Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill

We now come to the debate on clause 9. This is the debate on inserting new Schedule 1 into the principal Act. The content of the schedule was debated during the clause 4 debate. This a very narrow debate on inserting the new schedule into the principal Act. The question is that clause 9 stand part.

Mr Chairman, it will not surprise you or the Government that National does not support the insertion of Schedule 1 into the Local Electoral Act. We’ve had a long discussion about how important electoral law is. Officials in their advice have said that, actually, our Electoral Act and our Local Electoral Act are some of the most important pieces of legislation in our Parliament, and the reason National members do not wish to have this schedule added into the Local Electoral Act is actually because it is a smear or discolouration for that Act. The provisions that are in the schedule are problematic and undemocratic.

I just give you a very simple answer in terms of giving context. There are provisions in this schedule that tell an electoral officer that even if you are legally required to do something under a process that is already under way, this schedule overrules it and says, “No, even though you’re legally required to do this, you are to do this no more.”

Now, one of the things I jealously guard, whether it be in the general Electoral Act or whether it be in our Local Electoral Act, is that it’s very important that our electoral officers are independent and that they are able to make their decisions without fear or favour in running the key parts of our electoral system, whether they be at a parliamentary level or whether they be at a council level. So the reason for National’s opposition to adding Schedule 1 to the principal Act is that it actually makes our Local Electoral Act subject to provisions that we think are entirely inappropriate. These are provisions that are retrospective. These are provisions that overrule good rule of law. These are provisions in Schedule 1 that override the tens of thousands of people that had signed petitions in good faith—

💬 Hon Member: More than 25,000 people.

—for a poll—25,000, my colleague points out. So by adding Schedule 1 to the principal Act, which, of course, is the Local Electoral Act, we are introducing a chapter of shenanigans that is actually about Labour screwing the scrum on the electoral system.

You see, the Minister in the chair, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, might not accept it, but do you know how the America’s Cup works? The winner gets to write the rules for the next contest. How many members of the House think that’s the rule for general elections? I don’t. I say that electoral law is not one of those where the victors get to write the rules for the next contest, and that is effectively what we’re doing with this law. That is effectively what is in Schedule 1, and that’s why we say we should not pollute and downgrade the integrity of our Local Electoral Act by adding this schedule of shenanigans into the principal Act.

I do want to conclude on a point of academic research, and the academic research was about how we conduct electoral law in New Zealand. If I was a Labour member, I’d be wanting to read that research. It’s from Otago University. It was published at the beginning of the year, and—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: We do it by consensus; they don’t.

That’s right. My colleague’s summed it up beautifully, and that is that since World War II, Labour has had a record on 18 separate occasions of making partisan changes to the electoral law.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: How many?

Eighteen times. But here’s the bit—let’s just think about this for a moment. Eighteen times in 70 years, and this Government’s in its fourth year—it’s done it every single year. It did it in the first year, on electoral integrity, and that was with the Winston deal. It’s done it a second time, over the issue of the—remember the 48 hours when we whacked through that bill on electoral finances? It did it a third time, on getting those prisoners, who generally vote Labour—getting that through. And now we’re doing it a fourth time. So I’m saying that Schedule 1 being added to the principal Act adds to that pattern.

Mr Chair, I appreciate what you said, and you’re of course right that the substance of what’s in the schedule is something that has already been debated. I don’t want to address that in any way, shape, or form, but I do want to say to you, though, that there is actually some real meat in this. It may not be a thick steak, but it’s a nice, thin piece of pastrami.

I want to make this just very pedantic point, but I’m going to make it because I don’t know if I’ll get the chance in this House ever again to do it, and that’s this: we are a constitution, with the Queen in New Zealand as our monarch, and she pronounces it “schedule”, not “skedule”. I know some of you watch Friends and a variety of other cheap American sitcoms, but it is “schedule” in this country.

I want to read the clause. It says here: “Insert the Schedule 1 set out in the Schedule of this Act as the first schedule to appear after the last section of the principal Act.” The principal Act is the Local Electoral Act, and academically and, I suppose, in a sense constitutionally, the electoral laws of our land are—I’m not sure it’s politically correct to say this any more—certainly not woke, but the poor cousin of our electoral law that governs this place and how you come here. Nevertheless, there’s an academic body of work. There’s guys like Jack Vowles and others who have specialised in this area, there was a guy Graham at Auckland University when I was there, and my simple point is this: this Local Electoral Act that the schedule is going into is, in fact, part of our constitution. It is part of our constitution.

Our constitution may not be a formal written one, like the United States or even Australia, but we have one none the less. It is an informal one—and, in fact, it’s written; it’s just written in a bunch of different places—and the principal Act is part of New Zealand’s constitution.

So my simple point to the members is this: by putting this law and the schedule into the principal Act, the Local Electoral Act. It is a stain on our constitution because it is an undemocratic law, passed undemocratically, and it comes to the point that Nick Smith made around the schedule going into the principal Act. I appreciate that there’s no one on the other side that is going to like these points, but they’ve just been shown in an academic study. I presume no beef with the National or the Labour parties per se, but when the Labour Party passes electoral law, it has zero regard for consensus in these matters. Those are my words, and it’s not quite what—but it’s fundamentally what the study says. We come in, and we’re overly conservative—the Simon Powers, the Judith Collins, and the Amy Adams. They are very judicious in the way they do it; they weren’t on the other side.

So to rush this law through in urgency, with retrospectivity and offending against a raft of other rule-of-law propositions, and to change the schedules and to put this schedule from this law into the primary Act, which is without question part of our informal constitution, the informal constitution of this law, I say—and I don’t want to be overly dramatic—is a stain on our democracy and a stain on our constitution. It may only be a scheduling issue, but there’s rather more to it, it seems to me, than that.

In short, I won’t take the full time. But Schedule 1 should not be part of the principal Act, with the principal Act being part of our constitution.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that the Hon Dr Nick Smith’s

I will report this bill without amendment.

House resumed.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third Reading