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 second time.

I’m thankful for the benefit of the debate that we’ve just had as part of the first reading of this bill. This bill does something very important: it reinstates what was in the bill that went before the Justice Committee and was studiously considered and scrutinised by the members of that committee, led by Meka Whaitiri, after receiving more than 2,500 submissions, 78 percent of which were in favour of the law change.

That law change, in addition to enabling prisoners sentenced to less than three years to vote on the principle that at the time they vote in one election while they are in prison, they will be out before the next election and they should have a say on who’s running the country that they’re going to be released free into—no member opposite has challenged that principle. Some don’t hear the principle—I think that Simeon Brown doesn’t understand principles; he certainly didn’t understand that one—but even though that principle is very clear, and that principle underpinned the 1993 legislation passed by the then National Government and voted on then by Dr Nick Smith, they still don’t understand that principle. But, anyway, that’s as it is.

In any event, that’s what the legislation last week did, and Parliament having approved it and the National Party having voted in favour of it, the National Party went on some weird, crazy frolic, like some sort of drunken horse galloping around the paddock, and they then started supporting some really weird things. Having said as a matter of principle that not all crims should be allowed to vote, or, in fact, that no prisoners should be allowed to vote, they then voted for prison officers to be obliged to be required—for it to be compulsory for prison officers—to tell every prisoner, including those disqualified, that they had a right to be on the roll, to collect their information, and to give it to the Electoral Commission.

Why would you do that? What would possess you to do that? Something hit the air on that side of the Chamber last week. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what it was, but that cannot be explained, and the funny thing is that in all of the contributions on the first reading, no member got up to try and explain or reconcile that pattern of voting, not one of them—not one of them.

Now, here it is: you come here because you care about your electoral law, you care about this Parliament, you care about what it stands for, and you care about the people of New Zealand, and you come here with a good reputation and wanting to keep it, but that that didn’t seem to be what happened. Members opposite seemed to think that it’s good sport to behave like a sort of primary school debating team: you come in and you pick an argument there and you pick an argument there, and you behave like you really don’t have much up top, because that’s what they did last week—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I don’t think that’s a great way of referring to the Speaker, with respect—

My apologies, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): —so you might want to come on to the bill.

My apologies, Madam Speaker. The point is this: when we have a bill that deals with the serious issue of those who are sentenced to prison and where we have a serious debate about where that line falls, about which rights you lose when you go to prison, it is incumbent on this House to take that seriously, approach it solemnly, and act in a principled way, and there are differences of view. Of course there are differences of view, but you expect that if you are a party that adheres to a set of consistent principles—and that principle might be “We don’t believe any prisoner should have the right to vote.” But if that’s the case, if that’s the principle you adopt, then you would also vote to ensure that the Electoral Commission, for example, have the right to remove disqualified voters from voting. But that didn’t happen, and so—

Tim van de Molen: Yes, it did. We opposed the third reading—we voted the bill down.

—this bill now reinstates that. Mr van de Molen, like some of his colleagues, unfortunately, really forgets history. It’s not unusual to forget history a wee way back. It’s not unusual to forget your history about the Sir Keith Holyoakes and the Sir John Marshalls. It’s not unusual to forget the history about the greatness of the National Party under Jim Bolger and Dame Jenny Shipley. It is very unusual to forget the history of just six days ago, but anyway, that happens.

But, in any event, having had a principle that said “We don’t believe any prisoner should have the right to vote.”, they then voted to remove the power of the Electoral Commission to remove disqualified voters from the roll. This bill reinstates that—this bill reinstates that. So this is about putting some cohesion and common sense back to this, because we don’t come into this House expecting MPs to be erratic and unprincipled and lacking cohesion and inconsistent.

And here’s the sad thing—here’s the sad thing. As somebody who grew up in a house where both parents were long-time National Party voters and supporters, and one of whom was a National Party activist—I grew up in that household. I remember the Venn Youngs, the Duncan MacIntyres, and I remember meeting Lance Adams-Schneider—the greats of that generation. I had great respect for them. I had great respect for the National Party—and, in fact, I continue to—but what last week showed was that that party in its current state is not fit to govern, because they think it’s OK to muck around with the rules. They think it’s OK to vote for one principle over here and another principle over there, and no reconciliation between them.

So, on that basis, I’m pleased that this bill is making its way through the House. This now puts back into our laws what the select committee looked at, what the select committee sent back to the House, and what was ready to be passed in the House, until the National Party had this sort of little frolic last week and they thought it was good fun. They thought the voters wouldn’t see. They thought they could keep it under cover. They thought that no one would notice that they, again, had wasted the time of Parliament, but, now, Parliament has to come up and respond to their disgraceful conduct last week. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s like déjà vu all over again, as they say. The dividing lines in this bill are really around—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, the question is that the motion be agreed to. I apologise for interrupting.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The dividing lines in this bill that are invisible on the page but really, sort of, underline the way we should view this is the difference between principle and politics. This is inherent, for example, in the wording of clause 5, which amends the Electoral Act. Clause 5 concerns the registration of prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment of less than three years. So it’s that element of having a restriction according to the number of years that is a matter of politics as opposed to one of principle. That’s the genesis of this legislation and, in turn, of course, was the genesis of the equivalent legislation—the “No. 1 bill” so-called—that we were discussing as recently as last week.

Now, fair enough, reading the bill, one might say that, well, politics is the art of the possible, as it was famously said to be. But my message to the Government when I read this No. 2 amendment bill is that they cannot have it both ways. The Government cannot stand on its high horse, and it’s not a drunken horse, such as we’ve just heard referred to in the Minister’s speech—no inebriated equines in my contribution. But the Government cannot get on its high horse and say that it is a matter of human rights and consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Treaty of Waitangi and so forth to give prisoners the right to vote if they define, effectively, prisoners as only those prisoners who have a sentence of less than three years. So that’s the internal contradiction within the bill, and that is the lesson that we have learnt these past several days regarding the Government—that the line between principle and politics is one that they have grappled with hard but have failed to grasp.

The other lesson that we can take from the bill, looking again at the wording of Part 1 in particular, is the perils of passing such legislation, which is technical in its nature as well as being of an electoral nature, under urgency. I refer to the—how would we call that? Well, it’s very familiar—very, very familiar—and the reason this is so familiar, some of this wording, is because we have seen it all before. I don’t mean in some sort of general way of being able to predict the future or based on past. I mean, literally, we’ve seen it all before. All these words had come before us relatively recently, and the reason is because, having attempted to legislate these things into the law of the land on the statute book last week but having failed to do so for reasons that have been reasonably well thrashed out but may yet get a bit more airing today, and so it is that we’ve come back here to have to have another go. It’s more particularly the lack of time between the committee of the whole House stage and the third reading of the previous bill that has led us to look down on our respective desks in front of us today and say that the provisions really are pretty well exactly the same as that which the Government had intended before.

A bit like a game of snakes and ladders, the Government has rolled a six and raced forward, but only to go all the way down to the bottom of the board. What I mean by that analogy, powerful as it is—it was the best I could come up with; nothing to do with horses, I’m afraid—is that what we’ve done as a Parliament, and what the Government has done, more particularly, is rushed forward but moved further backwards. So, rather than acknowledging the mistake that was made, the lack of Government management on the benches opposite last week—rather than acknowledge that and move at an appropriate pace to fix up the problem, to put it bluntly, instead, it forged ahead to a third reading to commend to the House a bill that it surely knew was unworkable, indeed, and nonsense. So it is that we’ve gone further back, because we’ve gone all the way to the start of the board, to square one. So here it is that we’ve been debating this bill, and I use the term loosely—but debating the bill in readings one, and two, with the committee of the whole House interlude—for good measure—and the third reading to come later on.

Again, looking at the bill and seeing what lessons we can learn at this, the second reading—not having had much of an opportunity to absorb the lessons of the first reading. But looking at that, it’s actually possible to note that given the issues raised in the bill—essentially, the difference between prisoners who are incarcerated for less than three years and those who are incarcerated for three or more years—the lesson from this is that a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to amend the last similar bill was inevitable.

It was absolutely inevitable that be brought up and, therefore, it was inevitable that this bill would be brought up, provided that one assumes in the first instance that the Greens would be honouring their position that they’ve held throughout that all prisoners should be able to vote—tick—and that the National Party would maintain its consistency of position, which is to oppose anything that would make the passage of this bill into the law of the land, or, effectively, the law of the land—and I use that word deliberately—as at the next general election. So the Greens have acted consistent with their principles and we’ve acted consistent with our position throughout. The clue is in the words of the bill that is now before us, and every time that there is a distinction made—whether in explicit terms by the words or perhaps a cross-reference back to the Electoral Act—every time that the bill points out the difference between how prisoners are to be treated according to the length of time that they are incarcerated, every time we can see that there has been a lack of an internal consistency, logical consistency, not just in the bill but in the Government parties opposite. It’s that inconsistency, that incoherence, and that disjunction between the parties of Government that has expressed itself in the bill that we have seen before us today.

The other interesting thing that one notes when one looks at the bill is the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. Again, it’s a pretty obvious gap if one is prepared to read between the lines and one knows a bit of the history of this legislation, with the history of the legislation being not only its passage through the House today—as I anticipate it will go through—but more particularly the background last week and going back further.

Gosh, in the House today, we’ve been canvassing back centuries’ worth of tradition, by the sound of it, in various different levels. We’ve had members’ bills brought up. We’ve had National Party history, really, being brought out on both sides of the House, but more particularly on the part of the Minister of Justice. So just how he views that as a continuation of the long-held National Party principle that we should resist measures that are inconsistent and incoherent, that’s not very clear to me at all.

So my question to the Government benches—and I oppose it only rhetorically now, as Mr Falloon did, and I know I’m on dangerous territory now. But, as Mr Falloon did, foreshadowing a line of questioning at the committee of the whole House stage, my question—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): You do know that’s a dangerous line, so just back to the bill please.

OK, thank you, Madam Speaker. The bill does not achieve, I think, much other than to put right a problem that the Government created for itself last week. The problem was one of an anomaly, but—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Does it achieve for the Greens?

Does it achieve for the Greens? I mean, the interesting question posed by the member for Coromandel is whether the anomaly is fixed—at least that’s what I understand he’s asking. I’m glad that he’s asked it to me, otherwise I might have been tempted to ask it myself. The conclusion that I’d reach is that it fixes an anomaly in one point in sort of a technical drafting sense kind of way, because we’ll have a piece of legislation that cross-refers to the Electoral Act and makes that work and so forth, but it doesn’t solve the anomaly, just looking at it, in relation to the more substantive point, which is that prisoners are supposedly being allowed the right to vote on the basis that they’re being given human rights or civil and political rights. But we’re talking only about some prisoners and not others.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: The Greens will be very disappointed.

The Greens will be very disappointed when they read the clear working of this and realise what’s going on. I can only wonder whether they will be unhappy enough with it such that they will put forward another SOP to effectively do the same thing as last week, and then goodness knows how that all may turn out. But that’s something, I suppose, that we have to look forward to us perhaps later tonight. In any case, for now, the position on this side of the House remains unchanged.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. It’s my absolute pleasure to speak on the second reading of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). The bill is actually really clear. What it enables is prisoners who are sentenced to less than three years to be supported to (a) enrol and (b) vote. And, if you are sentenced for more than three years, you are supported to enrol on release. It seems that there is public support for this bill. There was a Colmar Brunton poll in October 2019 that had 53 percent support for prisoners voting versus 44 percent against.

The interesting thing—and I just want to delve a little bit on prisoners voting in New Zealand, because the reality of this issue is it goes back to 1852 in the New Zealand Constitution Act, where, in fact, if you were sentenced for—and I quote—“any treason, felony, or infamous offence,” you weren’t allowed to vote. It was called the civil death, and it goes back to ancient Greece and Rome. And the infamy, of that time, was: have you attempted to kill the king, have you deserted the army, or have you murdered a relative. So you lost your right of citizenship. That’s the reality of this bill. Voting is a citizenship right. If you go on the website—the Government website—voting is a privilege but it’s a right of citizenship, and a responsibility we all have is to ensure that we’re enrolled.

For me, this goes back to the 1986 royal commission on electoral reform—obviously, led by the Law Commission. There was a report produced called Towards a Better Democracy. That produced the Electoral Act 1993, and, within that context, prisoners who were serving a life sentence, preventative detention, or were sentenced to three years or longer were actually excluded from voting. That was changed in 2010. I won’t delve into the history, but, obviously, the National Party, the National Government, supported that. That led in 2013 to five prisoners going to the High Court, and, in fact, the decision of the High Court, which faced appeal in the Court of Appeal and also the Supreme Court. Justice Heath, and I quote, said, the most fundamental aspect of a democracy is “the right of all citizens to elect those who will govern on their behalf.” And therein lies the principle behind this. Is it justified that some prisoners should vote? The courts have said yes. Is it therefore justified that some prisoners shouldn’t? The courts have said yes, if you serve more than three years.

I do want to acknowledge Golriz Ghahraman and the Greens, because, in fact, her amendment, and their amendment, was addressing the Waitangi Tribunal court decision. The issue about prisoners voting rights is incredibly relevant to Māori. That’s why the Waitangi Tribunal took a position that all prisoners should have the right to vote.

Now, the reality is we don’t strip away citizenship rights from anybody. In fact, if you look at what we’re currently doing, we’re allowing all citizens to come home. Fundamentally, from our perspective, we believe that prisoners have the right to reintegrate into society, and that’s why every three years—and if you’re sentenced to three years—it’s all linked into an electoral cycle. So as a citizen of this country, you have a right to vote for who will govern you. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). I just want to comment about how amusing it is that members opposite are saying is such a pleasure to be here, fixing up their mess from last week, a mess which they created and a mess, which I remind the House, they voted for in the third reading. The Green Party voted for it, the Labour Party voted for it, and the New Zealand First Party voted for it.

Now, typically at the second reading of a bill, it’s an opportunity to talk about what we heard at the select committee. Now, how long have we had in the committee for this bill today? Zero—zero. We’re rushing this through under urgency. How many submissions have the public put through? Zero. We’ve had no opportunity for this to go to a select committee. There’s been no opportunity for the public to have a say, and once again—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: No scrutiny.

No scrutiny—no scrutiny, exactly. My good friend Scott Simpson says there’s been no scrutiny of this piece of legislation. And you have to ask the question: why are we in this situation? The reason we’re in this situation is because the Government, in their infinite wisdom, decided last week to ram this piece of legislation through, to have a third reading after the committee of the whole House, where the changes were made, without there being any time for there to be any consideration. And here we are with a bill which seems to correct those so-called mistakes which were made by the committee of the whole House.

The question has to be asked: why, knowing that, did the Government vote for it? Why did the Government vote for a bill which, essentially, made every prison manager up and down the country a criminal? Why did the Government at third reading vote for a bill which, essentially, makes every prison manager a criminal? That’s the question. Either the Government was fully aware of what the bill did and was therefore acting irresponsibly or they just didn’t understand the legislation they were putting through, and therefore they were incompetent. There’s two things: they were either irresponsible, knowing full well what was in the piece of legislation, or they didn’t understand the legislation they were voting for and therefore they were acting incompetently—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Or both.

Or both. And it could well be that some members knew some parts and some members knew otherwise, because I was here, I was watching it. Ministers were pouring down from the Beehive, trying to understand what was happening—

Tim van de Molen: Running around like headless chickens.

—and running around like headless chickens; that’s right, Tim van de Molen. He was here watching the mess unfold. Everyone was here. Then there was a little deal done off to the side with the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party, and they either knew full well what they were voting for down here in the House or they were acting irresponsibly and were acting incompetently. The reality was, whatever it was, it was incompetent because this Government voted for a piece of legislation which, essentially, made prison managers criminals by advising and assisting prisoners to enrol to vote, even though they weren’t qualified to do so.

So one part of the piece of legislation said prisoners could only be enrolled to vote if they were sentenced to less than three years. The second part of the legislation, with the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by the Green Party, said: actually, we’re going to require Corrections to assist all prisoners that are received into the prison to enrol to vote. So it’s internally inconsistent and this Government in its shambolic incompetence voted for that piece of legislation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Could you move on to the current bill that we’re debating now, please? [Interruption] You’ve had four minutes—sorry, can you resume your seat?

Oh sorry, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It’s not a good idea to respond by an argument. You’ve had four minutes and I’d really like you to talk about this bill rather than the bill from last week.

I’m talking about this bill right here, Madam Speaker, because what this bill does—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It’s really pushing your luck.

—is it tries to fix what did happen last week. So this bill requires Corrections to assist prisoners received into prison to enrol to vote if they’re sentenced to less than three years’ imprisonment.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: It’s a patch-up job.

So it’s a bit of a patch-up. It’s got three parts to it. Firstly, it requires Corrections to assist prisoners received into prison to enrol to vote if they’re sentenced to less than three years’ imprisonment and are therefore qualified to vote. And I remind the House that the New Zealand First Party is giving prisoners who’ve committed serious offences the right to vote.

💬 Matt King: Really?

It reasserts—absolutely. It reasserts the requirement on Corrections to assist prisoners sentenced to three years or more imprisonment to enrol to vote before they’re released. And finally, it requires the Electoral Commission to remove from the electoral roll, when notified by Corrections, the names of prisoners who are disqualified from enrolling to vote. Those are the three things that this bill seeks to achieve. Three simple small changes that this bill seeks to achieve, but this is about giving effect to the principle in the previous piece of legislation, which is prisoners serving less than three years are now entitled to vote.

He’s got a smirk on his face. Darroch Ball’s got a smirk on his face because he thinks he’s so clever. He thinks he’s so clever, because he thinks he’s going to get away with passing two pieces of legislation over one week under urgency—two pieces of legislation under urgency—and he’s going to think that the public won’t be aware. He’s going to think people out in voter land, the very few left who vote New Zealand First—very few of them, not many of them—won’t see that they have had two pieces of legislation rushed through this House without the level of scrutiny which is required. I challenge the member to take a call and to explain to New Zealanders why he believes—I ask him to take a call and explain to Zealanders why he believes that it’s OK that people convicted to incredibly serious offences should not only be—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Because it’s unconstitutional.

I’m asking him to take a call—you can take one too, Chlöe Swarbrick. Take a call and explain to New Zealanders why people who are convicted of serious violent offences such as manslaughter, sexual assault, abduction should be given the right to vote, but also that Corrections officers should essentially be giving them additional help in their enrolment process.

I ask the question again that I asked in my first reading speech: where is the support and the help given to victims of crime? Where is the support and help given to them when they are hurt by people who commit these serious offences? Where is the support given to them in this process? This bill, essentially, affords additional rights to people who’ve committed crimes but not to people who’ve had serious crimes committed against them. Where’s the support for them? Where’s the support? Where’s the support for people who have had serious offences taken against them, who are trying to get help to potentially have their name put on the secret electoral roll? There’s none. There’s no legislative assistance for them.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The member is just plain wrong.

There’s no legislative assistance for them, is there, Minister? No legislative assistance, is there?

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Get your facts right.

He’s getting angry again. That seems to be the modus operandi of the Minister there.

So the Government parties have had a shambolic week. And now as we come to the second reading, we are again reminded that these changes have not had the opportunity to have the scrutiny which they deserve. They haven’t had the scrutiny which they should have. They haven’t had a select committee process, which we suggested it have. Nick Smith in the House last week moved that they go to a select committee to ensure that the process has taken place.

Tim van de Molen: Surely the Greens will oppose it.

And surely the Greens would oppose this sort of rushed urgency. Back in the days, back in the old days, they used to stand in this Parliament and stand on the principle that we shouldn’t be rushing all this legislation through under urgency.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Bring back Catherine Delahunty.

Here they are supporting this to go through under urgency. And I don’t know whether I’d agree with you, Scott Simpson, when you say “Bring back Catherine Delahunty.”

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Well, she had principles.

Well, she might have had principles, but I’m not sure whether we want more Green MPs in Parliament. I think we’ll want less, and we’re not too far away from that being a reality, because a Government that continues to pass legislation like this will face the public of New Zealand in only 80 days and they will show their displeasure.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I won’t take too long. I just want to point out one thing that, actually, Chris Penk said, and I want to reflect on that a little bit. So Chris Penk said that there’s a difference between principle and politics. That’s what he said. I can’t quite compute that with what the National Party has done last week and this week. So I just want to get something straight, and I want to make sure it’s on record and that everyone understands why we’re here. Last week the National Party voted for a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that gave all prisoners the right to be enrolled to vote. Everyone needs to understand that the National Party last week voted for an SOP that gave all prisoners the right to be enrolled to vote. That includes the Christchurch shooter. They did—the National Party did, right? So that’s the first thing. And what they’ve done is they’re standing up—and David Seymour said it too, on that side of the House—and they’re saying that it makes the current law unworkable now.

Tim van de Molen: That’s right.

It makes it unworkable now. So we’ve got a “That’s right” from over that side of the House. So the National Party agrees with that. And they get up and they lecture us on how unworkable it is, and what Mr Brown says is what a shambles this legislation is now. That’s what he said. Mr Brown said this is a shambles now. So let’s get that thing straight. Today we’ve got an SOP that would correct that—

Tim van de Molen: There’s no SOP.

—sorry, legislation that would correct that—and the National Party’s voting against it. So not only did the National Party vote for a piece of legislation that gave every single person in prison the right to be enrolled to vote—and they say it’s a shambles of a piece of legislation now—but we’ve got a piece of legislation on the Table now and they’re going to vote against that. Now, if that’s not the pure definition of disgraceful, petty politics, I don’t know what is, and I hope people are watching the level that the National Party are stooping to to make some stupid, idiotic political point. Anyone over that side of the House I dare to stand up and justify why they voted for that SOP last week and are voting against something that’s going to fix it this day. I dare any member of the National Party to have the courage to stand up and do that, and they won’t, because they don’t have it. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am looking forward to the committee stage of this Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2)—the second bill in two weeks, just to be clear—because I would be interested, or one of my colleagues would be very interested, in exploring with the Minister, who will be in the chair, just what Darroch Ball meant when he referred to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) we were debating this afternoon. So about 3½ to 4 minutes into his speech, Darroch Ball, in full flight, referenced the SOP we are debating today. So that’s good. That will be one of the questions that we will be rehearsing with the Minister in the committee stage of this House. What SOP? What is in the SOP? What is the Government hiding? Is Darroch Ball foreshadowing that there is an SOP to come to the House? In terms of process how does that even work? So that is something which adds to the glaring lack of credibility surrounding the whole sorry saga of this bill.

If I turn to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2)—which is the second iteration of this bill that has hit the House this week—as a member who did not have an opportunity to speak on this bill on Thursday in urgency last week, and so was not as familiar as to some of the context around this bill. I just thought it might be useful—for me, for me, particularly, because this is an important, significant piece of legislation—just to go through some of the events of last week, which are—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Could I just say to the member—the member’s had two minutes now, we don’t need her to go over the events of last week, we need her to speak to the bill. It’s not that hard.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, very much for your guidance. So I’m referring to the purpose of the No. 2 bill at this point, where, in the explanatory note, it says, “it [the bill] remedies inconsistencies in its provisions about enrolment of sentenced prisoners.” So, in doing so, I would like to speak—as did the Minister in his contribution to the second reading—to and examine some of those inconsistencies that arose last week in the debate to the No. 1 bill, which has led to this House spending more valuable House time putting right, apparently, those inconsistencies.

So, in continuing to speak to the inconsistencies in its provisions, as referenced in the No. 2 bill, I want to spare a moment in terms of process around this second bill, in that the bill, the No. 1 bill, passed its first reading, and enough on that, under urgency last week. The officials, I’m assuming, were then sent away and given, effectively, three days to write the No. 2 bill. Just a few words on that process, which remedies inconsistency—so that’s what these officials were sent away to do over the weekend. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. It might be said this is a bill that went through under urgency. There are inconsistencies in its provisions, I read from the No. 2 bill here, and so fair enough. Let’s send the officials away to put it right and we’ll deal with it under urgency again. The question arises, of course: why? Why is it that this bill must be addressed through all stages in urgency, the very next sitting day of this House? But I will leave that aside as a question that can only be answered by the Minister in the committee stage. And I am sure that there will be a number of questions of the Minister in the committee stage on that matter.

Now, it would not be quite so egregious that officials are sent to correct a mistake purely of the Government’s making, purely of the Minister’s making in his failure to recognise in the “No. 1” bill that inconsistencies were going to arise in the passage of that bill. All that Minister, Andrew Little, had to do was to swallow his pride just a little bit and acknowledge that the Government had been snookered into a position, embarrassing though it may be—embarrassing though it may be—and exposing absolutely the flaws in this Government in that it passed under urgency the third reading of a bill which has inconsistencies, which this bill, the No. 2 bill, and the SOP, Darroch Ball, which we know is going to accompany it because that has been foreshadowed by Darroch Ball in his magnificent speech where he referred—

💬 Darroch Ball: Oh, sit down.

Oh, Darroch Ball doesn’t like having this pointed out, but, Darroch Ball, I will be watching with great interest for the SOP that that member brings to this House in the committee stage.

But I want to get back to the officials just for a moment, because not only were they required to work through the weekend, and we’re seeing a lot of that at the moment—officials being required to work all through the weekend so that this House can consider pieces of legislation, in this case under urgency; the rationale for which escapes me, but as I say, I wasn’t in the House last week. I was not taking part in this debate. But those very officials have been sent away to correct a mistake, not made by them—it wasn’t a drafting mistake, it wasn’t a policy mistake; the mistake lies fairly and squarely with the Minister, Andrew Little. Where is the responsibility taken for that? No, he has spent much of today under urgency blaming everyone else but himself. Well, I think that members over the other side say the New Zealand public are watching. Yes, the New Zealand public are watching and the New Zealand public are not silly. They can see exactly what’s happened. This Government has been well and truly snookered.

I want to refer to the lack of select committee hearings in terms of process with this No. 2 bill and the assertion, again, by the Minister, Andrew Little, that this anomaly, this inconsistency in provisions about enrolment for sentenced prisoners, is going to be corrected through this No. 2 bill. How do we know that? How do we know that—they didn’t get it right the first time? How can this House, how can that New Zealand public who are watching this debate under urgency, be assured that there isn’t another mistake contained within this No. 2 bill? Well, there is no way for the public to know. There is no way for this Parliament to know—and there is no way for this Parliament to know because there has been no external scrutiny—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Yes, there has been.

—of the provisions in this bill—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Yes, there has been. The member knows it.

—which seek to remedy inconsistencies, and when any member over this side of the House begins to make a new point, it fires up the Minister who goes by his well-earned term “Angry Andy”. I beg your pardon, Madam Speaker; I should say angry Andrew Little gets fired up.

The abuse, I’m afraid, is quite extraordinary. There have been two references in the course of this debate to mental health. How can that be from a caring Government? That’s another question for the Minister in the committee stage of this bill: how can it be said that Minister of Justice gets up in this House and flippantly makes references to mental health in respect of the Opposition in this Parliament? How can that be from a Government whose cornerstone is kindness? And if we will recall the Speech from the Throne, it put as one of its strongest tenets to address mental illness. Where’s the inconsistency in that? Well, it’s absolutely glaringly obvious to those of us on this side of the House, and I wonder what Andrew Geddis will think about this bill. What will Andrew Geddis think? He is a well-known legislative observer who gets consulted widely. What will that member of the public think about this bill? Well, we will never know, will we, because there was not a select committee process. The first bill was flawed. The second bill is even worse. We do not support this bill.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Well done, National! You guys won the game of politics. I hope that you feel really stoked about this situation.

Just to make it really clear to members of the general public who are listening to this debate in the House today, how we got here is that the National Party decided that they would vote for half of a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). The first half of that SOP would have enfranchised all prisoners. The second half required that prison officers had to enrol and register prisoners, basically, to enable the first half of that Supplementary Order Paper in the name of my colleague Golriz Ghahraman. The National Party decided, in the committee of the whole House stage of the first iteration of this bill, that it would be really fun not to vote for that first part but to vote for the second so that they could bring us all back here so that we had to do this second round, under urgency, to remedy that mistake. And well done, well done! This is what you guys wanted. Cool; you won. We’re quite happy to say that you won on this point. You played the game, but you played the game with people’s lives, and you have wasted time in Parliament, which you are now—

💬 Simeon Brown: That member is a disgrace.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I will not be called a disgrace by members of the Opposition who are happy to tell me what to do with my uterus and take away my right to marry. So the National Party have played the game of politics. They’ve played it well, but that’s all that they can claim today. It’s not the moral high ground in any way, shape, or form. And, in fact, I think that most New Zealanders would be gutted, if not disgusted, to see this time in the House wasted right now. We will not waste any more time debating this bill but support it and hope that we manage to get it through, because it’s simply common sense. The Green Party supports it.

I rise to speak to the second Electoral—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’m really sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I am happy to be able to speak in reference to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill seeks to remedy inconsistencies that have arisen in the passing of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act 2020, passed late last week under urgency. The Act was passed by a majority vote—with National voting against on third reading—despite an inconsistency in its provisions. The provisions about the enrolment of sentenced prisoners, which were introduced by the amendments to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill, resulted from the Green Party’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 518, which proposed two amendments: one extended reinstating the right to vote to all prisoners, regardless of the crime they’ve committed or the duration of the sentence that they are serving, and the second was to take away the Electoral Commission’s power to stop disqualified voters from enrolling. The first proposed amendment—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Why did National support that?

I will address that in a few moments. The first proposed amendment, which would see all prisoners given the right to vote, failed to gain enough support. However, the second proposed amendment, which removes the Electoral Commission’s power to stop disqualified voters from enrolling, passed, making the bill inconsistent and thus unworkable, requiring this current legislation to be passed.

💬 Darroch Ball: Why did National vote for that?

I’m coming up to that point. As urgency has been called again to pass this second bill, we are now going through all the steps in the legislative process again, in an abbreviated manner, in order to pass this bill. This bill seeks to correct the inconsistencies in the Act by repealing the changes that were made to the Act by SOP 518, so the law is internally coherent and consistent with the intended policy of the Act, which is, essentially, to reinstate a prisoner’s right to vote when the prisoner is serving a sentence of less than three years. In particular, clause 5 of this bill, amending section 86A of the Electoral Act, now only requires Corrections to assist prisoners received into prison to enrol to vote if they are sentenced to less than three years’ imprisonment, and therefore are considered qualified to vote, and to confirm whether they would like for their details to be passed on to the Electoral Commission. Clause 6 inserts a new section, a section 86AB, which reinserts the requirement for corrections officers to assist prisoners sentenced to three years or more to be enrolled upon their release, and to confirm whether they would like their enrolment details to be sent to the Electoral Commission, as well.

For clarity, it’s just good to review the process for passing legislation in the New Zealand Parliament. A bill is first introduced in the House and progresses into its first reading. After first reading, on another sitting day, the bill is referred to the appropriate select committee for consideration.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: We know the process.

Yes, but others do not. The bill is then scheduled for a second reading, followed by consideration by the committee of the whole House. The third reading then follows. That debate will then be held and, once completed, voting will be commenced. The entire process takes approximately six months. The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill was at the point of consideration by the committee of the whole House when the Green Party SOP 518 was taken up and voted on. The resulting inconsistency would soon become evident. Addressing one of the points of the members on the other side, my National colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith did attempt to have the bill referred back to select committee, but this offer was rejected. There was opportunity and time for the bill to have been corrected at that point. So when there are speeches that tend to show that there was no opportunity for correction after the SOP had been voted on and passed, they are incorrect. There was opportunity. The opportunity was presented; the opportunity was rejected.

Members opposite have raised three points that I take this opportunity to address. They said that National toyed with the process by voting down the first part of the SOP, the proposed amendment by the Green Party, and voting in favour of the second, which passed. As I am neither a skilled or a fiery interjector myself, I wish to apportion a small portion of my time to speak on this point: firstly, to say that there has been little opportunity for National to win votes in this House, as we’re outnumbered by the coalition Government, and so ascribing blame for the second amendment to have passed to National is totally and quite simply pointing the finger for that resulting inconsistency in the wrong direction. Secondly, as previously mentioned, National, through my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith, did attempt to have the bill referred back to the Justice Committee to correct the errors, and the Government simply refused to do so.

💬 Darroch Ball: Come on, you’ve got two minutes left.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have no time left.

If they did, we could all be here in urgency on another bill that would have some impact on possibly helping business or improving the economic situation of New Zealand, which we are all deeply mired in.

The other point that has been raised is that many submissions have been received in support of the Act—because no submissions have been received on this bill, so I assume that the submissions that the other members have spoken about are submitted on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act. I just would like to express my surprise at the importance and value the members opposite have given to the number of submissions that they have received in support of the Act, when, within the last seven months, two bills received a huge number of submissions—38,000 for one bill, over 25,000 for another bill—and those bills passed without those submissions being given as much importance as the submissions are being given at this time.

National opposed the Act and opposes the amendments, simply because National does not support the reinstatement of voting rights to sentenced prisoners. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This is a split call. I call Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki.

Kia ora, Te Mana Whakawā. Kei te tautoko ahau i tēnei pire ki Te Whare. Kia ora.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker. I support this bill to the House. Thank you.]

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak tonight on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). Now, usually at this stage of the debate we would be discussing and debating some of the issues that were raised at the select committee and some of the views that were expressed, but unfortunately, of course, we’ve been denied that opportunity in this Parliament because, of course, this bill isn’t going to a select committee. We are debating the bill through all stages in urgency with no select committee and, I’m sure, a very truncated committee of the whole House stage as well. And that’s a real shame, I think, because, as the Minister expressed earlier in the debate, there were quite a number of submitters on the original bill—I suppose which we call the “No. 1 bill” that was progressed through the House last week—but unfortunately no opportunity for scrutiny by a select committee on this particular bill.

I say that with a real sense of disappointment, I suppose, because it should be enormously obvious to all members in this House that a mistake was made in this legislation, that amendments were put forward by the Green Party, some of which were supported by this Parliament, and that has created an inconsistency in this bill. In fact, the amendment bill that was passed last week has only been in law for a matter of hours; it was, I think, given Royal assent yesterday. And yet here we are debating under urgency a bill that would amend it yet again. But unfortunately, the very inconsistencies that this bill seeks to address were created—well, they were created by way of a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which is referred to in the bill, and that is SOP 518.

In the bill, it refers to, as referenced in the bill, the fact that the amendment was agreed to by the Parliament at its committee of the whole House stage. As is detailed in the bill, SOP 518 proposed to repeal section 80(1)(d) of the Electoral Act 1993, which would have given all prisoners the right to vote. As I’ve said a number of occasions, that is a very consistent view to hold, and it’s certainly one that the Green Party hold, but not one that is held on this side of the House. Part of that SOP wasn’t passed, of course, that would’ve been the amendment which would have extended the right to vote to all prisoners. But what this Parliament did vote for was an amendment which does require corrections to assist all prisoners, received in to prison, to enrol to vote, and the bill describes that to be, quote, “internally inconsistent”, and, of course, it is. So the law, as it currently stands—as I say, it’s been on the books for a matter of hours—requires corrections to assist all prisoners to enrol to vote, and yet the Act that was given Royal assent still makes it illegal for prisoners who are given a sentence of greater than three years to enrol to vote.

It is what my colleague Chris Bishop would probably describe as an absolute shemozzle. This bill canvasses that point. It says, quote, “The passage of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill … now places unworkable obligations on the Department of Corrections … and the Electoral Commission.”—it goes on to say, “Those obligations are not in line with the intended policy that only prisoners serving sentences of less than 3 years should be able to enrol to vote.” And so my question for the Minister, which I do hope he will address in a later contribution later on tonight, is in respect of other inconsistencies in the bill, because as much as this bill tries to remedy the inconsistencies that were created last week, it also creates other ones. So, for example, why is it that the example that was being given by the Government of their position is that prisoners should be allowed to vote on the Government that will be in power when they are released? And yet this bill doesn’t actually do that, and nor does the bill that was passed last week. Because all this bill does is extends the right to vote to prisoners—or both bills, in fact, extend the right to vote to prisoners who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of less than three years. What it doesn’t do is what the Minister has described, which is give all prisoners the right to vote in their last three years, as in those prisoners who are going to—

💬 Andrew Bayly: This is a very good speech.

—thank you, Mr Bayly—in the Minister’s words, vote for the Government that that will be in power when they are released.

Now, I do briefly want to come back to the Supplementary Order Paper that is referred to in the bill, that’s Supplementary Order Paper 518, that this bill essentially repeals. That amendment was put forward by the Green Party, so I hope that a Green MP—and we’ve heard some contributions earlier from Golriz Ghahraman and Chlöe Swarbrick. I do want to hear from them if they plan to put up a similar SOP to SOP 518. Because that would be useful information for members on this side of the House to know. If they’re going to hold that consistent view that all prisoners should be allowed to vote, will they in the committee of the whole House stage, put up another SOP, similar to one they put up, last week for the House to consider, perhaps vote on? I’m sure National colleagues on this side of the House would be very, very interested to hear it. I’m sure the Minister on the other side of the House, frankly, would be very, very interested to hear that, because it does go to a pretty fundamental point on this bill.

We do have concerns about the process, and I’ll cover that in later contributions. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m delighted to take a very short call this evening on this bill and very, very pleased to commend it to the House. However, before I take my seat, I’d just like to say I’m very pleased to be standing and speaking because what you will see from this side of the House is a clear and consistent plan to follow through on what we wanted to do. What you’ll see from the Opposition is flip-flopping, and they’re constantly doing it. I commend this bill to the House.

I won’t see anything—I mean, I will see it, but don’t bring me into the debate. That’s not a good use of “you”. I know we’ve loosened it up, but that’s not a good use.

Oh, Madam Speaker, look, one of the ironies of tonight’s debates: I am not a flip-flopper at all; it’s one of the probably annoying elements to the Labour Party that I’m relatively consistent. But one of the things I also have noted tonight in the contributions is that the Labour Party, Greens, and New Zealand First seem very keen to give, if you will, many voices to prisoners but not exercise any voice themselves, taking remarkably and appallingly short calls. As I say, they themselves on the Government benches are not prepared to speak to this bill, in defence or otherwise, but are more than happy for those who commit criminal offences to have an enormous voice—and, in fact, one of the most important voices of all—which is the vote.

We’re here at the second reading—always a remarkable instance to be, first and foremost, doing a second reading literally minutes after the first reading, and not a second after a select committee. And, for those at home who are going, “What on earth is he talking about?”—which in itself may be a common experience—and asking, “What does he mean?”, what I mean is that we’ve had no select committee process. And I understand that fine colleagues on this side, who have chosen to use more of the English vernacular than the other—mainly they’ve got past the words “the” and “commend”—have pointed out that there’s been no committee. I’m not going to drag that out too much, but, again, that’s a fairly major affront. I acknowledge this is a small change, and the reasons for it, I think, we will quickly look over, but fundamentally there is a paradox—there is a paradox—at play. We are giving the right to vote to prisoners. And, look, there’s good reason for that. I mean, we disagree on this side of the House as a party but there is, if you will, a good, moral argument for prisoners to have a vote, to have a say. Yet the paradox, of course, tonight is that the New Zealand public are given absolutely no right to have a say on this bill. They’ve been censored, for want of a better word. They’ve been precluded—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Outrageous.

It is outrageous. Again, the irony is doubly so—if one can double irony, but it’s been doubly, doubly so—that, again, prisoners are allowed to speak. They’re allowed to exercise their voice and to vote, but the New Zealand public is not being given any chance.

So we’ve come into a second reading without having, in effect, gone through the right and due processes, which, again, just highlights the problem we’re dealing with here: that we’re giving rights to prisoners but removing, in effect, the rights of the Parliament, the rights of the New Zealand public. As I said, though, and it’s tempting to throw a bouquet at the Government, it is legitimate to argue that prisoners should have the right to vote. There is an element of saying, “Actually, those who are incarcerated should vote for the very system which incarcerates them.” It’s a valid position. It’s one that the National Party, of course, does not share. We are, of course, her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, and we’re allowed to take that position. Unfortunately, we’ve had a Government, or an array of governing parties, which are completely confused. And that’s why we’ve ended up at this second reading tonight—under urgency, I might add; under urgency. We’ve already spent, effectively, two extra days last week considering legislation, including the first draft of this, and, because of, effectively—I’d better not use too much colloquialism tonight—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.

But because the Government has stuffed up the processes, we’ve got to waste more of the Parliament’s time to get this right. And why we’re doing this now at the second reading is a clear disparity in understanding between the governing parties. We have the purists, which are the Greens—I’m not sure I really want to use the words “purist” and “Greens” together. I’m not sure whether that’s a contradiction in itself. The purists in the Greens say that every prisoner has the right to vote, from the serial offender, the rapist, the murderer, the mass murderer, right through to the person who steals a candy bar. They’re purist. New Zealand First—I don’t know where they are; they’re all over the place. It’s funny that they’re actually not putting New Zealanders first in this instance. And then Labour, which is taking, again, a more moderate position but saying, “If you’re serving over three years …”

We’re in this situation consequently because the parties themselves could not agree in principle and the parties themselves could not actually organise themselves sufficiently to progress the bill last week in a way that made coherent form. And, I suppose my major issue, then, in this second reading contribution, is how on earth can we have confidence in a Government to protect the democratic rights of New Zealanders when they cannot even get right the fundamental pieces of law to enable, in this case, criminals to vote? It’s a very odd situation, and I think, unfortunately, it just highlights not only the disparity of views on the other side, and particularly between three parties, but it just highlights the absolute fundamental problems of a democratic system that they’re applying—and democracy is good, by the way; just to make that clear, but the application of democratic processes are being completely mixed up to achieve an end which is very controversial, very controversial. As I say, a person can take, quite rightly, the moral position that people should vote for the system which incarcerates them. However, I have no doubt—not that I have seen the Labour Party polling. You can all relax; it hasn’t been leaked to me—yet. They’ll know that this is incredibly unpopular in the New Zealand public; that people—[Interruption] Someone laughs, mainly because they don’t actually know what the public opinion is—very unpopular; very, very unpopular.

And so here we are on a Tuesday night—7.30, a quarter to eight at night—pushing this through at speed, at absolute speed. And it’s an affront, particularly at the second reading, that the other side, the governmental side, will not take proper calls to defend it. And it takes me back to that aspect of principle: if they actually hold to the principle of voters’ rights—and, again, I am happy to take a more moderate position here, to say it’s a valid position. I don’t agree with it. Or, rather, the National Party doesn’t agree with it. Why would they not stand up and defend it rigorously? I’ve always said, and maybe it’s the philosopher in me, but if you’re confident in your argument, you can stand confidently and argue the case. And we’re not having it here. And what makes it even worse for me is, again, we haven’t had a select committee, where normally seven, eight, or nine MPs can robustly discuss elements.

So it brings me to my final point, which will probably be a great relief to the other side—and that’s probably a heads-up for the person on that other side who’s about to take a two to three second call—and that is, fundamentally, what other mistakes are going to have happened? Well, maybe we’ll sort them out in the committee of the whole House stage, and I know this is a relatively simple bill, but we’ve already had a problem. We’ve already had a problem that’s got us to tonight. It was rushed through, not well thought through. Well, the Government again is rushing this little bit of legislation through. What, I ask rhetorically, will the Government get wrong tonight? Are myself and other colleagues going to have to return in coming days, in a couple of weeks after the recess, to fix that next mess? But the fundamental mess we’re going to have is applying elements of democracy to people, if you will, who have lost that right, and I suspect voters at the election will not forget.

But I’ll leave a little bit of that to a third reading speech, after, of course, we have robustly discussed this in the committee stage, which I know Kieran McAnulty is going to be absolutely thrilled about. I have no doubt he’ll be moving motions very quickly—the only contribution—but we look forward to discussing it further. But, as I say, I am looking forward to the next two- to three- second contribution from the Government.

I’m amazed. I’m amazed at the gall of the other speaker that would dare, tonight of all nights, mention a leaked poll—the night that Newshub published their own leaked poll that had Labour at 55 percent. So I stand here with utter confidence, Mr Simon O’Connor, that this side of the House knows exactly what the public wants. What they do not want is that party playing silly games. There they were standing, last week, patting themselves on the back and giving themselves high-fives because they thought they’d pulled a swifty. Then they looked at the news and no one covered it, because the media realised that they were pathetic—that they thought they were cool but they weren’t. It was a reminder of back in the old school days.

But here we are, fixing the mess that they needed—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Talk to the bill.

That’s right. It’s a great bill. We are fixing this mess and having to come back unnecessarily because the National Party wanted to play games. It hasn’t worked for them. It’s not going to work for them at the election. I have absolutely no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.