Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This year is local election year. This October, New Zealanders will be voting on who they want to represent them in local government, making decisions on behalf of them and their local communities.

This bill makes a small but important change to ensure the safety of local election candidates around the country by replacing the requirement to include a physical address in an authorisation statement with other options. Those options are a physical address, an email address, a telephone number, a PO Box number, or a website address. This bill creates a safer playing field for all candidates so that no one is needlessly subjected to harm or discouraged from standing.

I’d like to thank the Justice Committee and its chair, Ginny Andersen. The committee had an ambitious time frame to hear submissions and to report back. They met in their recess to give as many submitters as possible an opportunity to have their say.

There were just 30 submissions on this bill. I think that what this shows is that New Zealanders just want to get on with this. All of the submissions received by the committee were unique and I would like to thank everyone who took the time over the last two weeks to present their views to the committee. All but three submissions strongly supported the bill. This includes local government sector organisations including Local Government New Zealand and Taituarā—Local Government Professionals Aotearoa—11 submissions from current or former candidates in local or general elections, two submissions representing local authorities, and three submissions from current mayors. I’m pleased to hear such unanimous support from the local government sector. Some submitters believe that urgency and the select committee process are not warranted. I disagree. In the words of Local Government New Zealand: “Without these changes, we’re concerned that a number of potential candidates may be deterred from standing due to fears for their personal safety and the safety of those they live with.”

So that it can take effect before campaigning for this year’s local elections gets properly under way in less than a month, the amendment bill needs to be enacted under urgency. The urgency is justified to remedy the risk of harm at the next local elections, and I wish to take the opportunity to acknowledge the support of other parties for allowing this to go through all stages this evening.

I want to acknowledge the role that local government has in making positive change. Local government is an incredibly important part of our democratic landscape. The contribution that each local authority makes to the wellbeing of its communities cannot be understated. Local government decisions affect each and every New Zealander every day. Sometimes these are obvious—when we turn on the tap, catch the bus, or take the dog to the park. Then there are the big-picture items that councillors are responsible for—planning and development, infrastructure, community facilities, climate change, and many areas in between. Those diverse functions require cohesive political institutions that reflect the unique character of our nation, and we are a diverse nation. For there to continue to be effective local government in Aotearoa, we need New Zealanders to continue putting themselves forward in elections. It is the responsibility of this House to make sure that they can do so safely. As the Hon Nanaia Mahuta said when she announced this legislation: “Local democracy thrives when a broad range of individuals who bring different perspectives and experiences stand for public office in the contest of ideas.”

The committee heard that standing for election is not a decision that affects men, women, and people with marginalised identities equally. This bill is for those who stand for election to local government, but it is also for those who don’t; for those who had to put themselves and their whānau first because the risk associated with publishing their home address on a billboard was too much. I hope those people will think about standing again this year because local Government and democracy is for everyone. This bill keeps it that way. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I wish to also acknowledge the Hon Kieran McAnulty, the Associate Minister of Local Government, and recognise his new role, and thank him for introducing this bill. We’re talking about the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill. This is a bill that National is supporting and, as the Minister has articulated, this is a bill that is addressing a number of aspects in regards to the process, or some of the barriers, that candidates potentially face when they are seeking election at local government level.

I also want to acknowledge the wide range of individuals across our country, across the 67 or so district councils and regional council entities, and in local government more broadly, for their contributions to local government across this country. They do a very important role in terms of supporting their local communities and dealing with a number of aspects that are very much local. As we’ve seen over the past couple of months in particular, the local community responses to natural disasters and other aspects like that reinforces, I think, the important role that our local government entities play in terms of supporting our communities. I was fortunate, actually, to be in Hokitika—

💬 Maureen Pugh: You were fortunate.

Maureen Pugh is just reminding me how fortunate I was. Once again, I was fortunate. I spent some time there on Sunday. It’s not a short trip from Auckland, but we got down there and met with a number of that community in the local government community, and it reinforced to me the important role, particularly in rural and provincial New Zealand, that local government plays in terms of supporting those communities. These individuals are individuals that carry multiple roles within their communities, and in the case that I had, I met with a number of the individuals that were business owners, were members of the volunteer fire brigade; they were coaches and parent help at the local school, one chap involved in driving the bus or acting as the part-time security guard at the local RSA, and all of that type of aspect that’s so critically important and is the fabric, I think, of New Zealand rural and provincial communities.

Our members of local government are very much at the heart of that, and in instances such as flooding or the impact of other aspects, and that occurs more regularly, those elements or those individuals within local government really step up. The reality is that on top of dealing with the impacts of COVID and workforce crises and shortages—particularly amplified in our smaller communities—their ability and their efforts in regards to keeping our communities safe cannot be understated.

This bill, obviously, is going to provide some optionality in terms of the disclosure requirements in regards to authorisation statements. For many, they may not think that this is necessarily significant—or those here within this House—in that when we campaign as central government, as members of Parliament, we obviously have the ability to use disclaimers and addresses that aren’t necessarily our own home or personal addresses. I think many members in this House, and me included, would have already, in our short amount of time, been open to some of the issues around where we live and aspects around that, and security considerations. So I understand and National understands the importance, and the barrier, particularly as has been raised to me by a number of constituents that are thinking about local government, who have concerns about sharing their residential home address—and rightly so. This bill will allow them a mechanism to still put their hand up to participate in local government democracy, which is so critically important for this country, but to do it in a way in which their privacy is protected, and I think that is something that is really important and, again, is supported by National.

In regards to the time line for this bill, obviously, it will come into force pretty much once we’ve pushed this through. I think the reality of the shortened select committee process—there were a few elements in terms of submissions there. I think we have highlighted the fact that, actually, this isn’t a new issue. It’s not something that’s just come up in the last month or so, and we’ve gone, “Oh crikey, maybe we should do something about that.” I think the reality is that this is an issue that has been around for a long time. Obviously, this Government has been in Government for five years and the reality—

💬 Maureen Pugh: And it feels like it.

—Maureen Pugh is just reminding me of the five long years—is that they should have had the proactive planning to be able to say, “Look, we’ve got local government elections coming up.”, because, funnily enough, they do occur reasonably regularly in terms of the time lines, surprisingly, and so it is no surprise that they are in October of this year. So maybe we should have done this a little bit earlier and allowed good, due democracy in terms of a full select committee process, which hasn’t been the case in this instance.

But I think, in the main, while there were a few submissions, there was some opportunity, and I just wanted to at least acknowledge that element of the process. I think it is also important to note that the Justice Committee, which reviewed this—and I do want to acknowledge the chair of the Justice Committee, here watching in regards to that, and I had a very short and brief appearance at that committee when this went through. It went through unanimously, and it was passed without amendment, and that recognised the process that this went through.

I think that’s pretty much all that I want to cover. I do want to, lastly, just encourage members of the public who believe that they have the capability, competence, experience, or life experience and background to be able to contribute at a local government level or in their local communities. We absolutely need, as a country, as many people participating in our local government democracy. It is an essential part of the way in which our local communities operate, and the reality is that we don’t live nationally; we live locally. We all live as part of our community, and having individuals that we are able to democratically elect and represent our views is very important in terms of ensuring clear accountability in terms of delivery of important aspects within our local communities. That, of course, includes aspects from our roading networks, which are essential—again, more essential and often overlooked, I think, in rural and provincial New Zealand in terms of the role they play in terms of supporting our regional economies.

The other aspect is in regards to the civil defence role that local government plays, and I’ve talked about the importance of that role and the reality of what they are asked to do and have been asked to do over the last year in particular. The other aspect is in regards to the significant reform that’s currently under way within the local government sector, and, obviously, one aspect of that that I have a pretty good overview and understanding of is in regards to the three waters reform process that this Government is currently ramming through the House, and one in which, as I’ve said, I think in some part absolutely rips the heart out of local government in terms of the impact on our smaller communities. I think that’s why you’re seeing such significant opposition across the country, particularly from local government, in regards to these reforms that simply will not deliver the outcomes that have been spoken about.

But that’s one element. You’ve also got the Resource Management Act composition or implications that are going to be impacting on local government, and the future of local government as well, which is a reform process that’s currently under way. The members on the other side are getting excited, so I’ll give them an opportunity to have a little bit of a chat, but we will be supporting this bill. Thank you.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, you wouldn’t believe it from hearing the last speech, but this is actually a very simple bill; it’s short and it’s sweet. The bill removes the requirement to list a physical address on campaign advertising for the upcoming local government elections. The current legislation—the Local Electoral Act 2001—provides that candidates must include a physical address on the authorisation statement of advertising materials, such as on billboards and flyers; often, this is the candidate’s home address. Instead, this bill changes that requirement by saying that it can be a residential or business address, an email, a post office box number, a phone number, or a link to an internet site.

Why do we need the bill? We need this bill because there have been growing concerns within our community that candidates who publicise their home address may face undue risk to their physical safety and, also, it may prevent them wanting to stand for office in the very first place. So while the requirements for publicising a physical address were intended to increase transparency and promote democracy, in fact they are doing the antithesis of this by discouraging those people who don’t want to make their home address public.

Of the 30 submissions we received at select committee, 27 of those were in strong support of the bill. I’m going to briefly run through the points raised, because I think it’s important we do so. They clearly stated that the current address requirements put candidates at real risk and also give them a sense of perceived harm. The bill removes barriers for putting people forward for candidacy by removing that requirement, and the bill supports an equitable electoral environment and appropriately balances accountability alongside of safety.

I’d like to conclude by thanking those members of the Justice Committee that met out of session in recess, both Opposition and Government, who heard those submissions, who deliberated, and who were able to report this bill back to the House in good time in order for those local body candidates standing in the next local elections to have this bill enforced, to have this law passed, and to have that additional protection. Anyone who wants to stand for office in local elections should be able to do so without feeling that their personal safety is put at risk. This is a good bill, I commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and thanks to colleagues who have already spoken on this. I’ve been enjoying the debate so far—I suppose we can call it a debate, notwithstanding that everyone seems, broadly speaking, in agreement. Obviously, we’ve got colleagues from other parties yet to speak, and we look forward to their contributions as well.

At this, the second reading, I will focus my remarks on the report of the Justice Committee—as is traditional, of course. I do want to pay tribute to them. I note that the chair of the select committee has made a contribution herself, and other colleagues who were on that committee, no doubt, will do so as well.

I myself am not a regular member of that committee, but I do substitute myself on from time to time for items of particular interest, and this was one that I happened to be involved in some of the consideration, I think—although now I’m wondering if I’m recorded as such; I’m not, so perhaps I didn’t in fact play any kind of role whatsoever; maybe in my own mind. I’m sort of the most lame version of Walter Mitty ever—that I’m falsely claiming to have been involved in the consideration on the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill.

💬 Dr Emily Henderson: You were there.

There we go. We’ve got a doughty member of the committee—Dr Emily Henderson, no less—claiming for that committee that it is the best committee. I’ll admit perhaps as much as that it might be the second-best committee; of course, the Regulations Review Committee being the best. But I should probably turn, at some point, to the bill itself and, more particularly, the select committee’s report thereon.

The point is made in the report—and I think, actually, quite helpfully—that with a number of submitters, two-thirds of the submitters, having stated that the bill would be helpful to reduce the risk of harm to candidates, this is particularly important in the case of local government elections. Of course, we’re talking about local government elections, as opposed to central government elections. There are a couple of reasons that are given for that.

I think it’s probably fair to say that we don’t want candidates for any kind of election to feel threatened. But in the case of local candidates, the point was made that these people are living in a community that’s very local. By its nature, it tends to be a smaller geographical area than in the central government environment. So for people to put themselves forward for office and to feel threatened by actions in response to the publication of their home or business address is acutely felt for those people, and that’s something to which I think we should all feel very sympathetic.

The other point is that local election candidates—and, actually, members too: those who have been duly elected—have less access to support and security than parliamentary candidates. I think, again, that’s a worthwhile point that the select committee is right to have emphasised, and I thank the submitters who gave their time and energy to submit as part of the process to share this kind of sentiment with us.

The point was made too about the vulnerability of those who have until now been required to publish their address online, and people who are living alone will feel this particularly keenly. Again, I think that’s a fair point. We don’t want inadvertent discrimination against those who live alone or might have living arrangements that they consider to be less secure than others who might put themselves forward. We want to have an equalising effect, not a discriminatory one. So we think that for people who want to put themselves forward for candidacy, if we can remove the possibility of risk associated with publishing their address, that’s a good thing.

Of course, that’s the whole point of the bill, and I think it’s worth emphasising that it’s a straightforward bill, it’s pretty narrow in its scope, but it’s important none the less for all these reasons that we’re bringing out by looking at the points that were made in the select committee process.

Verbal abuse, intimidation, and physical assaults, sadly, are examples of the kind of behaviour to which some local government election candidates have been subject. Negative comments on social media—that’s a problem in itself, but that’s not one I think that the bill seeks to address, really, because what we’re doing is removing the physical address aspect. It will still be the case that local government candidates will be available to be contacted. The alternative means in the bill provided—whether that’s email address or the other ones—doesn’t stop the possibility of abuse and threats online and so on. Of course, abuse and threats in an online environment are also problematic but in a slightly different way from those that relate to physical safety. So that’s another story for another day.

But, suffice to say, while the bill doesn’t attempt, really, to solve that problem, I think it’s always worth putting on record that MPs and policy makers don’t regard that kind of thing lightly. We should all continue to work as best we can to avoid or reduce that possibility as well, balancing, of course, against the need for free speech. To the extent that free speech is made in good faith and isn’t physically threatening or otherwise threatening—that’s something that we always must hold dear in our hearts as policy makers—that balance must be maintained.

Other points that were made in the select committee report I thought were helpful in relation to removing the discrimination if a person doesn’t have a home address or has an unstable home. I presume that means in the sense of moving around a lot, not necessarily that the house itself is unstable in a geological kind of way.

💬 Simon Watts: Well, that could be the case.

Well, my colleague and friend Simon Watts, who’s led the charge for us admirably on this side of the House, points out that could actually be the case, I suppose, actually—and this is the point at which I realise I shouldn’t be too light about the subject—for those who have a home address that might change due to the vagaries of the situation of movement—physical movement in the case of earthquakes; floods, fires, and famines, etc., and other “f” words that come to mind. You’ve got to be careful, of course, with “f” words that come to mind during a parliamentary debate, but I think I’m on safe ground with this one, so to speak.

And also, some candidates don’t have the option of providing a business address. There’s a degree of separation, I suppose, if a person’s home is their castle. We feel strongly that they shouldn’t have to put their home address for fear of intimidation and lack of privacy too. Then perhaps it’s a little bit better to be able to provide a business address. That’s probably fair enough as far as it goes, but, then again, if a person can be stalked or harassed at their business address rather than their home address, well, that’s not that great an improvement.

So I think, for that reason, it’s right that the select committee report has highlighted the fact that there is an inherent discrimination in the law currently whereby we might require the same thing of all candidates but with an unequal effect in terms of the effect that that has for people in the way that they might feel safe or otherwise.

I did think it was useful and actually really helpful that the report talks about the fact that candidates do need to be accountable. I think it’s entirely possible to make that point without saying “and therefore they should be subject to abuse.” Of course—well, hopefully—it’s obvious to state that no one thinks that they should be, but, nevertheless, there needs to be at least some measure of accountability, and that’s the reason, presumably, that the law has already and will remain in a position whereby some kind of contact address must be needed.

It did occur to me, actually, that requiring candidates to be accountable—excuse me: contactable; same thing, I guess, at a certain level—is in the interest of the candidate themselves. An example might be that if a candidates sign appears to breach local bylaws and they could be challenged on that, they might be given the opportunity, if they can be contacted, to make it compliant in some way—perhaps move it a bit down the road—rather than having it knocked down or removed by the council, let alone people who think that it’s a good idea to damage and deface signs. I don’t think we should have any sympathy with that kind of lawlessness, vigilante action, etc. I don’t have much patience with the idea that electors need the information about where a person lives because an accountable candidate is one who has nothing to hide. I think we’ve got to be careful about equating accountability with the idea that that means that some person’s got to somehow be out there and be available for abuse of a physical or other nature.

Again, just to be clear, we support the policy intent of the bill. It seems that the intent is matched in a way by removing those home and business addresses from the requirement, and something useful is happening in that space. As my colleague and friend Simon Watts has said, we do support the bill. There’s much more detail in it—believe it or not—than I’ve managed to get to in this time. The good news is of course that there will be other opportunities for contribution on the bill later tonight.

💬 Simon Court: That’s right, Mr Penk.

So with the enthusiastic acclaim and the encouragement that I’m receiving across the House, I will leave my contribution for now at that point. Thank you very much.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. First, may I begin by assuring the previous speaker—Chris Penk—that he did, in fact, appear at the Justice Committee; the finest select committee in the House.

The real issue here is that members of local and central government are facing increasing pressure and abuse from the public, standards of civility are declining, but, at the same time, in order to increase civility, increase democratic discussion, we need greater diversity. A lot of the abuse focuses pre-eminently upon those who we have least of and need most. This bill is a small but pertinent step towards protecting people at local government and giving them the anonymity as to their home addresses that we in this House already enjoy. I commend it to this House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill and take a short call, because it is a bill that is urgently needed, and, hopefully, will pass quickly, and unanimously, it sounds like, in this House. I do want to, as others have done, congratulate the new Minister—Kieran McAnulty—and the Justice Committee on their diligent work. It is a bill that will make our democracy more accessible, more equal, more safe, as others have said, and as the Justice Committee report reflects, it’s one that people have called for, for safety reasons in particular, and I can relate.

I want us to remember—and I don’t know if everyone in the House would even know this, but Amnesty International, the year after I ran for the first time, which was in 2017, Amnesty International New Zealand actually named the online abuse of women in New Zealand as a key human rights issue in terms of impacting women’s right to freedom of speech and assembly and engagement in public life. In particular, their study finding women who engage in political life to be targets—and, in particular, women of colour and other marginalised backgrounds, trans women, and other women in the rainbow community to be targets—and to notice the connection between that online abuse and this bill. It was not the case that that only ever happened online, but that a proliferation of that type of attack against certain women, in particular cases, did then spill over into real life and made women physically and psychologically unsafe through real life interactions, threats.

So it is a bill that’s overdue. I wrote to the Prime Minister about this, calling for this change in April this year, and it is a change that’s proposed in my Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill for both national level politics and local politics, but it’s a nice step to say that at least in local elections, which is the election that’s coming up this year, that we will, in fact, make some of those most vulnerable safer.

It’s the kind of law change that will mean that more [Audio issue] people are more likely to run. More communities will see their lived experiences represented without those types of barriers that are so ad hoc that we don’t even notice them, which this is. So to require a residential address or a business address means that somebody in their place of work or home will have to be exposed, not only to abuse but to that kind of interaction that they can’t control and we can. So that kind of benefit of incumbency, the benefit of being a member of an established parliamentary political party shouldn’t mean that we or people, candidates like us, have an advantage in putting our names forward. That’s not good for democracy; it never has been. And to say that the communities who don’t have a secure or stable residential or business address will kind of automatically, in fact, not even just for safety reasons, but automatically be excluded, seems antithetical to democracy.

I don’t think it’s only floods and earthquakes that mean that someone doesn’t have a stable address, as my colleague from the National Party Chris Penk just said. I think that sometimes it’s because they’re students, they’re renters—we still don’t have security of tenure in our rentals here—and they could, in fact, be homeless. We are living through an unprecedented housing crisis. So, in fact, we urgently need the voices of those who are in less stable living situations in local elections and in national elections. So actually removing those barriers is going to mean that we get some lived expertise that we urgently need.

So this is a good bill. I do commend it to the House and, hopefully, the change will be extended to protect and include more candidates at national level elections as well.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So the problem this bill seems to solve is one that ACT supports the resolution of—that is, how to attract more high-quality candidates to stand in local government. This bill proposes to reduce one of the barriers to that by making people feel more confident that if they put up their hands to stand for a role as an elected member, that their home address—their residential address—will not have to be published on their campaign material. And ACT think that’s just fine because we’ve had the internet for a few years, we’ve had email for a few years, we’ve had social media not for quite as long, but there are many, many ways that candidates can communicate with voters about where they see their community of interest, the place that they live, the place that they have a business, the place that they employ people, the place they call home, and they can do that through digital means without having to publish it on every piece of campaign collateral. So that’s good.

Now, ACT supports this bill. What we’d also support is a better set of objectives for local government that meant that people would want to stand in their communities knowing they can make a difference in the lives of the people that they propose to represent. I’ll give you an example: currently, local government has an astonishing number of conflicting objectives, and you could take climate change, for example, a policy that central government have said we must reduce emissions in order to achieve targets that we’ve committed to in international treaties. And so you have local councils like Auckland Council committing to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2030.

Now, if you did any reasonable analysis, if you knew how to use a spreadsheet and you put the number of cars in, times the number of trips, times the number of people, times whether they use petrol or diesel or catch the bus or some of them might decide to ride a bike on a sunny day—there is no way Auckland Council can achieve its climate target of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030, which is handed down by central government. No way.

So every elected member who puts their hand up to stand for Auckland Council has bought into this nonsense. What they don’t realise is, while they might support reducing emissions, while they might believe that managing and mitigating our effects on the climate is important, they have been gifted an absolute shambles. It doesn’t matter what decision they take, it doesn’t matter what they do, they can never achieve that goal; it’s just not technically possible.

So the challenge for local government is actually that the policies and objectives handed down by central government are so conflicting with what communities want people in local government to do. What do I want for my elected members in West Auckland? Well, I would like to know that they will support local business districts and local businesses who employ people, who provide fantastic hospitality in town centres like Henderson and Te Atatū, that when I go to Henderson or Te Atatū or Te Atatū Peninsula to enjoy a night out or to visit a shop, there’ll be somewhere to park my car and that local councils and elected members won’t have voted to take out all the parking—because that’s what some well-intentioned but foolish council officer has recommended they do in order to conform to central government policy.

They won’t have Auckland Transport, for example, paint all the roads blue in our town centre of Henderson and put planter boxes there so that people who might be aged or vulnerable—women who are travelling to a shop to pick up some food, some takeaways at night—find they can’t park outside the store because some well-intentioned woke idiot at Auckland Council or Auckland Transport has put a planter box outside the shop. So if you want to attract better candidates to local government to stand in their communities and say, “I have policies that if I get elected are going to make a difference in your lives.”, whether it’s fostering local business, whether it’s enhancing water quality, whatever the policy is, then voters should be confident that the people they vote for can actually put this into effect.

But, of course, they’ve lost confidence. In Auckland, voter turnout is in the 30 percent. What that means is that the people who are elected to run our major city, which spends over $3 billion a year, most of which it takes in property taxes, only a small amount which it takes in fees from parking and so on—the people elected to run this organisation in a governance role, spending $3 billion to $3.5 billion a year, only 30 percent of people turn out to vote for them.

Now, if this Government seriously thinks that they’re going to get better outcomes from local government by passing this piece of legislation—well, ACT won’t object to it. We think people have the right to privacy and if you want to stand as a candidate, then you should have that right to privacy. But that’s not going to deliver better local government or better outcomes for communities.

What ACT says is that, actually, if we want better outcomes for local government, we need to set them objectives. How about to deliver more service land for housing? That seems like a laudable objective. The Resource Management Act makes it difficult. The Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act adds another handbrake. This is what ACT would do: we would say, look, if councils are going to be consenting all of this land for development, then they should share in the GST revenue—50 percent of the GST revenue—on every new home built. That’s ACT Party policy. We think that would incentivise local councils to say yes to housing development and to actually invest in the pipes and the networks that connect this land back to the networks, and allow new subdivisions, new homes to be built at affordable rates. That’s just one of ACT’s suggestions around how we get better local government.

If we set targets and we create incentives for local government like that, then that will encourage people who could say, “Look, I might run a small or a medium business,” or “I might be close to retirement and I might think I can add my governance experience running major corporations, or public sector entities, or I’ve been principal of a school, I think I’ve got something to contribute”—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! It is time for the member to come a little more closely to the bill. Simon Court.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I just want to reflect on the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill report-back from the Justice Committee. Let’s talk about removing barriers to electoral participation and supporting equity. Let’s talk about the 20 percent of submitters who suggested that conversations about politics are becoming too toxic in some quarters.

Now, my first experience as a candidate for ACT New Zealand seeking a place in this Parliament, I sat on a podium debating two former members of Parliament and another candidate like me, new to the game of politics. In that debate, I was called a baby killer. In another debate, I was called a racist. In another debate, on the 2020 election campaign, I was told that if I didn’t stop climate change, I deserved to die. I was told by another person supporting a candidate at a debate, over a cup of tea and a scone afterwards, that they would do whatever it takes to stop people like me from being elected. So I have personally experienced the vitriol and the abuse as a candidate seeking public office.

💬 Maureen Pugh: Who got the last laugh?

So I understand—and thank you, Maureen Pugh, I was elected and I haven’t seen that person since. But I’m sure if they do see me, we can have a polite discussion about public policy, because that’s what we’re for—that’s what we’re here for.

So, look, I think it’s important that we acknowledge some people feel that by putting themselves forward to be elected, they are putting themselves out in public and, while they might be prepared to do it, they’re exposing their families or the people who live with them to the risk of being targeted for abuse. That makes it more challenging. That’s a barrier that these people feel would be easier to overcome if they didn’t have to put their home address on it.

That’s why ACT supports the bill. But, let’s be honest, if we want more people to have confidence and to come out and vote in local elections, then we’re going to need to set better incentives. But ACT would encourage people to come out and vote this time around, and vote against candidates who stand for the three waters reform that this Government’s trying to push through. You should definitely get out and vote for those candidates who oppose three waters.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you very much for this opportunity to make a brief contribution. It was an honour to be a member on the select committee listening to—or receiving—the 30 submissions in relation to this bill.

As a member who was previously a councillor for the Far North District Council, I remember my first campaign back in 2013. I was anxious about putting my face on a billboard and the possibility of it being defaced or tagged, but also when I found out that I had to put my home address on it, I was anxious about identifying my private residence, my home, my kāinga and exposing my whānau to that.

So as somebody who has experienced that nervousness, back in 2013, I am really pleased that we are able to make that change. I hope that nobody else has to have that feeling and that it might encourage more people to stand for the local body elections this year and do so more comfortably and more confidently. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Hon Michael Woodhouse—five-minute call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, Willow-Jean Prime is one of a good number of members of this House that have had local government experience before they came to Parliament that I think will empathise with that reflection. I was asked earlier in the year whether I would be standing for Mayor of Dunedin, and my response to that was rather—

💬 Anna Lorck: Oh, that’ll be a good idea!

Well, it was rather uncomplimentary, potentially, to those who did. I think it involved a needle, hot, and my eye. And I didn’t intend it to be a criticism of the role; I think it’s an incredibly noble thing to do. And I’ve said many times that it’s my belief that local council work is actually harder than this place in some respects; not the least of which is because there’s the lack of that sort of collective caucus responsibility. And mayors often have to sort of manage 10 or 12 islands in an archipelago, rather than sort of the more coloured sides that we have.

But the other reason, I think, is because of the sort of level of opprobrium and occasional hostility that’s directed at councillors in things like planning hearings and so on. I think that’s highly inappropriate and I have a great deal of admiration for anyone who wants to stand for public office, but, in particular, those local councillors.

And so anything that we can do as a Parliament to remove barriers to people doing so, we should, and this is one such barrier. We’ve had some reflections from Simon Court. My first campaign in 2008, I actually chose a friend and campaign manager who lived a thousand kilometres away so that his address went on my billboards in Dunedin, and that was the response even then, when the risk was lower 14 years ago than it is now. I think we’ve seen even more attention paid to where local and central representatives live. I think that’s highly inappropriate and we should encourage people to stand by removing that barrier.

I thank those who submitted to what was a very short process, but the Justice Committee did a good job. The fact that there are no amendments to the bill doesn’t mean that that process wasn’t a necessary one. Others have said that it perhaps should have come to the House earlier and had a longer go. I’m sympathetic to that view, but we are here, we need to get it through, and I commend it.

I call Ibrahim Omer—five-minute call, I’m assuming.

It’s a pleasure to take a call—a short call—on the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill. All the speakers have said it all. This bill removes all the requirements, the physical address on the campaign advertising, for the coming local government elections. The Local Electoral Act 2001 currently requires the candidates to include a physical address on the authorisation statement in advertising materials, such as billboards and fliers. This is problematic because it discourages a lot of good people to stand for local government. Instead, what can be done is people can use a physical or a residential or a business address or an email address or a post office or a phone number, even, when they stand.

There have been growing concerns that good candidates who publicise their home addresses could face physical harm or danger or risk, particularly women and minorities. So this means that we won’t have a lot of good people from our diverse minorities standing for local government office. We know that’s not going to be good for wherever our country is heading, because we’re increasingly becoming a multicultural nation and that needs to be elected in the people standing for office. This change will provide for a richer and more inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand that we all just love to see.

Finally, I applaud the Minister, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for bringing this bill to this House. It’s a good bill. It’s encouraged a lot of good people and honest people to stand for local government elections. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Very happy to rise in support of this bill. I think it will make a real difference to local democracy. I know Mr Woodhouse identified that many members of this House have a background previously in local government.

I tallied up: I’ve been a candidate in six local government election campaigns. So I know that, for many, this will make a huge difference because it’s something that we generally don’t have to do in this House. Most of the identifier is a business, a party headquarters, something like that; that’s not the case for local government. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I stand tonight to speak in support of the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill in its second reading. I was not part of the Justice Committee that considered this bill, but I have in the past—as has the member who’s just sat down, Tangi Utikere—had lived experience of campaigning, and I went to add them up. I think it’s been 10 or 11 public election campaigns—either local government, local trusts, or central government. So I do come with a little bit of experience in having to use those statements on the hoardings and advertising material. And, I think, as I looked through some of the information that came out of the select committee, it became obvious that this is quite a redundant requirement to have the physical home address of candidates, or a physical address where they can be contacted.

So the bill is, as we’ve heard tonight, pretty simple. It basically amends section 13 of the Act and requires that the authorisation statement that goes on the advertising material can be met now by any of the following: a residential or business address, an email address, a post office box, a phone number, or a link to a page on a website—provided it contains one of those other forms of contact. And I think the main reason that we have those authorisation statements is so that you can qualify as someone that is a person who can be contacted, that there is some way of reaching that person and justifying their authenticity as a candidate.

But I was impressed with some of the suggestions that came from the submitters, and they were pretty practical things, too, around those addresses, etc., and provided some alternatives to proving the home address for those candidates that did feel particularly vulnerable to some form of abuse or feedback that wasn’t particularly welcome. And one of those I thought probably deserves some consideration was how the local councils could facilitate those candidates a bit better by perhaps providing a generic email address that could be hosted by those councils. And there were some suggestions around that that were reported by the select committee and did look into how that could be managed by local councils and by the legislation. There were some challenges around that regarding the LGOIMA—the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act—requirement and whether they would be subject to that Act. There were some privacy situations that could be challenging, but it was also suggested that a council-hosted email address for candidates during the campaign period would also enjoy probably better cyber-security than many candidates may enjoy at home. So I think there are some suggestions that were well worth considering.

There were also potential changes that were highlighted in there around the report back into the inquiry from the 2019 local elections, where the committee, or the report back, agreed that there would be consideration of changes to the local government framework following two reviews that were to be undertaken—they were the Review into the Future for Local Government and an independent review of the parliamentary electoral law. And it was understood at that stage that the advertising framework would be considered as part of that. So, I guess, with the passing of this piece of legislation, that will now be a redundant aspect of that independent review.

But my eyes were drawn to a clause in there where they also included a desire for the Government and councils to support candidates with diverse backgrounds to stand in local elections. I guess this is where I think we start to get ourselves into some dangerous territory, because I don’t believe it’s the role of Government or councils to support candidates. I think the independence of candidates to stand is between them and any particular grouping that they may belong to, whether it be a political party or an interest group of any sort. Diverse backgrounds—you know, it’s entirely up to those groups, those special interest groups, to put forward their diverse backgrounds to stand in local elections. That is part of the democracy that I think we’re very blessed with in this country—that we don’t have Government or councils supporting particular candidates to stand.

I think there’s some generic, as I said, about the email addresses that can be provided, which is logistics support. But I think we venture into dangerous territory by suggesting that it goes any further than that.

I understand from submitters—and from the initial story, actually, that was publicised in multimedia circles around the country—with the vulnerability that some people felt by having to put their home address on to their advertising material, and understand the safety aspect of that, because we do want to encourage people to stand. Especially for local councils, people with a huge amount of community interest—often a lot of community involvement, over time, and they’re very valuable members of our community—to then move into that governance role.

But I think that we don’t want to lull people into a false sense of security by the passing of this legislation, because even though your physical address might not be public on the advertising material, when you’re standing for local body elections—and once you are successful—then you do become public property. So your protection, then, is entirely up to you. So the fact that your home address is not publicised on the advertising material, if you are an active member of your community, it is known anyway.

But I do draw the line where we have family members who become innocent, vulnerable bystanders in the process. But I’ve found—and it’s been my experience—that it’s not the campaigning where you find yourself most at risk; it’s the winning. Afterwards, you do become a target and vulnerable. So if you are unable to handle the campaign and the confrontation that you will often experience, then you are probably not going to handle winning the seat or the position that you so enthusiastically desire.

A small example is myself, being in this role and coming into Government at the time. The worst experience I had was being elected to a role here. Thankfully—and I pay a huge amount of credit to the security team that we have here, because they have amazing networks and they rose to the challenge of finding the senders of death threats that I received not so much to me but to my children and grandchildren—which is where I drew the line. I had the security team do an investigation, and it turns out that I was randomly chosen because of my surname because it matched the perp’s surname. Having a sleepover with his mate, as a couple of young teenagers, they decided that they would play a game. As their messages got more and more detailed, I got more and more concerned until a policeman in the UK visited their school and their parents—and from the letters of apology I got, I have no doubt that they will never play that game again.

So with that, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge the previous speaker, Maureen Pugh, and that rather horrendous example; there are many like them across the country. I just want to acknowledge all political parties who are supporting this bill; it’s always good to have peace break out in Parliament late on a Tuesday night. Thanks to all members who have participated in such a constructive way to get this legislation through.

As previous speakers have said, this bill does a very simple thing: it allows candidates in local elections to use alternative addresses, like a PO Box or an email address, on their advertising material.

I just want to note a couple of examples in my electorate of Nelson, not so much for candidates but for people in elected local government roles who have had their physical addresses published and sometimes also cellphone numbers, which may not seem like a big deal but has led to them receiving abuse through their personal cellphones. These are the kinds of things that I’m pleased that this Parliament is coming together tonight to change so that particularly women, people from migrant and ethnically diverse backgrounds, other diverse backgrounds will feel safer to participate in local government campaigns.

On that note, this is an excellent bill, and I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

In accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for committee stage forthwith.

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 4