would be very far away from getting that party anywhere near close to over the 5 percent threshold.

I also think it’s important and quite pertinent to touch on the issue of process, not the least because the Opposition seem to be speaking out both sides of their mouths on this. One of them is that they actually progressed this electoral reform through in 2010 without support from the then Opposition, those being the parties now of Government. But they also have neglected to mention that this bill progressed through its typical select committee process. There were over 2,000 submissions and, in fact, 18½ hours of evidence heard by the Justice Committee—I’d mention, ably chaired by the Hon Meka Whaitiri—it is also an issue that has gone before the High Court and has been considered by the Waitangi Tribunal, and I think it is really actually important that I highlight and echo the sentiments raised by my colleague from New Zealand First, Mark Patterson, with regard to how this was the first law in Aotearoa New Zealand, that I am aware of, that received a declaration of inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 from the New Zealand courts.

There is simply not a leg to stand on for the Opposition in opposition to this legislation, except for continuing to bandy about this bizarre, perverse ideology of so-called criminal justice that does not actually seek to remedy any of the problems that are deeply held in our society but continues to punish, isolate, alienate, ostracise, and traumatise folks who, ultimately, we will need to bring back into our communities.

So the Greens are proud to support this Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill today. I just want to leave the House with one question, because what we are still doing today is not going, in our view, anywhere near far enough. We are still placing that arbitrary three-year line on who will be able to vote and who won’t be. The question that I have for the House is: what level of neglect, what level of reduction in human rights, is acceptable? How many human rights are we willing to take away? How many human rights do prisoners enjoy, or should they enjoy, as members of society, as New Zealanders? So, with all of that said, I invite the next speaker, which I assume is from the National Party, to make their contribution and, I hope, address a few of those points.

It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the second reading of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. I’ve had the privilege of sitting on the Justice Committee for this bill in the middle of lockdown, and I must say, I found myself often at times listening to submissions, wondering why we’re here at this time, in the middle of lockdown, when I’ve got constituents messaging me about losing their jobs, and their businesses closing, and here we are talking about the right to vote for prisoners. I think that says a lot about the priorities of this Government.

National has had a longstanding opposition to this law, and we heard that from a select committee submission. I can’t remember the name, but he gave a really good, long-term view of the issue with prisoners’ voting rights over the course of the last few decades, and, yes, we have had some longstanding opposition to this topic. To rationalise it—and the member that just spoke, Chlöe Swarbrick, wanted to see what the rationalisation was for National’s position—it’s pretty simple. If you do a crime, you should do the time that is associated with it, and that time means that you should have certain rights and obligations removed from your livelihood: the right to free movement, the right to association, and the right to vote.

I listened to that member’s speech and I heard not once recognition of the victims of those that have been impacted by those prisoners that are serving in our prisons today. We heard from submissions of those victims—people who have suffered extreme cases of sexual violence—and they were disgusted that we were discussing a law that was giving these people more rights at a time where those victims are still hurting today. I remember vividly, in lockdown, listening to a lady who had suffered extreme sexual violence. It was decades ago, and she’s still suffering the consequences of that prisoner’s actions. So, yes, this side of the House does rationalise that in the case of people committing crimes, we should take away certain rights and obligations that free members of society should have, and they should do the time associated with that.

Now, not only did we have with the substance of this bill but we also had an issue with the process. As this House will be aware, we had a shortened select committee process for this bill, in the middle of lockdown, when most of my community in Northcote were worried about other things to do with their livelihoods, to do with jobs, and to do with incomes. It was not acceptable for there to be a shortened select committee process for this law.

But don’t take my word for it; take the word of the submitters, many of whom were also acknowledging the fact that this was a shortened select committee process and were not happy with the fact that that was the case. We heard from people like former prisoners. We quizzed them and we said, “Well, are you happy?”—are the submitters happy that this is a shortened select committee process in the middle of lockdown—and they said no. So here we are discussing a law that has had undue process by the democratic process in this House, and select committee submitters said that.

So what else can we talk about today? Well, I’ve heard a lot about the impact on Māori. We had submissions—quite well-written submissions—about the disproportionate impact that this has on Māori. I acknowledge the disproportionate amount of Māori in our prisons. Several of my extended whānau have served in prison. But this law is not the solution that’s needed to that challenge. Let me give by way of example other alternatives that already exist today that could be considered as a way to remedy that, and that is around skills training and education. We already, in our prisons, have a deficit of skills of our prisoners. That is why our prisons offer things like release to work or skills training, to give these—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I think we’re getting a bit of a general treatise about prison reform, and I’d now like the member to come back to this bill. I’ll say at the same time that the repetition that I’ve been hearing from the different speeches has become tedious.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So what I’ve been saying is that with what already exists under the law, can we work on educating prisoners on the importance of voting, because that is what it’s going to take for prisoners to come out and integrate into our society. We already do it with other programmes relating to skills, so why don’t we do it with this? So that is what I mean, Mr Speaker, and that was raised by one of the submitters in the select committee.

National opposes this bill. We oppose it because we believe that if you do the crime, you should do the time, and there’s this sense of not acknowledging that victims are also a part of this. Where was the victim’s voice in the design and presentation of this law that we are debating today?

This process has been terrible. The fact that we were in lockdown, when members of Parliament had far more important issues facing constituents, and here we were talking about a law that serves no other purpose—from my side of the House—than to shore up base votes for the Labour Party.

We heard that 1,900 people will be allowed to vote at the next election—

Chlöe Swarbrick: 0.05 percent.

—and, Chlöe Swarbrick, you’re arguing that we extend that to all prisoners.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yes.

So if we take your advice, then it’s actually a massive impact. So you’ve just contradicted yourself there.

As I said, the process for this law has been terrible, at a time when jobs are being lost, when incomes are being halved, and when businesses have been closing, I cannot believe we’re discussing this law. We oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a brief call in support of this bill. It’s a really important bill, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Come on, Falloon.

—I’ll get to you, Chlöe Swarbrick—and I do so noting that this bill was last debated on 18 March. Now, some months have passed since that time, but for those who don’t recall, that was, of course, at a time when New Zealand was in the early stages of the grips of COVID-19, and so what we had was the Government seeking to ram through—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Could I ask members—members are having conversations over there that are sitting four or five benches apart. Stop it.

So what we had was this Government seeking to pass through this Parliament, not measures that would assist in the public health response, not measures that would ensure that we come out of COVID-19 in a good economic situation, and not measures that would assist in job creation, but, instead, a bill that would give prisoners the vote. That carried through, actually, throughout select committee. It was a truncated process. The select committee was held during lockdown, where submitters had to be heard via a Zoom call rather than in person, and for those reasons alone, this bill represents an affront to the democratic ideals that we hold in this Parliament.

Tens of thousands of Kiwis are losing their jobs. Businesses are struggling, many are closing, and yet this Government is making it a priority—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m going to warn this member early. There are a certain set of lines that I’ve now heard probably about 10 times because members are going back to them. They’re to stop and we are to focus on the bill.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A couple of times you have mentioned repetition in debate, and that is true when it comes from the same member. But is it your ruling now that a member who has not at this stage participated in the debate is prevented from raising the issues that are important to that member just because it has been raised—

💬 SPEAKER: I’m happy to deal with it. There have been many rulings in the past that repetition goes across a debate, not just within a speech. I was getting in an early warning for this member.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Can you reference that? Could you provide the reference—

💬 SPEAKER: Yes, there’s a very good ruling from Assistant Speaker Mallard at one stage—I can’t remember the debate—but it was at a time when the Hon Phil Goff was in the House. I think it was the fifth time a particular set of lines had been used, and in that particular case it was because he was the fifth member to read the explanatory note.

Yet this Government are making a priority out of passing legislation to give prisoners the vote. This is an extremely confused piece of legislation. When people are sentenced for a crime, they give up certain rights in our society. Some of those have been touched on this morning. They are the rights of freedom of association, freedom of movement, and, of course, this Parliament has determined several times—for at least a portion of prisoners—also the right to vote. This is where this bill is confused, because it doesn’t actually give all prisoners the right to vote; it limits it to only those who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of less than three years.

I’ve been sitting here for some time during this debate and I read through the debate on the first reading speeches, and nowhere has any MP opposite actually put forward the reason for why it should be restricted to three years. I can completely appreciate Chlöe Swarbrick’s point of view that all prisoners should be allowed the vote, and that’s a valid point of view to have. But nowhere has any MP opposite put forward why three years should be the case. The best we have heard came from Clare Curran in the first reading speeches, where she said the threshold of a three-year jail sentence means that those prisoners will be able to vote on the Government that will be in power when they are released. Now, that defies logic, because the same could be said for any prisoner who’s given any length of sentence if they are to be released in the three years prior to an election—that they should be able to vote in an election when they are going to be released within the three years subsequent to that. An example would be that if someone was sentenced 20 years ago to prison and they’re due for release next year, the logic behind Clare Curran’s statement would be that that person should be able to vote in the upcoming election in September.

In an earlier debate, Chlöe Swarbrick, in one of the reasons for her support of this bill, said that prisoners are treated differently depending on the sentence that they’re given. She identified, I think, home detention as one of those. But I just want her to reflect on the fact that this bill does exactly what she doesn’t want. This bill does determine that voting rights will be given to people, depending on their sentence. If someone’s given 37 months in prison, they won’t be able to vote, but if someone’s given 35 months in prison for the same crime, they will be able to vote.

Chlöe Swarbrick: It’s better to have something than nothing.

So it’s better to have something, she says. Well, actually, what Ms Swarbrick is doing is voting against the very ideals that she claims are the reasons that she’s voting for this bill. This bill does exactly what she doesn’t want—it treats prisoners differently depending on their sentence.

The Government have failed to answer the logical questions of why this bill is needed. They’ve failed to answer the logical questions of why three years is the line that’s drawn. It’s a confused bill, made a priority by this Government at a time when this Parliament should be devoting its attention to far more important matters.

I strongly commend this bill to the House because I believe that all citizens have the right to vote if they meet minimum standards and if they so choose.

The question is—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: Mr Speaker.

—that the—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: Mr Speaker.

Oh, the Hon Nathan Guy.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m here, up the back of the Opposition benches.

💬 SPEAKER: I’ve been there.

Yes, yes. I was once here too, about 15 years ago—in fact, in this seat just here—and in a matter of months, I’ll be saying goodbye to this House for the final time.

But I’m not here to give my valedictory this morning, under urgency; I’m here to talk about a very important bill that we are debating in urgency. I guess the first question I would put to the House is—

💬 SPEAKER: We’re not in urgency.

Oh, we’re not in urgency? OK. Thank you for clarifying that—an extended sitting of the House, I think, is the correct term. For those in the public who might be used to tuning in at 2 o’clock on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to listen to the Parliament, this is an extended sitting session because the Government feels that this bill is very important to see passed before the general election, and we would argue the fact that we have some grave concerns about this bill.

In fact, it’s been interesting listening to the debates this morning on this particular bill. On one side of the House, we have the Government proposing human rights and talking about discrimination against Māori, and on our side of the House we say that, well, actually, when a criminal has been sentenced to serve in prison, their freedoms should be taken away from them. We know that the State actually determines what happens in society with taxpayers’ money—funding for schools, hospitals, roads, and the like—and of course voters have the choice: if they don’t like the mandate that they’ve given to politicians and the Government of the day, every three years they can indeed vote. We know there is a general election coming up on 19 September, but why on earth should a prisoner that’s costing society about $100,000 a year be given the right to vote?

Now, I remember Paul Quinn, who was in this House—a real character—and I catch up with “Quinny” occasionally. He had a louder voice than me. He proposed a change that went through the Parliament under the National Government, and here we are yet again. It’s sort of like déjà vu—and I heard Nick Smith talking about this earlier in this contribution—right back to the 1970s, when there were changes and different stripes of Government coming in. So now we find ourselves debating this mere fact now.

I was interested to hear from those that have sat on the Justice Committee about this process and a real debate about the three years, because this bill allows a prisoner that has been sentenced to less than three years the ability to vote—that’s, on estimations, about 1,900 voters. Now, why three years—or why at all—and that’s been something that’s been well traversed in this Parliament this morning. But I think that is a fair question. Why three years? Because when you think about a prisoner that’s been sentenced for three years—and those listening might think, “Well, that’s perhaps not a harsh sentence for someone—imprisoned for three years.”, but let’s give some examples. Those are likely to be sentences for sexual assaults, robberies, family violence, and other sexual-related offences. So these are criminals that have been apprehended, have gone through the sentencing, and who are now in prison. Taxpayers paying for them to be in prison, and should they be given the right to vote? We on this side of the Parliament say no, because their freedoms have been taken away from them.

The next point that I wanted to make was one that was, I think, traversed a little bit earlier on, which was about the aspect that prisoners are given the right to vote, but what about victims—what about them in this debate and their consideration? It was an important point that I wished to make, which is to do with clause 8 of this bill, which is the unpublished roll. So prisoners, under clause 8, are given the automatic right to go on the unpublished roll, but those victims that they have harmed, in some of these sentences, don’t have the automatic right to go on the unpublished roll. They have to, indeed, apply. Now, that, in my mind, is a matter of fairness. That doesn’t sit squarely with me that, indeed, that process is fair.

Can I talk about one aspect in this bill that I actually do support. Those listeners will be thinking, “Well, that’s fascinating. National’s standing up here opposing this bill.”, but we do support one aspect of it which means that those prisoners, after their term of imprisonment, will be helped by corrections staff to fill out the necessary paperwork to re-enrol, to get on the roll to be able to vote. Now, we know that for some people in prison, numeracy and literacy is an issue for them, so I think it’s fair and appropriate that corrections staff will be holding their hands—not literally—and helping fill out the form for these prisoners when they reintegrate back in society, so they know that they will be eligible to vote. Otherwise—let’s face it—that will be a challenge for some of these former prisoners to be able to re-enrol. We know that getting around the paperwork and the bureaucracy is an important part, and that is one aspect of this bill that the National Party does support.

Summing up my comments now, we have some grave concerns about this bill. We feel that it’s been a rushed process, particularly through COVID-19. We’ve heard various contributions from our side of the Parliament this morning and this afternoon, saying—

Order! The time has come for me to leave the Chair at the end of this extended sitting.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Wednesday)