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 third time.

I’m very thankful to the efforts of the House to give consideration to this bill in all its stages, but particularly in the committee stage. I have to say I thought the committee stage for the second bill was a little more instructive than the first, actually. I thought there were some good questions posed, and I think the right questions were posed.

We all know the background to this bill, we all know why it is here, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we can all share a little bit of responsibility for what happened, but that is everybody in this House: the Green Party, for putting up a Supplementary Order Paper that they sort of lost a bit of control of, and perhaps the members on this side of the House might have acted a little more quickly to prevent that from happening, but members opposite must take some responsibility. You do not turn up to the House on a matter as important as our electoral laws, play ducks and drakes, and vote like some sort of crazed maniac, because that is not the way we should pay respect to either this House or our electoral laws.

This bill does what the previous bill did. That previous bill, of course, was subject to the full scrutiny of the select committee and was the subject of more than 2,500 submissions, the subject of the 78 percent of those submissions supporting it. That is that in this case now, we are ensuring that in relation to prisoners sentenced to more than three years, they are not obliged to receive advice that they can enrol, because, of course, they are disqualified from enrolling, and there will be no obligation on prison managers to collect information from disqualified prisoners. Their obligation will sit in relation to qualified prisoners—that is to say, those sentenced to a sentence of less than three years. Of course, the other thing this bill does is to restore the power of the Electoral Commission to remove from the electoral roll those who are disqualified from voting.

That all makes sense. That was a sensible arrangement in the No. 1 bill, and then, because of a crazy pattern of voting exercised last week, that was undermined and changed and removed. We said at the time that we would correct it this week, and because this is a Government that fulfils its promises, we have done exactly that.

Underlying that, of course, is a very important principle, because this bill supports the No. 1 bill that happened last week. It rounds that out and it completes the law change that we had proposed for the Electoral Commission in relation to prisoners serving sentences of less than three years, and we did that for very good reason, because the 2010 law that this law reverses had been the subject of intense scrutiny by our courts—the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court—and it was also the subject of a very lengthy investigation and inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal. In each case, they found the 2010 law to be unprincipled, unfair, unjustified, and, ultimately, inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and contrary to the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi.

That’s how important this is, and that’s why it was disappointing. Regardless of how we all feel about it now, and we’ve all had our fun and all played the games, it was unfortunate that last week, some members thought that issue could be trivialised or should be trivialised in the way that it was. I’m not going to name party names or anything, but it does not reflect well on the House when that happens.

I’d just invite members opposite, now that we’ve got to this point, to accept, even though they’ve disagreed with the fundamental policy—they must do, because their party voted for the 2010 law change. But that law change has been subject to considerable scrutiny, and this Government would not be doing its job—and, indeed, if they were still in Government, they would not be doing their job—in the face of that overwhelming judicial consideration and inquiry consideration by the Waitangi Tribunal if it did not at least consider reversing the law change that it promoted in 2010. Well, that has happened. We’ve discharged our obligations as responsible parliamentarians, we’ve discharged our obligations as a responsible Government, we have respected the relationship of comity between the judiciary and this House, and we have come up with this law change and it has been supported, and whatever kinds of games might have been played in the committee stage last week, the reality now is we have a substantial law change, a coherent law change, and a principled law change that many New Zealanders respect.

Just responding to some of the things that came up in the course of the debate, I know members opposite are very good at talking about “Well, what about the victims in this?” Let’s understand what victims need in a criminal justice system. What they need to know is that when they are caused harm, we have a police force—the front line of our criminal justice system—that is equipped and there and staffed to do the job of detecting those who cause harm. We made that change—this Government has made that change. What they also want to know is that they are supported through the system. A system that is alien to anybody is explained, and they are supported through it, and we have very strong commitments to follow through on that.

But in the end, this bill meets, I think, a very principled objective, which is restoring a democratic right to people. For those who are going to be released into the community between one election and the next, it gives them the right to have that say on who is going to lead that community.

For those who are fearful that it will lead to prisoners standing for Parliament, that is precluded by other parts of the Electoral Act. You cannot stand for Parliament if you are a serving prisoner. The irony is, of course, that if you’re a remand prisoner, you actually do retain rights. You retain the right to vote, and that’s nearly 40 percent of the prison population.

In any event, this bill deals with that very principled position. For those serving less than three years, who will be out between one election and the next, then they must have right to have a say. That is a celebration of democracy, that is a celebration of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the provision in that Act that upholds the right to vote, and it is a celebration of our New Zealandness as we have come to terms with a more just system and a better system for all. That’s what this bill does. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, we’ve all learnt something today. In fact, we’ve learnt a number of things. I’ll call them “lessons” rather than “learnings” because, of course, “learnings” is not a word.

I think, first of all, it’s instructive that the bill that was passed last week by this House was not called No. 1, but this one is called No. 2, in the same way that when the First World War broke out, it was not called the First World War; it was called the war to end all wars. And, of course, it only became meaningful as the First World War or World War I when there was, of course, a Second World War or World War II.

So, anyway, I’d guess that’s as good a clue as any, apart from common sense also being our guide, as ever, in such things, that the Government had not anticipated that we would be here doing this all over again, and, of course, neither did most of the rest of us.

One of the lessons that we’ve learnt is that the Government now understands clearly, in front of the whole nation, the difference between principle and politics as within its own ranks. We’ve had the Greens on one side arguing on a principled basis that all prisoners should be allowed to vote, and New Zealand First members and Labour saying that it should be more appropriately the case that prisoners who are incarcerated up to three years should be allowed to vote, and that’s fair enough. The result of the coalition discussions and negotiations must have been that they would retain those respective positions but ultimately vote in favour of the bill—fine. That’s coalition Government, that’s MMP, you know, for better or worse in this particular case and, indeed, in terms of the arrangements of the country.

But I would say to the Government that we have learnt a lesson today, or rather they have: they can’t have it both ways. They can’t pretend to be principled in this space and making high-flown arguments in favour of all prisoners being able to vote because voting is a human or civil or political right and yet saying on the one hand that human or civil or political rights should apply to some and not all. The thing about being on a high horse is that, of course, you can fall off, and the higher the horse, the harder the fall.

That’s one of the lessons, and another is about the perils of legislating under urgency. There’s urgency and there’s urgency, of course, but the form that sees a piece of legislation subject to the committee of the whole House stage, where Government parties are putting up Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that are not supported by other Government papers, immediately to be followed by a third reading, is simply asking for trouble. So that’s another lesson.

Yet another lesson is the question of logical consistency. So the substantive issue that underlies the difficulties that the Parliament has had with regard to this bill and its predecessor was the distinction between a three-year threshold, a cut-off, for prisoners being able to vote and not. I have argued in previous stages that it was inevitable, because of this logical inconsistency between the Government parties, therefore, that one of them would put up an SOP that would be resisted by the others, with the result that we have seen so far. In response—I would say refuting, but at least in response—to the point made by the Minister Andrew Little that the National Party has, in his view, been inconsistent in supporting one of those parts of the Green Supplementary Order Paper and not the other, I would say that it’s been consistent with our position throughout in relation to the underlying legislation that we oppose it, and that we will do nothing to assist its passage through the House because we do not believe in it.

And that leads me to another point that I’ve made, which I’ll somewhat—well, I’ll call it a lesson. I was just starting to sound a little bit magisterial.

💬 Hon Clare Curran: Truncate.

Truncate. Now there’s an interesting word that Hon Clare Curran is well advised to dispense by way of advice.

Well, I was going to say, actually, that one of the lessons was that an Opposition doesn’t have many tools available at its disposal, and it can only creep through doors that have been left ajar by a careless Government, and one of those we saw last week. Who can blame an Opposition for wanting to have a rare opportunity to set the agenda, to execute its own ideas in a way that isn’t normally afforded to Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. Again, as I said earlier, rightly so, the Government has won the Treasury benches. It has the right to control the affairs of the nation to the extent, of course, that it lets itself down and allows the Opposition to do so instead, essentially. So it’s not often that we have a majority of the House on this side of the House. But every now and then, with our dear friends of the Green Party, we are able to effect real change for a very short space of time, which is funny, really, because that’s normally the way the Greens operate in general as well.

So, turning to some of our other lessons, the difference between rhetoric and reality—that’s been an interesting matter to have been exposed. I refer, again, to the underlying point that the bill touches on with regard to prisoners who are incarcerated for less than three years having certain rights, and those who are not, not getting such rights. That’s really interesting when it comes to the fundamental justification for this legislative reform taken as a whole, which is that the Government has said that it wants to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. As Attorney-General Finlayson, bless his heart, and various senior courts have ruled, it is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to have a piece of legislation on the statute book that says that prisoners can’t vote. Yet they’ve done half the job, as usual—although if I say half the job, that’s probably pretty generous when it comes to other policy failures to deliver, but anyway, we won’t get into those.

But if we’re talking about consistency as well, and again that gap between rhetoric and reality, it’s worth noting again that the very valid points that have been made in relation to breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in relation to the disproportionate effect on Māori of the criminal justice system, I’ve argued that that an appropriate place to address that is in earlier stages, essentially, of the criminal justice system, and, actually, of course, before that, in terms of the causes of crime. But if the Government’s view is that there is a disproportionate effect that can be fixed by the issue of prisoner voting, then they should take that seriously and acknowledge that, actually, the right legislative response was that proposed by the Green Party in its SOP, which they did not support, and that would be to allow all prisoners to vote.

Now, the opprobrium that has been placed upon us for having the temerity to support some of the Greens’ SOP and not others is rather interesting in the context of the other Government parties not supporting it at all. So I think that’s the more fundamental issue to be discussed in the Beehive and Bowen House, when they are, no doubt, reflecting upon the lessons that have been learnt over the last 24 hours, and, actually, I suppose, going back to last week and that fateful night when we discovered a difficulty that had arisen in the proceedings of the committee of the whole House.

A couple more lessons in my remaining time. One is that a Government that manages its legislative programmes such that it doesn’t introduce electoral law in an election year is one that is acting more wisely than the current one. Others on this side of the House, most notably Hon Dr Nick Smith, have made points about the desirable nature of bipartisanship in relation to electoral law, and he’s sort of making it from a constitutional point of view—almost, perhaps, a moral point of view or historical point of view. But my perspective is actually slightly different, which is that I’d emphasise that it’s asking for trouble, really just from a pragmatic point of view, a practical point of view, to be having somewhat last minute, and in the context of a three-year term, election year—and, gosh, we’re within the regulated period at the moment; that really is last minute, to be putting things through such as this, even without what Blackadder would have described as a “cock-up”. So we can see how that, sort of, relates really into other issues as well, other lessons, again, which is essentially about understanding what it means to negotiate.

So the Government parties have realised that in order to negotiate, they need to understand what will keep their coalition members happy if they are to get across the line. The alternative view is that they had negotiated and the agreed position was that the Greens would put up something that they knew that the other parties wouldn’t support and knew very well wouldn’t pass, which is, I suppose, firmly in the realm of virtue signalling more so than virtue itself. That’s, I suppose, troubling enough, except that we’re in an election campaign, effectively, now, certainly that period, and so it is that, you know, again, that’s to be expected. It’s something that this side of the House expects from Government parties—fair enough; good luck to them—and we respond accordingly. But they should not pretend that they’re not doing the same when they put up amendments that will not be supported by their side of the House that highlight the logical inconsistency. The logical inconsistencies, as far as I can go there—he said, checking himself in the last 10 seconds to not say a bad word in parliamentary terms, having already said “cock-up”, which is pretty bad. And so for all these reasons—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, last time you put it in parenthesis, which it still is unparliamentary.

It’s still unparliamentary, Madam Speaker. Well, in that case I’d better stop by saying we remain opposed to this bill and, indeed, this legislative reform in total.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. With respect to my learned colleague across the House Chris Penk, who is, in all respects, a rather gentlemanly chap—considered chap—this is what we would describe as a “fix-it” bill, which fixes an issue created by the National Party playing petty politics during the committee stage of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill last week, after the National Party took us all down the rabbit hole of being opposition for opposition’s sake. I would like to commend the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, for doing what he said he would do, which is to act quickly and fix it, to restore the democratic right to people in prison who have been sentenced to less than three years to be able to enrol and vote. It’s now being sorted. Thanks. I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. I just want to start my comments by just reflecting a little bit on the Minister of Justice’s attitude that he’s taken to this bill through the Parliament. I must say that I have found some of the comments that he has made to be quite offensive. He’s called the Opposition to have some sort of crazed mania. He’s called us deranged. He said that we have a crazy pattern of voting. There seems to be a pattern of words that he uses which I actually find quite offensive, and wording which I think he should reflect on when talking about members of the House.

The reality is that the National Party and the Government have a different view on this issue—everyone knows that. The National Party comes from a principled perspective that we do not support prisoners, sentenced to jail, having the right to vote. The Government—and they have a range of perspectives—do think that some prisoners, if not all prisoners, should have the right to vote. That’s the compromised position of the Government, which is that prisoners serving less than three years should be able to vote and those serving more than three years shouldn’t—that’s the compromised position. Let’s just be honest about it: it’s a compromised position. That’s what the Government parties have come to. It’s not principled, as the Minister of Justice tries to tell the Parliament—it’s not a principled position to stand up here and say that this is a human rights issue if you’re not going to afford the rights to all prisoners to vote. We on this side of the House come from a very clear perspective that those who do the crime should do the time. That’s the perspective that we’ve approached this issue with all the way through.

I just want to allude to some of the comments that my very learned colleague Chris Penk raised in relation to what happened last week in this Parliament in relation to the Supplementary Order Paper of the Green Party. Clare Curran said, “Well, this is a fix-it bill fixing up the issues put to us by the National Party.”, and trying to lay blame. It’s not our job to run the show. It’s not our job to run this place. It’s not our job to make things go nicely and smoothly for the Government. It’s not our job to make your job easier; it’s our job to hold the Government to account. When the Green Party rocks up to this House with a Supplementary Order Paper which, essentially, basically, pulls apart the legislation and the intent that the Government’s trying to bring to this Parliament, there’s an opportunity there to point out the inconsistency of the Government’s position and the inconsistency and the unprincipled position that this Government comes to this issue with, and that’s exactly what the National Party has done, and now the Government is having to come with their tail between their legs and spend all of Tuesday afternoon trying to fix up their own mess.

I ask the question: was this Government acting irresponsibly last Tuesday when they brought a bill to Parliament and they put it through under urgency, through the committee of the whole House, through the third reading, and then continued to support it, knowing that it potentially was flawed? Was that irresponsible or did they do that not fully understanding what they were doing? If they did—if they weren’t fully aware because of their rushed process and the urgency and the moving of time and it happening very quickly—then were they acting incompetently and irresponsibly? They have to reflect on that question, because there are many examples that I could point to of incompetence and irresponsible actions by this Government which they have taken. But I would let them reflect on those themselves.

This bill, essentially, has a few small aspects to try and, basically, ensure that none of the Green Party’s Supplementary Order Paper actually makes it into law. So, essentially, the Green Party has come to Parliament tonight and they’re voting to ensure that none of their Supplementary Order Paper from last week makes it into law. They have agreed to a process to ensure that their changes which they put forward, their diligent, principled Supplementary Order Paper which they put forward to say that all prisoners should have the right to vote—they’ve come to Parliament today to, essentially, give in and say “We are going to be happy with not one part of our Supplementary Order Paper coming into law.” That’s just another example of how the Green Party is having to give up—again—something else. They haven’t got their light rail, they haven’t got anything else, and now they’re not even getting anything through under this bill.

I wonder what the deal was that the Minister spoke about in his speech, where he said that there was some sort of deal done where a quick conversation was done between the three parties, where they agreed to this process this week. Where’s the transparency around what was agreed by the Green Party?

💬 Hon David Bennett: They probably got a couple of eels; they’re slimy enough.

Maybe a couple of eels, as David Bennett says. But something was agreed. I’d like the Green Party to stand up and take a call and give New Zealanders some openness and transparency from the most open and transparent Government that New Zealand has ever seen—well, hopefully, we’ll see that when, you know, the Hon Tracy Martin, she’ll soon be taking a call and explaining what the New Zealand First Party got out of this or what the Green Party might have got, because the reality is that there would have been a deal done to make this be brought to the House this week after what happened in the debacle of last week.

So, essentially, this bill fixes up a terrible mistake that the Government opened themselves up to, which was that it made Corrections staff have to assist all prisoners to enrol to vote regardless of how long they’d been sentenced, despite the fact that the same bill they passed said that only prisoners who had been sentenced to less than three years were actually entitled to be enrolled and entitled to vote. Essentially, the bill that Government members passed was to make Corrections officers act illegally. That went to Royal assent yesterday, as we’ve heard. They passed a piece of legislation to make Corrections officers act illegally. That’s something which I think is completely irresponsible and incompetent. They should apologise to Corrections officers for what they have done to them.

The last point that I want to make is around the rights of victims. I raised this point in each of my speeches—in this bill and in the previous bill—because there is nothing in this bill about the rights of victims of crime. We all know on this side of the House how crime affects our communities and how devastating it can be. The story that we’re told is that people serving sentences of less than three years are somehow not serving for serious offences; they’re going to be released soon, so we have to give them the right to vote.

I want to remind the House what the Justice Committee heard when considering the previous bill—in noting that, there was no select committee under this bill, so there were no submissions that we can refer to. In a submission that was received, there was evidence provided to the committee which showed that during the 2018/19 year, 1,929 serious violent offenders were sentenced to three years or less for crimes such as manslaughter, sexual assault, abduction, and acts intended to cause injury. What, in this bill, gives any rights to those victims of those crimes? I find that shameful—that we’ve heard this Government talk about the rights of prisoners but do nothing and say nothing about the rights of the victims of those crimes, who are the ones left behind and are the ones who are the elephant in the room from this Government. I find that absolutely shameful.

Lastly, both bills have gone through an absolute shambolic process. We’ve seen the Government use urgency. We’ve seen the Government use extended hours. We’ve seen the Government use COVID-19 to rush this bill through. Whilst New Zealanders were focused on their lives and their livelihoods and their businesses, the Government’s priority was giving prisoners the vote. I find that absolutely shameful. They’ve had three years to do this—three years to do this—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Three long years.

—but they used—three long years to do this—the last few months before the election to rush this through. I think that’s incredibly cynical. I proudly stand opposed to this bill.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. So just in light of the member who resumed his seat, just to the first part of his speech when he talked about how hurt he was, how sad he was around some of the things that the Hon Andrew Little had said, I am reminded of Woody from Toy Story: if the boot fits. Go back and have a look, ladies and gentlemen, at what was the contribution from that member at the beginning.

That member also suggested that I would tell you the truth. That member also suggested that I would stand up and give you some form of transparency, so I will do that. Last week, the Green Party made a mistake. Last week, the Green Party made a mistake. They made a mistake because they believed that the National Party would not play politics with something so important—so important—as the law. That’s what the truth is, New Zealand.

Now, New Zealand First did not know that the Green Party was going to put down a Supplementary Order Paper. We did not know that. The Green Party is an independent party in its own right. They’re not the coalition partner, by the way, and I’m not surprised that the National Party doesn’t understand the difference between coalition partners and supply and confidence partners, because they haven’t got any mates, so they actually don’t need to consider any one of those variations. But the Green Party is a supply and confidence partner who gives confidence on Budget issues.

So the Green Party—and perhaps the National Party members would like to go away and have a look at the many nuances that the MMP Government can be made up by. The Green Party has every right to come into this House and put a Supplementary Order Paper on the Table. Why would they have thought that the National Party was so devoid of respect for not only the law but for this House that they would play games with such a thing? Why would the Green Party have thought that? So yes, the Green Party made a mistake: they gave the National Party more credit than they should have ever given them, and that is what happened last week.

Mr Brown suggests that there are deals done behind closed doors—

💬 Hon David Bennett: They are. Fish—how many fish?

—between the parties in this coalition Government. Now, I’m not surprised that the National Party—and that’s Mr Bennett shouting out there, for the ladies and gentlemen at home. I’m not surprised that the National Party thinks that, because that is the way they operate. You project on to others what you yourself are prepared to do. I understand that. We only need to talk to David Seymour and Peter Dunne and the Māori Party to know how shafted they were at times by people that they were supposedly in an agreement with. But one of the things that this MMP Government is proud of is, yes, we disagree on certain things, but, like grown-ups, we sit down and we work it out.

I’ve just come from Bill Birch’s book launch in the Grand Hall. I’ve just come from there, where Todd Muller and Jim Bolger stood up and talked about that one of the major assets of Bill Birch was his ability to understand compromise, was his ability to understand that you can’t come into this place and bang your fist on a table and stomp your feet [Simon O’Connor bangs fists on table] No, Mr O’Connor, you cannot. One of the things that the old National Party knew about was honour and compromise and working with others. Some of those young backbenchers over there need to go and sit down quietly and listen to the Hon Jim Bolger and listen to the Hon Bill Birch.

💬 Simeon Brown: And how did that go when he went into coalition with you?

Don’t be flippant, Mr Brown. You should listen to your elders, because they knew how to make sure that they were effective, and they were respectful of the law.

💬 Matt King: When are you going to talk about the bill?

They didn’t play games with the law. Mr King, please be quiet.

💬 Matt King: Four minutes in.

They didn’t play games with the law. This bill is fixing—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Mr King, when you get to be the Speaker, you can do that. Until then, please don’t.

So this bill is a bill to fix what was a mistake by the Green Party in believing that the National Party wouldn’t play games. So ladies and gentlemen, when you’re heading to the polls on 19 September, just remember who decides to play games with your laws and this House, which costs you tens of thousands of dollars every time we sit here, for the National Party to decide to score points. We support the bill.

What a terrible contribution that last one was. I can’t actually believe that speaker, Tracey Martin. She wouldn’t actually acknowledge and look at anybody across this room, because she knew it was a barefaced lie, everything she was saying in her speech.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’ll ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

I’ll withdraw and apologise. But it certainly wasn’t telling the truth, anyway. And—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The member will resume his seat. If he wants to continue with the remaining time of his 10-minute contribution, he will not only not repeat an offence but also be so directly offensive to the Chair. Withdraw and apologise, please, and don’t repeat it.

I withdraw and apologise, Madam Speaker. But that party over there spent the whole five minutes in their speech, didn’t once mention the bill, didn’t talk about the bill at all, and it just was a verbal attack, trying to present themselves as some virtuous party that is holier than thou, when their whole party is based on deals and shams and all those things that have littered the history of that party for the time that it’s been in Parliament. Its leadership has been part of all those high-profile events that have been in the public arena, been in media, for years and years, and even today it’s in the media again around fishing and where the cameras are on boats. So to have that member then come into this House and try and present that they are some holier than thou party that actually tried to put a spin on what had actually happened, when they are the party that is the party of shammy deals, that has a history of abuse of the process of Parliament, an abuse of the process of legislation—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Sorry, Madam Speaker. I just seek your guidance. I’m not clear on where the point is—where the line is that a member crosses with regard to making accusations about other members or other parties. Can you give me some clarity there?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I think there’s plenty of guidance in Speakers’ rulings and the Standing Orders, and if you feel that he did breach any of those you could raise that. I wasn’t aware that he had. We’ve all got different levels of sensitivities on different issues, and some members can be offended when others aren’t. But if you think there was a Standing Order or a Speaker’s ruling breached, I’d certainly be keen to hear it.

We heard some great lines from that last speaker—“the truth”, from New Zealand First. Isn’t that ironical to have somebody from New Zealand First talk about truth, and—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, Mr Bennett. That’s the third time.

I was just quoting what she said.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): That’s the third time. [Interruption] Mr Bennett will resume his seat. I asked you twice. It’s now the third time. You’re breaching the protocol of this House and I’m of the view that you know you are, because you’re a senior member in your caucus. Please don’t do it again. Withdraw and apologise for that comment and then resume your speech, thank you.

I withdraw and apologise. But I’m just taking—I wrote down some direct quotes from that last speech.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Don’t push it, please.

One was “respect for law”—you know, that was another direct quote we had from the New Zealand First Party. I found that deeply ironical as well. “The Green Party simply made a mistake.” Those were the comments made from—and “Grown-ups sit down and work it out.” Well, that’s not the history of the New Zealand First Party, is it? You know, how many times has the New Zealand First Party acted like grown-ups that sit down and work something out? Never. They always throw their toys out. That’s the nature of their party. They come to the last six months of a coalition—

💬 Hon Poto Williams: How is this relevant?

No, I’m just rebutting the previous speaker’s speech. They do that every time. I’ve never seen that party act as grown-ups and sit down and work it out. I’d love for the member to give us examples of where they have done that, because it just doesn’t happen. Every six months before an election, they start throwing their toys out. That’s how they work. That’s the New Zealand First Party and that’s the modus operandi of that party.

So to have them come into this Parliament and say how great they are is so rich—so, so rich. The reality is what has happened here. It is that the New Zealand First Party and the Labour party made a mistake. They were backing their Green mates and thought, well, this deal would be done and there’d be that amendment to the bill, and then we’d all be good and it’d be all hunky dory—and that’s not a reference to fishing, for the New Zealand First members, if they’re that sensitive about fish issues today.

The Green Party were silly enough to actually put two amendments up and didn’t realise the implications of their second amendment. There were smarter members in this House, and we’ve heard from some of our members that spoke on that very day, that took advantage of that opportunity. It’s not our role to actually make the Government’s life easier, as Simeon Brown said. Our role is to hold them to account and our role is to show the failings of the Government. There are definite failings there, because the Green Party in all their majesty thought they were doing something wonderful, and the New Zealand First Party and the Labour Party were simply asleep, and their whips just sat there and let it happen and didn’t really realise what was happening until it was too late. That’s the reality of what happened.

Now we spend a whole day in Parliament doing this again, and then we get sanctimonious speeches from the New Zealand First Party about how wonderful they are and how they represent these values and these beliefs that nobody—nobody—in the public would associate with that party. There’s no way that anybody puts that party in the same word as “trust” or “grown-ups that sit around and work something out”. That’s just not how people think of the New Zealand First Party.

I get great pleasure from seeing the failings of the New Zealand First Party and how their voters are now moving en masse to the ACT Party, because they should not be in Parliament. The New Zealand First Party are a leech on the political system in New Zealand. They always have been, and it will be a good day’s work if they are removed from this Parliament. I think that that’s something that will happen, because we’ve got the greatest candidate in Northland that will win that seat, and Jones can go around flirting all the money he likes—nobody’s going to vote for him. He’s seen as arrogant. They don’t like him, so there’s no way the New Zealand First Party will get back in. That is a great day for New Zealand politics and a great day for New Zealand, because they don’t add anything to this place. They never have and they never will, and that’s just the simple reality of it. It will be good to see their failings being exposed and that those people there in their party that aren’t there for the best interests of New Zealand but only for their own interests are removed from this Parliament. It’s going to be a great day when we see that happen on 20 September.

I’ve got some news for the National Party: nobody cares. Nobody cares about their silly little procedural trick last week. Nobody cares that the House has had to come back today to put the bill to rights. Nobody cares.

There is one useful thing that members and parties and this House can do across their multiplicity of beliefs, and that is to come to this House and to vote for the things that they believe in. And, in respect of this bill, every single party across this House, the New Zealand First Party, the Labour Party, the Green Party, the ACT Party, have at all stages voted for what they believe in in respect of this bill. There is one party that is an exception to that, who thought it was more important to try and play a game, to try and play a trick that, ultimately, will have no meaningful outcome and that absolutely no voter out there will care about this year.

So I stand proudly as a member of a party that’s voted for what we believe in with this bill and will do so again tonight, and I’d urge members on the other side of the House to reflect upon whether it was really all worth it given that nobody cares.

I cannot help but comment on the “nobody cares” statement. I know that there are a whole bunch of people out there who are listening and watching—maybe now or maybe later—who care about what is happening with the law of New Zealand. Right now, in this Parliament, we are debating on the second round the same concept that we know, on this side of the House, many members of the public oppose—that is, essentially, that giving back, the reinstating of, the right to vote for prisoners who are imprisoned with sentences having to be served for less than three years.

It’s not easy to be imprisoned in New Zealand. Members of the police force will tell us that. The members of the public know that it’s not easy to be put in prison. It’s not taken lightly by the system nor the public. Once a person goes through the process of disavowing or breaking the social contract that he has with other persons or with the State, that person will go through a process, and part of the results of that breaking away from the social contract of behaving in accordance with law will have consequences. The consequence of imprisonment does come with a loss of civil liberties, which include the right to vote. This is not unique to New Zealand. This is shared by other countries around the world where prisoners who are convicted of crimes and are in prison are relieved of that right to vote. So I believe that people out there do care about what is happening now, and what is happening now, essentially, is giving to these prisoners the opportunity to vote while they are still serving their sentence.

Again, losing the right to vote is a consequence of serious offending—not petty offending; serious offending. There are people who have committed—the level of imprisonment of up to three years and beyond reflects the severity of the offending that the prisoner has done and has been tried and convicted of doing. These include serious assault, violent robberies, family violence offences, and sexual offences. We all react when we hear about these crimes being committed. We all care that these crimes should not be committed. Imprisonment is a deterrent, and the loss of civil liberties, including that special right to be able to vote and choose the members of Parliament, for example, is something that needs to be taken away as a consequence.

National was opposed to the original legislation, called the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. That has now been passed into Act by a process of urgency, where the process, the legislative process, has been shortened, truncated, abbreviated. A lot of the process which normally allows for the public to be heard and to provide their position has not occurred. A great part of the earlier process of the original legislation had carried on through lockdown, where very little opportunity to look at it from the outside was ever given to the public.

Now, in reinstating a convicted prisoner’s right to vote, we are, essentially, I believe, re-victimising the victims. We acknowledge that we want to give these prisoners the opportunity to have their say—when they themselves, in committing the offence that they have been tried and convicted for, have actually deprived their victims of their say in what has been done to them. And by allowing prisoners to vote, I believe that every victim throughout New Zealand is again put through that process of losing that voice that they may have as victims in seeing the incarceration and the removal of civil liberties for every prisoner that is in prison for certain crimes.

The current bill seeks to amend, through clauses 5 and 6, the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act—so bill No. 1. Clause 5 and 6 pertain to the requirement for Corrections officers to assist prisoners in prison and assist them to get enrolled to vote if they are serving sentences of less than three years. For many, this reinstatement of their right to vote will be and can be exercised in the coming elections.

I think, when this is mentioned, and considering the serious economic situation that New Zealand finds itself in, and considering that we are undergoing this process of urgency, where we have been here all afternoon, into this night, debating another bill—another bill—that deals with the same reinstatement of rights, I just feel and believe that it is a wasted opportunity. We could very well be in urgency considering a bill that could be addressing assistance to businesses or possibly something that could improve the economy of New Zealand, which is now in grave danger.

I come to clause 6, where prisoners who are sentenced to three years or more imprisonment will be asked if they would like to be enrolled and they will be helped to enrol and they will be asked if they will agree to their enrolment details to be furnished to the Electoral Commission.

Once a sentence has been served and a prisoner has done his time, then, essentially, as he is released, then that deprivation of civil liberties rightfully is given back to him. This makes absolute sense, and, on this part, I believe National supports that reinstatement and that re-enrolment at that point of release. But that is not the same to say for prisoners who continue to be incarcerated and who continue to be serving the sentences that they have been tried and convicted of and which they wouldn’t have been convicted of if they had not broken that social contract with the State and other persons. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The following call’s a split call—Gareth Hughes.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I want to direct my comments to the previous speaker, David Bennett, because in my career of more than a decade, I don’t know if I’ve heard a more embarrassing and frankly egregious contribution. He got up, and within his first words were insults, were making things up—absolutely egregious. Here we are, and the last member, which was more of a measured, actually slightly substantive, contribution, said, “Well, why aren’t we here debating how we can improve people’s lives?” The answer, of course, is: we are not here debating the very many things we need to do because that party decided to become legislative saboteurs and waste Parliament’s time. We’re here literally cleaning up a mess that they decided to play politics with something as fundamental as electoral law to try—and I don’t know what they were trying: to prove a point that they were all the clever kids who would try and stymie progress? Because, frankly, it’s an embarrassment. Here we are, trying to fix a mess that they caused because they would rather play games.

Around this Chamber are 33 memorials to where Kiwis served to defend our democracy. But instead, National would rather play politics—not just politics, petty politics. It’s, frankly, disgusting. Now, I wish we would actually have a substantive debate around principles and values, because that was sadly lacking, entirely lacking, from those contributions—a party that’s focused on petty politics rather than principles.

Now, I’m proud to stand here as someone who is proud that we are removing the prohibition against prisoners serving a sentence of three years or less to be able to exercise their human rights. Look, I would go further than the other parties that we’re forming a Government with, because we have principles and values, and when the Green Party exercises its votes in this House, we do it with integrity. I just wish you could say the same from that party.

Madam Speaker, I cannot believe what I’ve just heard from the member who’s just sat down, Gareth Hughes. Let me ask the member this: whose Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was it that was passed last week? Was it the Green Party’s SOP? Oh, who was it? It was Golriz Ghahraman’s SOP 518.

Let me ask a second question. If the member who put the amendment forward to this House didn’t want it passed, why did they put it on the Table in the first place? This is an appalling process. I cannot understand the amount of hours that we’ve lost to fix a stuff-up from this Government to correct an inconsistency that would have been able to give Corrections officers the ability to enrol voters in prison who can’t even have the right to vote. Whose stuff-up was that? It was the Green Party stuff-up, and that is symbolic of the shambles and incompetence of this coalition Government. It is an absolute shambles, this process that we’ve just been discussing today, but also the bill that we’ve been discussing over the last few months has been a shambles from this Government.

Let me come back to something that Michael Wood said, around standing up for what you believe in. Well, on this side of the House, we do stand up for what we believe in. We stand up for: if you do a crime, you do the time. We stand up for victims’ rights, and we stand up for proper democratic process, which we’ve failed to see in this bill and in the one that’s gone before the House in the last few months. Where is the integrity of this Government? In lockdown, when there are far more important priorities, we were discussing giving prisoners the right to vote. Today, we’ve lost 4½ hours of House time to fix a stuff-up from this Labour-led coalition Government. Not only that—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Soft on crime! Soft on crime!

Ha, ha! That is the member of the North, who’s going to get a harsh reality in the next couple of months of just how few people in the North actually support him.

💬 Matt King: He’s not the member of the North.

He’s not the member of the North. We’ve got a great member of the North right down here in Matt King.

Let me come to the content of the bill that we’ve been debating—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): That would be good, excellent idea.

—the last few months. The content of the bill we disagree with fundamentally on this side of the House. When you break the law, you have your rights stripped away from you as a punishment for breaking the law, whether it’s your right to freedom of expression, your right to be autonomous and do liberty—you know, go about things on a day-to-day basis—and your right to vote.

That is why we have opposed this bill. May I say, we also oppose this bill because we care about victims’ rights. We heard that in the Justice Committee, loud and clear—the number of victims who still are suffering from the consequences of those who have been put away for those crimes. So we acknowledge them, and that’s why we’ve voted that bill down, and that is why we’re continuing to vote this bill down in the House tonight.

But I just want to summarise to the House tonight that we have lost 4½ hours fixing a stuff-up from this Government when we could have been—as my colleague Paulo Garcia said, talking about support for small business—talking about how to get people that are out of work back into work. That is what we care about and what we will stand up for on this side of the House. What we will stand up for is priorities from this House and this Government, and this Government has had a shambolic list of priorities. They would rather focus on giving prisoners the right to vote rather than getting our economy back moving. We condemn this bill in the House.

One of the first things that came out of the National leader’s mouth when he became Opposition leader was that he wasn’t interested in opposition for opposition’s sake. So what is happening here tonight is exactly that. So the question I put is: why aren’t you backing your leader—why aren’t you backing your leader? And if it’s not that, you’re completely out of touch, because this is not an issue that the country cares about.

So if you’re going to go back to your offices and think you’ve got a little win tonight, I’d suggest you actually think about what happened in your caucus today and have a bit of reflection about that. Either this caucus isn’t backing its leader or it’s the same tired old party that it was before the leadership change, or a bit of both, and I suspect I’m right on both cases. It’s not the party of English and Key anymore; it’s just a sad old skeleton of what it used to be.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak tonight on the third reading of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). But, of course, it feels a bit more like the fifth or sixth time I’ve risen to speak on this piece of legislation, and that is, of course, because we’ve passed very similar legislation in this Parliament in recent weeks.

I do want to begin by commenting on the committee of the whole House process that has just concluded a short time ago, because I was a little bit surprised that the Green Party did not move an amendment or put forward another Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) similar to the one that’s mentioned in the bill, which is SOP 518 on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. When we last debated similar legislation to this, last week, that’s exactly what the Greens did. They moved an amendment that would have extended the right to vote to all prisoners rather than just those who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of less than three years. But there wasn’t one tonight, so that principled position that the Greens hold, which I can understand entirely, that led them to put up that amendment in the first place, is, for now, for some reason, no longer in existence. So what we have instead is a bill that will confirm that only prisoners who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three years or less will be able to vote, which the Greens have claimed is against their principles—and yet here they are in Parliament tonight, voting the other way, not to extend voting to all prisoners but to instead revoke or repeal the amendment that was put forward and supported by this Parliament last week in the name of Golriz Ghahraman.

This bill in its explanatory note purports to remove inconsistencies in the Electoral Act as a result of that legislation that we passed last week, but instead all it does is confirm them. It says that prisoners who are sentenced to 35 months in prison will be able to vote in elections but that those who are sentenced to 37 months—perhaps for the same crime—will not be able to vote. That is an inconsistency that Chlöe Swarbrick railed against in this Parliament just a few days ago, but this week the Greens are voting to confirm that position.

There are other inconsistencies in this bill which I’d like to touch on. The Minister of Justice has given a number of contributions in this debate, in first, second, and third readings, and a couple during the committee of the whole House stage, and in his explanation for why he supports this bill and why he’s brought this bill to the House, he’s said that his position is that prisoners should be able to vote for the Government and for the Parliament that will represent them when they are released. Again, I can understand that position. It’s a relatively coherent position. But this bill, and the changes that are made in it, and the additional changes that we made last week, don’t do that. They don’t, for example, cater for a prisoner who was sentenced to 10 years who might be due for release next year. That person will not be able to vote in the upcoming election. Nor will they be able to vote in council elections or in district health board elections—for as long as they exist, I suppose, given the other measures that are being proposed by the Government at the moment. So this bill doesn’t cater for those people. It prevents them from voting for the Government, for the Parliament, and for councils and DHBs that will represent them upon release. So it doesn’t fit with Mr Little’s stated goal for this bill at all.

That brings me back to where I started, which is a point on process, and the process that we’ve gone through in coming to this bill and to this Parliament and to this vote tonight. The reason we have this bill to begin with, as my colleagues have laid out earlier in the debate, is around a failure of process, and a failure of process by this Government. It’s a failure to align the three parties of Government to have a consistent position. We saw that in full show last week, when the Greens moved an SOP. And now, in this bill, they haven’t learnt their lesson, because this bill, as well, is a failure of process. What they’re doing is they’re doubling down on that poor process.

The original bill that was brought forward to Parliament, the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill, was voted on at first reading and went off and had a select committee process—such as it was through the COVID-19 lockdown period. It was then brought back to Parliament last week, and we voted on the committee stage and third reading under urgency. That wasn’t an ideal process, and that was shown up with the fact that, of course, there was a mistake in the bill, which we’re now tidying up with this legislation. Not content with that poor process, the Government, as I’ve said, are doubling down with this legislation: going through all stages—not just the later stages; going through all stages—without a select committee process, and, unfortunately, with that, with a truncated process, full stop.

So we’re not able to consider this bill in the same detail. We haven’t had input from the public. We haven’t had input from victims of crime. We haven’t had input from our prisoner advocates, and, indeed, even prisoners themselves. There’s been none of that input into this bill at all. And, of course, the Greens weren’t able to put forward an SOP which aligns with their principles. It would have been useful, I think, if we’d had a select committee process. They could have tabled that SOP alongside the bill to provide additional context to the select committee on what could be voted for—again, aligning with Green Party principles. Yet we haven’t had the opportunity to do that, because of the truncated process.

Equally bad is that this bill is being rushed through all stages in one day. We’ve had no opportunity for public input at all, and now, with a heavily truncated process, we’re pushing this bill through Parliament with less scrutiny than I think electoral law should allow for. Certainly, when it comes to electoral law, Andrew Little has said it’s the fundamental part of our democracy, and yet we’re ramming through all stages in this House a bill that violates that. That’s a shame, because, as Andrew Little pointed out when he was in Opposition, electoral law changes shouldn’t be rushed through in a process like this. It shouldn’t be going through urgency. It certainly shouldn’t be going through urgency in all stages in one day. The Greens themselves have actually said that as well. They consistently in Opposition railed against the use of urgency and said it should be avoided at all costs, and yet here we are. Now that Mr Little and the Greens are both in Government, those ideals seem to have gone out the window, and we see them rushing through electoral law changes—probably amongst the last dozen or so bills that were passed by this Parliament, being rushed through before the election.

It wasn’t like there weren’t opportunities to fix the bill last week. Of course, Nick Smith, our colleague, moved, during, I think, the third reading, to refer the bill back to select committee.

💬 Stuart Smith: Did they do that?

They absolutely didn’t do that, unfortunately. So there was a perfect opportunity to refer that bill back to select committee, which would have completely removed the need for this legislation to be rushed through all stages in one day. It could have been referred back to select committee and the public input invited, and we could have had a far better process to ensure that those inconsistencies that are identified in this bill don’t come to pass. So I was very disappointed by that.

We also had, of course, Mr Little during many speeches seeming to blame the National Party. He seemed to blame all this situation on the National Party and hasn’t taken any of the blame for himself. The closest we got to that, actually, was a New Zealand First MP, essentially, blaming the Greens for it. Well, actually, there’s a huge amount of blame to be put on the Government, particularly Andrew Little, for presiding over a shambolic process, as my colleague Simeon Brown has pointed out. So the process on this bill has been poor. The bill provides more inconsistencies, unfortunately, than it remedies. The Minister has taken every opportunity that he has had to blame the National Party, never accepting any blame for himself, and, unfortunately, launching a disgraceful attack on another member of this House over mental health. We won’t be supporting the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am really pleased to have the last contribution, to say the last few words on this particular bill, to actually tell the National Party why we are here fixing this bill up, and it has got a lot to do with the families of 51 victims in Christchurch. One of the things we are fixing up is the hole that that party made in there by actually supporting the Supplementary Order Paper which means that the man who shot 51 people in Christchurch now has the right to be advised that he can go on the electoral roll. I for one would spend four days fixing that up. That’s shambolic and shameful, and if you over there want to protect the rights of victims, you will not play games with the electoral law again. I for one commend this bill to the House and condemn them for their shambolic and shameful games that they played last week.