Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time.

This bill does a small number of things consequent upon the passage and the Royal assent being given to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill last week. What this bill does: whereas the previous bill restored the right of prisoners sentenced to sentences of less than three years to vote, what that bill did not do, following the voting last week, was allow prison officers or prison managers to inform only those who are qualified to go on the roll to be informed of their right to go on the roll. In fact, what happened was Parliament supported the proposition that, even though it had voted for some prisoners previously disqualified from voting now to vote, all prisoners were obliged to be advised of their right to be on the roll even if they’re disqualified. So this bill rectifies that and allows prison officers to gather information and provide that to the Electoral Commission.

And then the other thing this bill does is restores the power of the Electoral Commission to remove from the electoral roll those who are disqualified from voting. The voting in Parliament last week took that power that was in the current legislation and removed it, and so we were left, after last week’s voting, and in the legislation as it then was at the end of the third reading, with a situation where prisoners serving more than three years were disqualified from voting but those prisoners were obliged to be advised that they could enrol, and prison officers were obliged to do that and to collect their information and to provide it to the Electoral Commission. And then also, as a consequence of last week’s voting, the Electoral Commission lost its power to remove from the roll those disqualified from voting.

I think it’s salutary to learn how it is that we got here. The Electoral Act was changed in 2010. Let’s remember, too, just how important the Electoral Act is. It governs the rules of our elections. It goes to the heart of our democracy. So when this Parliament is dealing with matters of electoral law, it should not act trivially; it should act solemnly and seriously. So the law was changed in 2010—as a consequence, I might add, of a member’s bill in the name of a National Party member. No consensus was achieved, but the majority prevailed and the law was changed.

That law was the subject of scrutiny on a number of occasions, by no lesser institutions than the High Court of New Zealand, the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, the Supreme Court of New Zealand, and the Waitangi Tribunal—all of whom found that law to breach our international obligations, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the Treaty of Waitangi. It was found to be manifestly unfair and unreasonable. There is a basic principle underpinning the law as it was up to 2010, and that is that if you are a prisoner at the time of an election but you are sentenced to less than three years, you are going to be free before the next election and you should have the right to have a say on those who are leading the country that you’re going to be released into. That’s the fundamental principle. It wasn’t what Parliament decided in 2010, but it had decided this year. So this legislation went through.

In fact, what is interesting is the fact that the idea of prisoners having the right to vote restored to them was the subject of submissions in the select committee’s inquiry into the 2017 general election, as well as previous electoral legislation that went to the Justice Committee. What is also interesting is that, when this legislation came into the House and went to the select committee—when I say this legislation: the bill passed last week—it was the subject of more than 2,500 submissions, 78 percent of which supported the legislation, wanted that change, wanted the manifest unfairness approved in 2010 to be removed and the principle restored that those serving sentences of less than three years be allowed to vote.

Now, one of the things we expect in this House—particularly amongst the two major parties—is that we act and we vote and we conduct ourselves rationally and consistently, in accordance with principle. I know members opposite have said—they said last week, and, in fact, have certainly said since last Wednesday night—that they voted in a way that they have voted before. That is actually not correct, because there is nothing on record to show, for example, that the National Party supports the idea that disqualified prisoners should be required to enrol. The National Party has never voted for that. There is no record in any Parliament in the history of this country of the National Party—at least since 1936—supporting the idea that disqualified voters or disqualified prisoners should be allowed to enrol. And yet they approved a law that said prison officers are obliged to tell prisoners of whatever length of sentence they must enrol, to collect that information, and to pass it to the Electoral Commission. There is no record from any Parliament since 1936 of the National Party supporting the idea of the Electoral Commission not having the power to remove disqualified voters. But last week the National Party voted for it.

You see, the thing is this: when we come to this Parliament as responsible MPs, we do not come here to conduct ourselves as if we are in the junior common room of high school. We come here because we have a responsibility to voters. When we are considering issues of our electoral legislation that goes to the heart of our democracy, is it too much to ask that all members conduct themselves responsibly and properly and in a principled way—because, with all due respect, that did not happen last week?

Who could predict that the grand old party that sits opposite, a party with a great reputation, the party of John Key and Bill English, the party of Dame Jenny Shipley and Jim Bolger, the party of Sir Robert Muldoon, and the party of Doug Graham—great justice Minister—the party of Sir Keith Holyoake and Sir John Marshall—who would have thought that the party of those towering figures of New Zealand politics would conduct themselves in the way they did last week?

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Me.

Well, I tell you, Mr McAnulty, I think some members opposite embarrassed that great party last week. We might be political opposites, but the great thing about the parties in this House—I can say of the Labour Party and the National Party and New Zealand First and the Greens—is that we come here with respect for the institution of Parliament and we come here to conduct ourselves responsibly and professionally and with a sense of principle. Sadly, that did not happen.

Now, I expect members opposite—or one, at least—will leap up and defend themselves and say “chaos” and “shambles” and all the rest of it, because they are covering up their own absolute craziness. Anybody looking at that pattern of voting last week will look at that and say no one could possibly explain how you could justify those positions. You would have to be completely and utterly mad to think you could vote that way.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: And I’m not—and I’m not. So don’t bring me into the debate.

Madam Speaker, I apologise for casting any adverse reflection on yourself. I’m still getting to grips with the rules around the use of the word “you”. But can I just say this: anybody looking at the voting pattern last week—last Wednesday night—of the National Party would say, on an objective basis, that that voting pattern reflects something that looks like a level of craziness or stupidity that we don’t often see in this House. In fact, I struggle to think of an occasion when any party has voted so haphazardly, in such a crazy sort of way, like some sort of, you know, mad mosaic gone completely crazy. I have never seen anything like it. But that’s what happened last week, and this House ought to look with considerable embarrassment at what happened.

I say to members opposite: over the next 10 weeks, you are going to troll around the country and say, “Look at us. We can do a better job.” But, actually, what they proved last week is that the state they’re in right now they are unfit to govern. They cannot make up their mind what they believe in. They have no principle, and they think that it’s OK to muck around and faff around with this Parliament, its procedures, its laws, and our electoral law. That reflects poorly on each and every one of them, because none of them stood up and said, “This is a little bit crazy. Can we just sort of get back to common-sense world?”, because they’re not in common-sense world; they’re in a different world. They’re in a world that none of us has ever seen in this House before, because they voted in a way that was just completely—well, I would say deranged.

So now we have to clean that up. A responsible Government comes in and says, “We’ve let the children have their say. Now we come in and we clean it up.” I commend this bill to the House.

I just want to say to the member that I’m not sure that the word “faff” is quite a parliamentary term.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: I have used it before, but I take the point.

Have you? Not when I’m in the Chair, I’m sure.

National’s position on the contentious issue of prisoner voting has been known for a very long time. We have a simple view, and it is that, if someone has offended against the laws of the land to the point where a judge has sentenced them to prison, they should neither be able to stand for this Parliament nor should they be able to vote in a general election.

That’s not an unusual position. That is the position in the United Kingdom. That is the position in the majority of liberal democratic countries around the world. It is a position that we have argued for more than a decade. It is the position that has been part of the law of the land of New Zealand for more than 80 percent of our country’s history. And it is a total shambles that a law that got the assent of the Governor-General only yesterday is now having to be amended today, and no amount of bluster and rudeness and personal attacks will take away from the Minister of Justice, who took a bill through a third reading of this Parliament, knowing—

💬 Simeon Brown: He voted for it!

—and voted for it—it was bad and contradictory law.

Let me firstly deal with the issue of why National opposes prisoners voting. The average number of offences that are committed by a person that is sentenced to prison in New Zealand is 24 convictions. The sort of notion that’s presented by the Government—that these are people that have made one little mistake in their life—our corrections law makes plain that the only people that go to prison are those where the judge believes that all other options have been extended and will not work. And, secondly, it’s a very practical issue. I’ve been privileged to be Minister of Corrections and I have talked to many corrections officers, and they would say it is impracticable to run an election in a prison. The nature of prisons is that we limit people’s freedom of association; we limit their access to information. We can’t have political candidates of all persuasions going through our prisons and campaigning for votes—it’s not practicable. And equally, on this side of the House, we think it is a theoretical nonsense for prisoners to be able to stand for Parliament. Parliament is a serious, full-time job. It’s something we have to do with a great deal of energy and effort, and the idea that someone who’s serving a sentence in prison is able to stand for Parliament is a nonsense.

Now, the Government argues that somehow the mess that has required this bill is somehow the responsibility of the National Party. Let me go through exactly what did happen at the committee stage. The Green Party introduced a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) not just to give those who had served a sentence of less than three years the vote but to give all prisoners the vote. National does not support that position; we voted against that Supplementary Order Paper. At Part 2 of the bill, the Green Party had an SOP that removed six clauses in the Government’s bill. We don’t support the bill; so we voted for the Green Party SOP to gut Mr Little’s bill. Now, somehow Mr Little argues that us voting against his clauses was somehow unprincipled—that somehow it’s the responsibility of the National Party, because there’s a row going on between Labour and their Government support party, the Greens, and they can’t vote together; somehow we on this side of the House should vote for provisions with which we do not agree to patch up a mess of a coalition.

Now, I’ve seen some amazing speeches in my day, but let me make something very plain to the Government: it is not the Opposition’s job to vote for bills or clauses with which we disagree to patch up the chaos in the three-party coalition that makes up the Government. But here’s the more extraordinary part: here’s the Parliament in urgency, fixing a bill that was botched in urgency. What we did at the third reading of the bill is we said to the Government, “Your bill does not make sense. Your bill—because parts of Mr Little’s bill have been lost—creates a legal nonsense.” We said, “It’s going to make prison officers behave illegally, and so what we should do is refer the bill back to a select committee and fix it.” We sought leave of the House for the bill to go back to the Justice Committee so that the fiasco that had been created in the controversy and disagreement between the Labour and Green parties could be fixed. And did the Government admit there was a mistake at third reading? Did the Government allow the bill to be referred back to the select committee? They simply bulldozed on under urgency and rammed it through the House.

There is a rule in this Parliament that says that you do not have the third reading of a bill immediately after the committee stage. That is there for good reason. That is there so that then a Government or Parliament can reflect on a bill after the committee stage, ensure that the way in which the various bill has come together is sensible. The Government chose to overrule that good process, ram the bill through under urgency, and it is solely their responsibility that we now have a nonsense bill on our law book.

But let’s just reflect on the process that this bill has been through. The issue of prisoner voting has not suddenly come up in 2020. If anybody looks at Labour’s election policy in 2017, they said it was an issue then. Why did they not introduce a bill in 2017? Or 2018? Or 2019? Why is it that the Government only, at the last moment, in the beginning of this year, bring a bill and then shorten the process and try to rush it through the Parliament? And it was worse than that. The Parliament was adjourned with the greatest national emergency that our country has seen in a generation, and when the Parliament was adjourned, the Leader of the House said the only legislation that would be progressed during the suspension of the Parliament would be that which was vital to addressing the COVID-19 emergency—that’s what we heard in this House. Then why was it that they insisted that the prisoner voting legislation continue to be rammed through the Parliament while the nation was in an emergency? Can a member opposite explain this to me?

New Zealanders are facing the greatest curtailment of their freedoms in a hundred years. They’re not allowed to leave their home, they’re not allowed to freely associate, they’re not allowed to protest, they’re not allowed to do so many things, and what does the Government say the priority is? The priority is getting prisoners the vote. That was an insulting process. We even had the Minister in charge of this bill writing to the Justice Committee, urging us to rush it through and saying to the committee—letter from the Minister to the select committee saying—“We are not going to be able to provide the normal standard of advice to the committee on this bill.” Little wonder, then, that we ended up with the hashed, shambolic bill that we now have.

Here is the correct position: we have a shambles in our electoral laws. We have a shambles at the border. We have a shambles in KiwiBuild. We have a shambles with light rail. And if any piece of legislation was going to highlight the incompetence of this Government, it’s that, for the very first time that I’ve seen in 30 years, a law that was only passed last week and received Royal assent yesterday is facing amendment today. And no matter how much spin, no matter how much nastiness oozes from the Government benches, it is the parties of Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens that voted for a shambles of a bill at its third reading. I’m proud that National voted against that bill. It was a mess, and this mess simply illustrates the extent to which the Labour Party will play tricks with the electoral law to try and score a few more hundred—

The member’s time has expired.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, ōtirā, ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. The only shambles in this House is that contribution by that former Minister—the only shambles in the House is the contribution of that member, Dr Nick Smith, who just resumed his seat.

Let’s come back to the principle of the bill. The principle of the bill means that people sentenced to less than three years in prison will have their voting rights returned. That’s the bill. But I don’t just agree with that. It was the law in this nation before 2010. It was the law of the nation in 2010, in this country, that every prisoner had the vote under three years. But who changed that? That side changed it. That side changed it despite their own member Christopher Finlayson talking about the breach of human rights. But it also talked about how the High Court, the appeal court, the Supreme Court, and the Waitangi Tribunal really went to task about the law disenfranchising prisoners. So the Minister has brought this bill to the House, and that is what we are debating in this first reading: to return to prisoners sentenced to less than three years the right to vote, as in 2010.

I want to talk just briefly about the select committee, because there have been some allegations in this House around the short process. It couldn’t be anything wrong or misleading in terms of the people in Aotearoa New Zealand who submitted on this bill—2,500 written submissions. And not only that; over 17½ hours that we heard in evidence.

I also want to pick up on that former member who made the allegations around the lack of support from the justice ministry. They couldn’t be further from the truth. We had a very comprehensive departmental report and officials supported the select committee throughout its deliberation of this bill.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: They couldn’t give a full report.

Yes, they did—yes, they did. But I want to just, in the time that I have, talk about what the side means in terms of voters and the role of rehabilitating many of our prisoners back into society. Because we heard that submission from many submitters, around the importance of connecting prisoners under three years back into their communities, back into their families. This is what this bill is doing.

But it’s also part of a broader suite of electoral reforms, like being able to enrol on election day. Who’s done that—who’s done that? The coalition Government did that. It was also around putting ballots in supermarkets and making it accessible for many people. This bill should be seen in the wider context that we believe the democratic rights of Kiwis to vote is critical, and that’s what we’re debating here in this first reading.

I’m not going to comment about the shenanigans that went down last week. The Minister’s ably covered that in his contribution. But I am proud to be on the side of this House, in the coalition Government, that recognises the democratic right of prisoners serving less than three years’ prison sentence.

I want to again acknowledge the 2,500 people that submitted, but particularly want to acknowledge the young people that appeared before our select committee that talked about human rights, that talked about the bill of rights of all New Zealanders, who also talked about the importance of the Waitangi Tribunal. I couldn’t be more proud of the younger people coming through this country who take the view around electoral law, around rights of prisoners, that seriously. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this bill, and I just want to refute a couple of the comments the chair of the Justice Committee, Meka Whaitiri, made. She made out like the Justice Committee was going through a very rigorous process in regards to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. What she didn’t tell the House is that legislation regarding sexual violence and first responders was delayed so that this bill could be rammed through during lockdown. Whilst New Zealanders were being locked down in their homes to fight COVID-19, her committee, on the instruction of the Minister, was ramming this piece of legislation—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member who’s just resumed his seat has made an assertion that the select committee acted under my instruction. That reflects poorly on me as a member, and I invite you to take action accordingly.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order, the Minister wrote to the committee. In the letter from the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, he urged that we pass the bill quickly. He said in his letter that officials would not be able to provide—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That is just not correct, Dr Smith!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! This is in silence. [Interruption] Order! Have you finished?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: The letter from the Minister to the select committee urged that the bill be progressed rapidly. It said two other bills should be slowed down. It also said that the officials would not be able to provide the normal standard of departmental report. I think the easiest way to clarify the point would be for me to seek leave to table the justice Minister’s letter.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): My ruling on this—[Interruption] Please. My ruling on this is that this is a new bill. The bill that went to select committee was a different bill. We are now in urgency debating the No. 2 bill.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m on my feet. Wait. And we’ll go back to Simeon Brown.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We’ve just heard from Meka Whaitiri. During her contribution, she made absolutely no reference to the bill that’s currently before the House. Her entire speech was about the No. 1 bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): That’s not a point of order. Those are debating points.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The select committee had a letter sent to the select committee from the Minister urging them to make changes to their work programme during lockdown. The point here is that, during lockdown, the Justice Committee was spending its time focused on giving prisoners the right to vote rather than focusing on far more pressing issues that New Zealanders would want them to be focused on, and during a time when the Leader of the House had said that all non-COVID business would be set aside. And this comes to the process that we are facing with this bill now. The previous bill was rushed and is bad law, and that side voted for the bad law at third reading, and now here we are again voting for another bill, rushing it through under urgency to try to fix up their mistakes, which they supported at the third reading.

The history of this legislation has been rushed, the history of this legislation has been under urgency, the history of this legislation has been to get things through at all costs before the election, because they’re hungry for a few more votes on election day. The first reading of the previous bill was done under an extended sitting, the select committee was rushed through during COVID-19, the second reading was done through extended sitting, and the third reading was rushed through with the committee of the whole House during urgency last week. And I want to remind the House what the Supplementary Order Paper did which was passed by the Green Party. It required Corrections to assist all prisoners to enrol to vote if they are sentenced—all prisoners were required to be enrolled to vote, or Corrections was required to assist them—whereas the legislation said that only prisoners who had sentences of less than three years were actually required to be enrolled. So, essentially, the bill which was passed by the Government was an unworkable piece of legislation, and they had the opportunity last week, when Dr Nick Smith gave them the opportunity, to send the bill back to select committee to be able to fix up that mistake and that error.

Essentially, what that bill did, which the New Zealand First Party voted for, was it said to the prison managers that all prisoners had to be told that they should enrol to vote—all prisoners. The New Zealand First Party voted for that piece of legislation. The New Zealand First Party voted for a piece of legislation which says that Brenton Tarrant should be enrolled to vote. That is what the New Zealand First Party voted for last week. They’re going to get up in the Parliament soon and try and make all sorts of excuses about the process and try and blame it on the National Party, but the third reading, prior to that piece of legislation going to Royal assent, was voted for by Darroch Ball and the New Zealand First Party. And they should hang their heads in shame as they speak on this piece of legislation. I look forward to him taking a call and trying to explain to the very few New Zealand First voters left in New Zealand why he did that.

The National Party’s position is very clear on this issue: people who commit a crime in New Zealand, who commit an offence where they are sentenced to prison, lose their right to vote. It’s simple. If you do the crime, you do the time. And that is the simple principle of the matter. The Green Party have a separate principle. They believe that all prisoners should be able to vote, and that’s a fair enough principle. But the Government comes at this from a very strange perspective. Well, that is something which is completely untenable, and it doesn’t matter how many times the Minister tries to stand in Parliament and say there’s a principle around why prisoners who are serving sentences of less than three years is different from prisoners sentenced to longer than three years, there is no principle to the matter. It’s just convenience, and he’s trying to make it more palatable to New Zealand voters rather than to actually be truthful about what he actually wants.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker There’s yet again another reflection on me as a member of this House, that what I have said is not truthful, and I take offence at that assertion.

Tim van de Molen: Speaking to the point of order, in terms of the member’s aggrieved feelings, I would just draw your attention to Speakers’ ruling 53/3. It says: “The cause for a matter to be withdrawn … is not that one member feels aggrieved”. Effectively, the member’s reaction is, basically, irrelevant according to that. It’s whether the House itself is affronted. And that’s not the case. The member here being disappointed—

💬 Darroch Ball: It’s unparliamentary language.

Tim van de Molen: Well, that’s the reality of it. It’s a debating point; not a matter to be withdrawn.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The member made a statement, which I won’t repeat, but in my opinion is out of order, and the member should withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise, Mr Speaker. The Government is feeling very precious about this piece of legislation. And the Minister finds it offensive with what’s said, but when he calls me “deranged”, I also find that offensive, for the way the voting was done. He voted for the bill at the third reading last week. I did not. The National Party did not, but he did, and the New Zealand First Party did. They voted for it at third reading. Knowing that the bill was unworkable, they—and the Green Party; they voted for it too. All three governing parties voted for this piece of legislation at third reading. That’s what I call deranged—that’s what I call deranged—when they vote for a piece of legislation which they know is unworkable and knowing they have to come back to the House to fix it up and use urgency.

I was talking about our principle on this side of the House. Our principle is very clear: that those who commit offences in New Zealand, those who commit offences in NZ who are sentenced to prison, lose their right to vote. They lose their right to stand for Parliament—

💬 Darroch Ball: When did you find your principle on that?

And I would like to remind Darroch Ball that he’s standing up for people who have committed, on average, 24 offences to get where they got. That’s what he’s standing up for.

A submission from the Sensible Sentencing Trust, where they noted in 2018, 2019—he used to be the bastion of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, but no longer any more. He’s only got 1 percent so far. As noted in my written submission, 2018/19, from the Sensible Sentencing Trust, there were 1,929 serious violent offences sentenced that year to three years or less—for crimes such as manslaughter, sexual assault, abduction, and acts intended to cause injury. That’s the type of offenders that the New Zealand First Party is standing up for in Parliament today. This bill, as with the previous bill, has nothing to do for victims of crime. This bill affords more rights to those who are prisoners who have been convicted of serious criminal offences and does nothing for victims of crime. This bill gives a process for prison managers to assist prisoners to get on to the roll. What about victims who want to have some help so that they can have their name put on the hidden roll so that they don’t have to be harassed, so that they can have some privacy? Where’s the process? And he laughs at me when I talk about harassment. There are people in New Zealand who are afraid for their lives because of what offenders have done to them—the criminal acts that they’ve done—and he laughs and says, “Oh, that’s just a joke.” Well, I don’t take this as a joke, Mr Darroch Ball. I take this incredibly seriously, and on this side of the House I am not afraid to stand up for those who are victims of crimes.

The question I was asking: where’s the support from the Government to help people who have been victims of crime to get on to the secret roll, and who want some support in that? They have to go to organisations who volunteer their time to assist them, voluntary organisations who support the victims of crime. But this bill affords more rights to those who have been sentenced to serious offences, and I remind the member: 1,929 serious violent offenders sentenced to three years or less in the 2018-19 year for crimes such as manslaughter, sexual assault, abduction, and acts intended to cause injury, and I will not stand and vote for a bill which affords those people more rights than victims of crime. The New Zealand First Party should hang their heads in shame—

💬 Darroch Ball: Sit down!

And I will not sit down. I will continue to stand up for victims of crime. That member should hang his head in shame for what he voted for last Thursday during urgency, and what he is now voting for again today.

Simeon Brown said something very strange, and I’m still trying to compute it; I’m trying to figure it out. He said that this was a matter of principle—he said this was a matter of principle. Now, what confuses me, and I’m sure it confuses everybody on this side of the House, is whether or not Mr Brown understands the time line of how we actually got to this point.

Let me start way back in 1993, when guess who was in Government? It was the National Party. The National Party was in Government and they voted in a law—let me say this again—the National Party voted in a law, and let me say, not only the National Party, but a member that’s sitting over there was a part of that National Government, who is standing up today, and last week, speaking vociferously against the very legislation he voted for in 1993. The very same legislation, about giving prisoners the vote, for those who had been in for under three years—it’s the very same. Mr Nick Smith stands up in this House today, and last week, saying that it was a matter of principle that they’re voting against it. When did you find those principles, Mr Smith? When did Simeon Brown figure out when National Party found those principles?

Let me keep going down the time line, 2010. Again, the National Party—sorry, 2008—the National Party got into Government. The National Party got into Government in 2008; 2008, 2009, and it wasn’t until 2010 that the National Party decided to change the law. Three years. Three years into their first term, in 2008, they decided to figure out what their principles were, apparently, and changed the law then. It wasn’t because a member of Cabinet, like Nick Smith was, brought it up to the Prime Minister or to Cabinet—because it was a matter of principle, wasn’t it, Mr Smith? This is a matter of principle, right? So why did that member wait three years into the first term to vote for a piece of legislation to change the prisoner voting laws? Why? Answer that question. Riddle me that, Mr Smith. Silence.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because it was a member’s bill.

It was a member’s bill. Well done! It was a member’s bill.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Happy to yield?

It was a member’s bill.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Happy to yield?

It was a member’s bill. It was a member’s bill that was plucked out. It was a member’s bill that was plucked out of the tin by pure luck. The National Party Cabinet that that member was a part of did not want to hear about it. I’m sure Paul Quinn wanted to come and talk to Mr Smith about it—a member of Cabinet—and say, “This is a matter of principle, Mr Smith. We need to have this as a Government bill.” Oh no, it wasn’t a matter of principle back then, but it is now, apparently. Isn’t that right, Mr Smith? So it was a matter of luck, a matter of luck that it was plucked out by the member Paul Quinn; by the member Paul Quinn. A matter of luck.

Now, let me just say something, also, which is quite surprising to me: that Nick Smith stands up today and speaks of his outrage, and last week again of his outrage, about the constitutional changes being made by such a slim majority—such a slim majority. What was the majority back in 2010, when the National Party changed it, Mr Smith? What was the slim majority back in 2010, when the National Party changed the prisoner voting laws? What was it? Today, we’ve got a majority of six, I believe. Is that correct? Six. Guess how many you had, Mr Smith? Five.

Now, the reason why they had five—I hope everybody’s watching—is because two parties, two parties in the Government back in 2010, actually voted against it. They voted against it, Mr Smith—the Māori Party, back in 2010, and United Future voted against that member’s bill, and the one that was a matter of principle for the Government. You know, call me old-fashioned, but when we’ve got members like Mr Smith and Mr Brown standing up, waxing lyrical about it being a matter of principle, I just don’t believe them, because the evidence is to the contrary, Mr Smith and Mr Brown; it is to the contrary.

I just want to say one last thing before I finish up, that I never thought I’d see the day that the National Party, and especially Nick Smith, would stand up and support a Supplementary Order Paper by the Green Party—by the Green Party—on a law and order issue, on a law and order issue. Let it be minuted—let it be noted in the annals of history—that Nick Smith and the National Party voted for, and agreed with, a law and order policy from the Green Party. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s inappropriate to bring the Governor-General into the debate of this House; so I’ll just reflect in general terms on the strange feeling that must have been about to descend on Government House when Her Excellency is asked to sign into law a very similar piece of legislation to that which she would have been asked not that long ago—yesterday, in fact, I understand. It’s often been quoted—the original phrase, we understand, of Harold Wilson—that a week is a long time in politics; it’s also quite a long time in the context of electoral law legislation. Actually, for the political geeks out there, apparently Harold Wilson originally made a similar comment back in 1960, some four years before that now-famous saying about the week being a long time of politics, that 48 hours is a long time in politics, which is, funnily enough, about the same period of time that the Government now intends to pass this entire new piece of legislation, amending the other one and, no doubt, have that passed into law and be assented again.

So we’ve got this situation having arisen because a number of lessons, it seems, needed to be learnt. One is the lesson of managing a legislative programme. Now, I haven’t been in the position of being in Government in my time here, either in the general sense of being a member of the party that is in Government or, obviously, being part of the executive—I’m sure it’s only a matter of time on both fronts, he said modestly, albeit facetiously, in the case of my own career.

💬 Greg O’Connor: And optimistically.

I hear the candidate for Ōhāriu adding in his two cents’ worth. There have been three years in this. It’s many times been said that three years is not long enough for a parliamentary term—I think there are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides of that debate—but the reason that we’re here today, relitigating, so to speak, the legislation that was passed last week, is because it was relatively late within the three-year term that the legislation was even brought to the table, so to speak. One could speculate that that was the result of negotiations that needed to take place between Government parties. I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there, but, suffice to say, this is not a new issue; so it does seem strange that we’ve ended up with this somewhat indecent haste, as it’s turned out to be, that the legislation was passed the other day, and it’s now being re-passed.

As I say, one might speculate on the cause of that, but it’s probably helpful if I move on to other matters—for example, the fact that the issue that was at the heart of the confusion of last week—let’s just call it confusion and move on—was an issue that had been raised and canvassed extensively at the Justice Committee. The principled position that some submitters brought to the table—and in very convincing terms, I’d have to say. If one were of the persuasion to say that some prisoners should be able to vote, the argument went that so all prisoners should be able to vote. That was obviously the position taken by the Green Party, but not by other members of the Government, as in the parties that are, effectively, forming Government as opposed to being the Government support party—I use the term “support” in a reasonably loose kind of way on this occasion.

And so it was that the Greens put forward an amendment that the other members were not prepared to accept and support, and so we had this bizarre position whereby it was open to the National Party to highlight the principled opposition of many people on the other side of politics, let’s just say, who in many cases would have said that it would be right to highlight the inconsistency, the anomaly of the fact that a law was passing through this House that says that some prisoners are able to vote; others are not, and yet the law change has been characterised by its proponents as being a matter of human rights. Well, if it’s a matter of human rights and if all prisoners are human, regardless of whether they’re serving less than three years or three years or more, surely all prisoners should be allowed to vote.

Now, just to be clear, on this side of the House, we are not arguing that all prisoners should be allowed to vote, but I’m pointing out that the logical inconsistency of the Government’s position, other than the Greens’ position, that was on display last week, and as highlighted by the Greens’ Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and in turn highlighted by our support of the Greens’ SOP in respect of Part 2, has reached its logical conclusion, which is to say that we are coming back to re-debate the issue now.

Now, the Opposition in a parliamentary democracy has few tools at its disposal. I believe that’s fair enough. That’s the nature of democracy. We have elections and there is a winner and a loser, roughly speaking. My side of the House did not win the last election in the sense that the Government was able to be formed by a majority of MPs who were on the other side of the argument, roughly speaking. But, while we don’t have many tools at our disposal, one that we do have is to make deals with other Opposition parties or members—whether or not they are aware of the deals that are being struck in this case—and so it is that we are able to highlight issues that are important to us and to our voters by any means within the rules that we are able. And let us be clear, the rules of this House were strictly observed by us last week in the sense that we voted “Yea” and then we voted “Nay”—well, actually, the other way round; so it was “Nay” and then “Yea”—in respect of motions that were completely, entirely correctly, from a procedural point of view, put before the House.

So, as an Opposition, we don’t have much opportunity to execute our ideas in the sense that we don’t control the wider machinery of Government. We don’t have much platform to set the agenda in the way that a Government has the moral authority. We don’t have access to official advice, at least to the same extent, although I will note that those of us on the Justice Committee, of course, did discuss the issues entailed in this legislation at some length, and we don’t have the majority in this House usually. On the rare occasions that we do have the majority in this House because one of the Government parties has thought it would be helpful to show up at its partners, we would be foolish not to use it to the extent that that can be helpful in raising, for the benefit of the nation, a discussion that has to be had about the inconsistency of what has been brought before us—namely, as I said before, the fact that some prisoners are to be given what has been characterised as a human right and others are not. So it is not a matter of opposition that is mindless, as some have characterised, but rather a rare opportunity for the Opposition not to be voiceless.

Let me finish in this, the first reading speech—and I sense I’ll have other opportunities as the afternoon and evening wears on—with a little analysis that I have taken the liberty of bringing to the House in relation to what it means to negotiate. Now, Supplementary Order Papers are not normally a good tool for negotiation, but the reason that the Opposition, from time to time, will have the opportunity to negotiate with the Government through SOPs is that there are very few other options, but it is a rare opportunity for the Opposition to say, in the way of a negotiation, that party A has something that party B wants. Party B has, within its power, the power to give to party A that thing. Conversely, party B has something that party A wants. In this context—and the analysis goes that the National Party had the ability to vote for the Green Party’s Supplementary Order Paper in both Part 1 and Part 2—the Green Party had something that the National Party wanted, which was the ability to bring to the Table an amendment to the legislation that could help to prove a point about the inconsistency of the law.

And so it was those things that were exchanged: 1) the SOP, on one hand, by the Green Party, and 2) on the other hand, by the National Party, votes to support it. That isn’t the basic nature of a negotiation. A negotiation is an exchange of things that are mutually beneficial, and so it was entirely logical and entirely consistent with the National Party’s position, as stated consistently throughout this House on the first reading of the No. 1 bill—if I can call it that—that we would take an opportunity that was afforded to us, albeit accidentally no doubt by the Government, to highlight the issues that had been raised throughout the select committee process by those supporters of the bill who said that it didn’t go far enough and by opponents of the bill who said it simply didn’t make sense.

So I look forward to speaking further about the inconsistency therein and, in particular, how that relates to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the finding of the Waitangi Tribunal. And so at this, the first reading, without wishing to delay further, we remain opposed to the bill on this side of House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a short call on this bill, given its lack of substance and its administrative purpose, this afternoon. The Green Party position is very well-known and it has been traversed by members from across the House this afternoon, even in this very debate. We see the right to vote as a fundamental human right, in agreeance with the New Zealand High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, and the Waitangi Tribunal. We see it as an obligation of Government to ensure that all basic human rights are provided to us across this land, not based on our race, religion, gender identity, marital status, or any other moral judgment of the Government of the day. That has always been our position. That is in my strengthening democracy member’s bill, which stands for universal restoration of the voting rights for all people in our prisons, among other things, and we were really happy and proud to see that a part of that member’s bill was adopted by the Minister of Justice and the House last week. So that’s all been very well traversed.

There was a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), and it’s very, very usual in an MMP Government that minor parties and members who are outside of Government—as I am—may put up an SOP to further their party’s position on a Government bill and have it be voted upon. Those SOPs are, of course, drafted by the parliamentary drafters and, in this case, it was in two parts and the National Party did vote on one part of that bill. Unfortunately, they didn’t vote on the substantive part; they voted on an administrative part, which would have had the effect of requiring prison staff to inform prisoners that they have the right to vote—who don’t—and retaining prisoners on the roll who don’t have the right to vote, because the substantive part was not voted upon.

So that is an issue that we needed to tidy up, because the rest of the bill has the effect of creating a vast amount of admin work for the Electoral Commission without, in fact, restoring anybody’s right to vote. I had a conversation with the renowned constitutional lawyer and academic Andrew Geddis last week about this, in which he called the effect of this bill the creation of zombie voters, and so we don’t want that. We do want to tidy it up, but not because we are giving up on the fight to restore universal voting rights to all New Zealanders; so we will continue to push on. But we do support this bill because we do believe in having law that’s consistent and effective. Thank you.

National believes that voting is a right. It’s a fundamental right but a right that is not absolute. The law gives more weight to the moral obligation of persons not to commit a crime, rather than the moral obligation of persons to vote. If we consider all the things that we think of as rights, we do agree that there is never an absolute right when even fundamental ones come with responsibilities. There is a social contract between individuals and the State.

The disqualification of prisoners from voting makes it clear that our democratic rights as citizens include the obligation to obey the law. Prisoners, however, would have opted out of that social contract, and often in quite substantial ways. When people break the law and are sentenced to prison, they have not met their side of that social contract, that obligation to society, and therefore should lose the right to vote when they are in prison. By giving rights to voters, it is giving back that right to criminals, that voice to criminals, when it is these very criminals who have taken that voice away from their victims. If someone is sent to prison because he has committed a serious crime, that comes with consequences, and as my colleague Simeon Brown has mentioned, National believes that if you do the crime, you must do the time. Going to prison is a punishment and should be treated as such.

In New Zealand, it’s not easy to be given a prison sentence. You need to have committed serious things to be sentenced to imprisonment, and people who have received sentences of up to three and more years are not small-time criminals. Again, people have committed serious offences—that would mean assaults, violent robberies, family violence offences, and sexual offences. There is a wide spectrum of offences that equates to imprisonment and taking away of a person’s rights. This is why National is opposed to the current bill, bill No. 2: Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). This is why National was opposed to bill No. 1, the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill.

Last week, the Government passed the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act under urgency. The Act intended to reinstate the right to vote to criminals who were sentenced to less than three years’ imprisonment, including, possibly, to vote in the coming elections. We are now in urgency again, this time on new legislation, legislation that aims to amend the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act, that was passed just last week. The question that many will ask, the public may ask, is “Why?” Why are we doing this again? Simply because bill No. 1, which we will call bill No. 1, was passed with a problem in its provisions. Despite this, the bill went on to third reading and was voted on to pass under urgency. The problem with the passage of the bill is that corrections officers are now required to tell prisoners that they are entitled to vote but even as not all of the prisoners that they will have to tell they’re entitled to vote are actually entitled to that vote. It is an inconsistency that needs to be amended. All prisoners will be enrolled under the Act regardless of the sentence that they are going through, and it is unclear whether or not being allowed to enrol will carry with it that ability or right to vote.

Now, after all that’s been said and done, this inconsistency, the problem with the first bill having passed on third reading in urgency—the problem arose from the Green Party’s Supplementary Order Paper carrying two amendments, one that extended the right of voting, returning the right of the vote to all prisoners, and the second taking away the Electoral Commission’s power to remove disqualified voters from enrolling, essentially resulting in an unworkable law. From the very beginning, the National Party has opposed returning or reinstating that right to vote to prisoners, and what has happened through the process of urgency is that in enforcing, in implementing, that belief in not allowing for prisoners to be reinstated to their voting rights, National has voted on the Supplementary Order Paper of the Greens that did contain that provision of requiring that electoral officers be required to inform the prisoners of their right to vote. Even if it results in an inconsistency in the Act, regardless, that was in keeping with National’s position to be against and opposed to reinstating that right.

I think that I would like to finish by saying that, again, we need to be reminded that we have gone through and are going through an extraordinary difficulty in New Zealand, as the world is also undergoing extraordinary difficulty at this time. After the COVID lockdown in New Zealand, and as COVID-19 continues to go through the world, destroying economies because of the lockdowns that countries have needed to get into, because of this extraordinary situation and the time of Parliament coming slowly to an end over the coming recess and the next final three weeks of sessions, one would think that opportunities for urgency and moving bills faster through the process would include bills that address assistance to businesses and possibly anything that would push New Zealand towards economic recovery a little bit faster than it could possibly be. Such a bill that is pushed through urgency allowing for the reinstatement of the right to vote is simply not able to be supported.

This is a split call—I call Ginny Andersen.

E Te Māngai, kia ora, thank you. Now, it’s interesting that we have had a refresh in the National Party with a pledge not to be opposition for opposition’s sake, when that is exactly what has happened with the passage of this piece of legislation. So what this bill now does, this No. 2 bill, is it fixes the mess and the petty politics that the National Party members played last week.

What the National Party did is they voted on three parts of the bill; let’s spell that out for those people watching at home. So number one, they voted not to extend voting rights to prisoners. Then, secondly, they voted for prison managers being required to inform all prisoners that they are qualified to be registered as an elector of a district court—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! A couple of things. Mr King, don’t bring me into the debate. And both of you, and Mr Greg O’Connor, stop the cross-Chamber conversation. If you want to have a conversation, go outside.

Kia ora. And thirdly, they voted to abolish the power of the Electoral Commission to remove from the electoral roll the names of people who were disqualified from voting. What an utter mess. They had no consistency whatsoever. So if in the beginning you were opposed to the fact that prisoners should be able to vote if they’re in prison for three years or longer, come out and say that and stick to it. But the mess that we saw last week is an absolute shambles and it makes a mockery of the democracy that New Zealand has now.

So what we need to be doing here is rectifying what was initially the law, let’s remind everyone, and it was a private member’s bill under the National Party that changed and removed that right. Subsequent to that, we’ve had the High Court of New Zealand and the Supreme Court of New Zealand ruling in favour that prisoners have the right to vote. Personally, I believe that is a good idea for people being able to be reintegrated, to have a new chance, and unnecessarily punitive measures that the National Party are advocating have not only been ruled against by the highest courts in New Zealand but the strong majority of people believe that if we are serious about turning around our prison population, we have to have more legislation like this. I commend this bill to the House.

The Hon David Bennett, five minutes.

That member just has made a lot of assumptions about what people want and believe. The reality is, if somebody commits a crime where they’re put in imprisonment, they lose some rights, and one of those rights is the ability to vote. It’s actually pretty hard to get to prison in New Zealand. Basically, you’ve got to be a large-scale offender or do a major crime, especially under this Government, where they let everybody out of jail and make sure that people don’t get into jail. They’ve had a whole programme over the last three years of indicating to courts and to parole officials and other people in the criminal justice system that nobody should be in jail, because, in their belief, jails should not exist. The Minister even said that. He said that nobody should be in jail, with the Prime Minister, two years ago. They’ve followed that through. They do not actually believe—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The member’s a clown. What a clown.

That is true—that is true. The Minister’s disagreeing now with his colleague. He should listen to his colleague the Minister of Corrections, who does not want anybody in jail. So that’s the fundamental position Labour starts from: they do not believe that jail is an appropriate sanction for people that commit offences, and they will do anything to get people out of jail. They will go and make sure that people have to—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: We’ll put you in jail.

Is there something wrong, Willie?

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: No. I’m just saying we’ll put you in jail.

Oh, yeah. Put me in jail.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No. Order! Don’t bring me into it. I’m not going to jail any time soon.

Well, Trevor probably should go to jail—ha, ha! I can’t say that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s interesting that Willie Jackson wants to put people in jail—just me. But I’d still get to vote under the Labour scheme, wouldn’t I, Willie?

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: No—we’ll stop it.

Yeah, stop it—you’ll stop it. See, that’s the thing. They have all these rules and they can’t even control their own political agenda. They’re in coalition with the Green Party; they can’t work out what’s here or there. They go to this political system, and they were warned in the third reading that they should stop, reflect, and retry the committee stage. But, no, that arrogance that is the Labour Party that you see in them day by day, every time they go out and every time where they talk in this House. This was evident again last week. That arrogance led to us here today actually having to do this bill again.

When the New Zealand economy needs real change, when people are losing jobs, when we’ve got an economy that’s teetering on the edge of recession, this is a time where Parliament should be working for all New Zealanders. It shouldn’t be working in the interests of the Labour Party and their failures and the Green Party as well.

I don’t see the New Zealand First Party doing much at this time either. Now, they’re a party that prides themselves on being a law and order party. Maybe that’s why those New Zealand First members that wish to retain a seat in Parliament—which is, basically, all of them, because this is the best thing they’re ever going to see in life—should probably start talking to David Seymour about options that they could actually parachute on to his list, because that’s their best chance, at the moment, of getting back into this Parliament. The reason they’re not going to get back in is because they have not delivered for their voters, who do not want to see this kind of legislation. They do not want to see prisoners given the right to vote.

💬 Darroch Ball: Urgh.

That New Zealand First member over there that is lucky to be in the House after his escapades this afternoon—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! Don’t even go there. Seriously.

OK. So this bill is one that we should not be debating today. If the Labour Party weren’t so arrogant last week, they would have reflected on their failure and said, “Look, we got it wrong. Let’s try and sort it out then and there. Let’s bring that committee stage back and let’s do it.” But, no, we have to go through a full process; we have to waste the time of this House when we should be doing genuine things for the sake of this country. The people of this country don’t believe that people that have gone to prison should have the entitlement to vote.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: How do you know that?

I can tell you, Willie. I win my seat, and the reason I win my seat is because I reflect what the people of my electorate want. My people do not want prisoners to have a vote. They don’t want that—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

It’s not often I agree with that member, the Hon David Bennett, who probably makes some of the most trite speeches in this House, but he did mention on this occasion how we should be here talking about the economy. We should be working on many of the things that need fixing. I came to Parliament to do just that, as did most of us. And what do we end up doing? We end up with games. As a result of the Hon Nick Smith playing games last week, we are back here doing this.

This bill, the main part of it, was passed last week. Yes, it restores voting rights to those who have less than three years in prison. It prepares them. It’s the only chance that those people who are most alienated will ever—the only thing they’ll ever do that puts them as part of mainstream society. That did pass, but there was some very childish behaviour led by the Hon Nick Smith now being perpetuated by those members opposite. Hang your heads in shame. This is waste. It will be fixed today, as it should be, but please, please don’t treat this place like a playground, like you did recently and force us all into this position, because it is shame on those of you who are endorsing what you did. I commend this bill.

Tim van de Molen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Sorry, my mistake. I should have called that as a split call. I didn’t and so I’ve got it reversed around the wrong way, but I’ll now go to a five-minute call from David Seymour.

Thank you—thank you, Mr Speaker. Just in time. I was sitting in my parliamentary office and I saw that we were up to speech nine on this bill—the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2)—and I have to confess, I had impure thoughts. I thought that perhaps the people of the Parliamentary Service had actually been so negligent that they had actually put up a bill that we debated last week on the ticker tape at the bottom of the TV. I thought, “Surely the good people of the Parliamentary Service would not make such an elementary mistake as to put up last week’s bill as being debated this week?” I thought, “What could possibly have gone wrong? Surely it’s not possible that Parliament is debating the same bill this week that it debated last week? It can’t have been. Surely no one would make a mistake that silly in this Parliament?”

So I ran down to the House to find out what was going on. I asked my good friend Andrew Falloon from Rangitata, a good local MP he is, “Andrew Falloon, what is happening. Why are we debating the same bill that we had last week for registration of prisoners to vote? This can’t be right.” Then I said, “Andrew Falloon, is this like that time just a few weeks ago when we accidentally passed the wrong bill in Parliament? Because this Government, it makes make some terrible mistakes, some very simple mistakes, and sometimes they actually put the wrong piece of paper on the Table and accidentally pass the wrong legislation, and I think that might have happened here.” Well, actually, that’s what happened. For the people sitting at home watching—and I recognise that I’m kind of contributing to the problem here, but it needs to be said—their taxes are being wasted, running this Parliament to have a bill passed that was passed last week.

Why are we passing it again this week? Because when they passed it last week, they made such a tactical error in the way the Government tries to pass its legislation that they accidentally made a piece of legislation that said that if a prisoner has been in prison for more than three years, or sentenced to more than three years, they have to be registered to vote. The prison warden has to register them to vote, but they can’t actually pass a vote—they can’t actually vote. So they’re registered, and the warden has to register them, but they can’t actually vote. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Surely the clever people in Parliament who earn upwards of $162,000 a year, less the pay cut that it took them three months to organise, surely those good people that represent us in Wellington, especially the ones in the Government, wouldn’t make such a silly mistake as to accidentally pass the wrong part of a law? You see, last time they passed a whole wrong law, and this time they just passed part of a wrong law, which—maybe that’s progress for this Labour Government. Who knows? Maybe they’re just making smaller and smaller mistakes towards the election until they reach perfection, and off in the infinite time horizon.

But the difficulty is, and the courts would have had to work this out, it may have made prison wardens criminals. The problem with that is that prison wardens are there in order to ensure that criminals are kept locked up. But then, if the Government makes the prison warden a criminal, what’s going on in our jails? They’d have to lock themselves up. Then the next person who was hired to be a prison warden, every time there was an election, they would break the law and they’d become a criminal, too. So you’d have to get a new prison warden and eventually everybody would be locked in jail because of the logic of this stupid law. So we’re here having a full legislative process to fix this ridiculously amateur-hour mistake made by the Government, and I just wanted to stand up and make the New Zealand people aware that that’s the kind of competence they are dealing with from this Labour Government. I oppose this silly fix up. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Now, recently, we discussed Speakers’ ruling 48/3 in relation to the nature of the split calls, where it’s an “unusual arrangement” that the second person gets the remainder of the time, and I’d just note that at that time we agreed that—or your ruling was that that wasn’t the case in a structured split call agreed between National and Labour. But given the more relaxed or informal nature of this split call, would it be appropriate under that ruling for Mr Seymour to have an additional three minutes that Mr Greg O’Connor did not use?

It’s not a point of order, and I suspect that when you raised it, you may have been aware that that’s not a point of order. No, it is not appropriate. You could seek leave for Mr Seymour to have additional time.

Well, yes, I seek leave for Mr Seymour to be given the additional three minutes that—

Is there any objection? There is.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I was looking forward to another three minutes from Mr David Seymour, particularly because he does acknowledge the very good work of the member of Parliament for the Rangitata electorate. So thank you to the good member for Epsom as well.

I rise to speak tonight on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2), and it feels a little bit like Groundhog Day because, of course, we were here in exactly this position last week, passing legislation—again under urgency—to give some additional prisoners the right to vote. The reason we’re here again tonight is because of a mistake, a muck-up, a stuff-up, on the Government’s part between the three governing parties, and we actually warned them at the time. It shows the perils of passing legislation under urgency—

Chlöe Swarbrick: You didn’t, Andrew, come on. Don’t be disingenuous.

There were plenty of warnings, Ms Swarbrick. In fact, Nick Smith pointed out on several occasions, tried to be helpful, tried to—indeed, he sought leave to send it back to select committee to fix that mistake, Ms Chlöe Swarbrick, and of course it was opposed by the Government parties. But this bill shows the perils of passing legislation under urgency, and of course urgency has its place; we all accept that. There was COVID legislation passed some months ago in response to COVID-19, and of course that’s appropriate—we do use urgency from time to time. But it does come with risk, and this bill highlights some of those risks. Because you had Andrew Little putting forward the bill, which then went to the committee of the whole House and various amendments were voted on, some by Golriz Ghahraman, and one of those amendments was passed by the committee; it was passed by Parliament.

And yet now we’re here in this House seeking to change that amendment, to reverse those amendments. And we’re not alone in doing so, because—I should say, Andrew Little, rather, railed against the use of urgency on occasion; in fact, particularly in relation to electoral law. He said that electoral law should not be subject to urgency; we should not be using urgency to pass electoral law changes. And, of course, the Greens joined him in that. The Greens—I’m old enough to remember—in Opposition used to rail against the use of urgency on many, many occasions, and yet here we are, the three Government parties, led by Andrew Little, the Minister of Justice for this Parliament, who says that electoral law should be passed under urgency and the Greens are joining him in doing so.

We warned them throughout. I said that earlier, Ms Swarbrick. She’s quite wrong. They were warned throughout, they were warned during the committee of the whole House stage, they were warned during the third reading, and yet, unfortunately, the Minister pressed on. The Minister pressed on with that process despite those glaring inconsistencies being pointed out to them, and, as my colleague Tim van de Molen said, Nick Smith offered to fix it. He moved a motion in this Parliament—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excuse me, Mr Falloon; I’m sorry to interrupt you, but you’ve had three minutes. Would you mind speaking to the bill? Thank you. Starting now.

Absolutely, Madam Speaker, absolutely. And so the reason we have this bill, the reason we’re voting on this bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): No, not the reason why we’re here, but what’s in the bill.

What’s in this bill is reversing a change that was passed in this Parliament last week, which could have been fixed, actually, if the original bill, the No. 1 bill as we’ve referred to it tonight, had been referred back to select committee, as Nick Smith offered to do, yet the Minister pressed on despite that.

Now, what this bill does is it fixes the inconsistencies that were raised in Parliament last week, and the amendment that was put forward by Golriz Ghahraman—there were two parts to it. The first part was to, essentially, give all prisoners the right to vote—that wasn’t passed by the House—but then the second part, that was passed by this Parliament, which we’re now reversing with this bill, sought to require prison managers to advise and assist, essentially, prisoners to enrol to vote, and this bill gets rid of that. This bill changes that. And yet the Greens, who moved that motion originally, are now voting against the very amendment that they moved.

Across the House, throughout this debate, we’ve had Andrew Little and other Labour MPs standing up, and what has been their response to that? Their response has been to blame National—to blame National for that change that was made in this House last week. Well, I’ll just remind members opposite that, actually, National doesn’t have a majority in this Parliament. So how on earth could it be that this devious National Party, this National Opposition, could pass legislation in this Parliament against the wishes of the Government? It’s because it absolutely can’t happen. We don’t have majority in this Parliament. It was the Greens who put forward the amendment, it was the Greens who voted for the amendments, it was the Greens who voted for this change to be made that we are now voting against. It goes to show what a shambles we have in this Government, when you’ve got three parties all expressing a very different view.

I just want to run through some of those comments that have been raised in the debate—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Are you referring to the bill now, Mr Falloon?

I’m referring to the points that have been raised—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Are you referring to the bill now?

Absolutely, Madam Speaker, and in doing so—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’ll be listening carefully. That’s the second opportunity I’ve given you to refer to the bill; so I’ll be listening really carefully.

Right, OK, thank you, Madam Speaker. So what this bill does, as I’ve said, is it changes the amendment that was made in the No. 1 bill last week. It changes the amendment that was made which would have required prison managers to advise and assist prisoners—all prisoners—of the right to vote. And that actually comes from quite a consistent position from the Green Party, that they’ve put forward, which I have some sympathy for. It says that, rather than just some prisoners having the right to vote, all prisoners should have the right to vote. I, as I say, have some sympathy for that position. And in his contribution to this debate in this House this afternoon, the Minister, Andrew Little, said that one of the reasons for the change, one of the reasons for this piece of legislation, is that there’s a fundamental principle that prisoners should have the right to vote on the Government when they’re released. And I can understand that position.

The problem with this bill is that this bill doesn’t actually do that. This bill doesn’t give prisoners the right to vote on who will be in Government when they’re released. Because, if that was the consistent position that the Government was going to hold, they’d extend it to all people, all prisoners, who are within three years of release—and this bill doesn’t do that. All this bill, and the previous bill, does is give the right to vote to prisoners who have been sentenced to three years or less in prison. It doesn’t do what the Minister has claimed it does, which is giving all the prisoners the right to vote in their last three years in prison. And that was—I’ll again quote him; he said it was a fundamental principle that prisoners should have the right to vote on the Government that will govern them when they are released. That wasn’t his only contribution; he also said that electoral law lies at the heart of our democracy, and again I agree with that point. Of course it does, and yet here we are, under urgency, passing this legislation.

I want to raise a separate point to that matter, which is that Andrew Little, earlier in the debate, described that there was, I think, several thousand submissions on the original piece of legislation, and so later on in this debate, when we come to the committee of the whole House stage, I’ll be asking him how many submissions does he think—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Maybe ask him then.

I’m happy to; I’m just giving him fair warning.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Just speak to the bill.

I’m giving him fair warning: how many submissions does he think there’ll be on this bill? And of course there will be none. There will be no submissions on this bill, because it’s being rushed through all stages of Parliament under urgency tonight. There’ll be no submissions, there will be no opportunity for people to submit on the bill, and unfortunately that’s only going to cause more mistakes. As we warned on this side of the House throughout this debate and through the debate last week, the perils of passing legislation under urgency is that mistakes can be made. The committee stage and the select committee is where those mistakes can be identified. Unfortunately, in this case, there won’t be a select committee; there won’t be an opportunity for members of the public to come forward, put forward their views, identify mistakes, and hopefully pass a better bill. That won’t be the process here, and so I unfortunately suspect that there could be additional problems with this bill. There’ll be no opportunity to fix those glaring mistakes.

Before I end, I do just want to raise one final point from the Minister’s contribution. And in his contribution he made thinly veiled attacks on a member of this House. He referred to craziness several times. He questioned the sanity of members. I find that disgraceful, because at a time—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Mr Falloon, if it was so disgraceful, you should have raised it at the time. Could you use your remaining 35 seconds to address the bill, please?

Absolutely, Madam Speaker. I think it is disgraceful, I also think it’s disgraceful that—

Sorry, Mr Falloon, you will resume your seat.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is quite appropriate for a member to react to interjections from the other side of the House, and we’ve heard continuously through this debate Mr Little with his raucous interjections on a range of topics. For Mr Falloon to engage with that is entirely reasonable and within the Standing Orders.

If that’s what he would have been doing, it would have been.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—a delight to be able to take the last call in this debate. Unlike Mr Seymour, I was in my room watching this debate play out last week and was absolutely astonished to see the disarray and shambles on that side of the House. Normally they pretend to be quite organised, but what I saw play out there was total, total disarray. I sort of think it has an explanation to do with how their party runs in general. But according to the last speaker, Andrew Falloon, he wanted to paint a picture of people on the other side being reasonable. Now, I have to think back only to a comment of Dr Smith last week comparing this House to a Nazi establishment; so don’t tell us here that that side of the House is so reasonable.

I would like to say that we shouldn’t be wasting the time of this Parliament. That party continuously trying to undermine the good work that is being done on this side is an absolute waste of taxpayers’ money, and I commend this bill to the House.