Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative—[Interruption] Order! Would those members leaving please do so quietly. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 3 November 2022.

This bill responds to concerns raised in recent years about constraints on the right of Māori voters to choose between the general roll and the Māori roll. It provides Māori with flexibility and promotes participation in New Zealand’s democracy.

The Māori electoral option is a four-month period that occurs every four to six years, where some voters can choose to move between the general and Māori electoral rolls. It is the only time when Māori voters can change their roll choice. The last Māori electoral option was in 2018, and the next one is due to be in 2024. This timing means that without changes being made, Māori will be locked in to their roll choice for two general elections: the first in 2020, and then for the upcoming 2023 general election.

In our targeted consultation, the overwhelming response was that the current option creates barriers to participation in electoral processes. This is because Māori are unable to change the electoral roll they are on to reflect their electoral preferences leading up to an election. We heard repeatedly that the current arrangements are unjustified, unfair, and often difficult to understand.

The bill reduces the barriers that exist when it comes to choosing whether a person wants to be on the general electoral roll or the Māori electoral roll. It amends the Electoral Act 1993 to implement a new, continuous option model to allow Māori voters to freely exercise their right to choose their preferred electoral roll. This change does not introduce any electoral advantages to Māori; it simply allows Māori to more easily exercise their vote on the electoral roll which reflects their roll preference. It will help ensure a more workable and voter-friendly electoral system.

I need to point out an exception to the new, continuous model. In order to help protect against roll changes by election voting which does not reflect an elector’s general election roll preference, changing of rolls will not be permitted for electors who reside in an electorate where there is a parliamentary by-election during that period for that by-election. The recent by-election in Tauranga, for example, would have been just that kind of case. This exception will not, however, apply in the rare circumstance where a parliamentary by-election happens to take place during the period of the triennial local elections. This is to ensure that Māori voters can exercise their choice of roll preference for local elections separately from that for parliamentary elections.

The change to a continuous model has important consequences for how the Māori electoral population and, by extension, the number of Māori seats are calculated. The bill amends the Electoral Act to decouple the calculation from their Māori electoral option and aligns it with the census, but otherwise substantively mirrors the current methodology set out in the Electoral Act. This means that the Māori electoral population will be calculated based on numbers as at census day, or, where the census and the general election are in the same year, 1 April in the following year.

The Māori electoral population and the general electoral population, which is calculated as the population from the last census minus the Māori electoral population, is calculated by the Government Statistician. The Government Statistician then uses those calculations to determine how many Māori and general electorates there should be for the following two general elections. This information is then provided to the independent Representation Commission to conduct a boundary review, which takes place every five or six years. During the boundary review, the Representation Commission considers the Government Statistician’s report alongside other factors such as existing boundaries, community interests, and public submissions. While the new date for calculation of the Māori electoral population necessitates some minor amendments to reserve provisions of the Electoral Act—in particular, section 35 relating to boundary reviews—the intention of these provisions is retained.

The decision of Māori as to whether they wish to be enrolled on the general roll or the Māori roll is not the same decision as to whether they wish to identify as Māori in the census. During engagement on the Māori electoral option, there was a clear view that in order to be able to express their preferences in terms of candidates and parties, they needed the ability to choose the electoral roll which best reflected those preferences without undue restriction.

This bill is an omnibus bill. It also makes amendments to the Local Electoral Act to reflect the changes made to the Electoral Act, and consequential changes to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Māori Constituency Empowering) Act which are necessary to retain consistency with the Local Electoral Act. It is part of a broader programme to update New Zealand’s electoral framework.

In October of last year, the former Minister of Justice the Hon Kris Faafoi announced an independent review of electoral law to ensure the rules remain fit for purpose and meet the needs of the next generation of voters. We have established a bipartisan, independent panel of experts to undertake this review, and I look forward to the active engagement of all members across this House in that independent review.

Yesterday, I was pleased to announce the Government’s proposal to introduce an electoral amendment bill which further seeks to support participation in parliamentary elections and improve public trust and confidence in New Zealand’s electoral system. This includes changes to the political donations framework to increase public disclosure about party funding, and so improve the transparency of our political donations and loan rules. The bill also extends the overseas voter eligibility in light of the COVID-19 - related travel restrictions, meaning more New Zealanders living overseas will be able to vote in the 2023 general election.

I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill, and to allow these changes to be brought into effect before the 2023 general election, I propose that the committee report the bill back to the House by 3 December 2022 and complete the remaining parliamentary stages by 16 November 2022. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I acknowledge the Minister of Justice, with whom I’ve been spending a lot of time today between select committee, question time, and now engaging in at least one bill before the Parliament. Of course, the first reading of this bill, the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill, is in her name and it is at its heart seeking to design a system that improves representation for Māori in general elections.

I should start by saying that we have been clear in the National Party that we are happy to consider a system whereby more flexible arrangements for Māori voters—those who identify as such—could be contemplated. We’re not averse to that, and, at a more fundamental level still, we make no issue with the existence of a regime whereby a person can identify as one or t’other and be placed on one roll or the other, according to their wish. The question mark in our minds, of course, and we’ve been reasonably clear about this in public statements recently, I think it’s fair to say, in the media through our justice spokesperson, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, but also in other ultimately public forums such as select committee reports—our position has been pretty clear, I think, that we do not support a system whereby there is an opportunity for what’s referred to somewhat coyly as tactical roll-switching. I do note that the Government itself and the Minister’s speech just now has confirmed that view that this is something to be avoided.

In the case of by-elections, quite rightly, the bill will not allow electors to transfer from one roll to another, with the objection being, no doubt, that to do so would allow a system where someone could choose to be on one roll or the other at an opportune moment and an opportune place—that is to say, where a by-election is taking place—and thereby gain some advantage. We don’t know how widespread such a practice would be if allowed. In the case of by-elections, of course, we don’t always know when by-elections will take place, and that’s the nature of them, of course. But the possibility of such a practice and the existence of legislation that would allow that is something that this House should resist. So, pleasingly—and I give credit where it’s due—in the case of the by-elections, the Government has acknowledged this possibility and has moved to guard against it.

That exception in itself is subject to an exception whereby it seems that there will be an ability for an elector to switch, notwithstanding the fact that a by-election is taking place, if it just so happens that there is also a local government election taking place. I think that the Government’s proposal in that space rather defeats its own logic elsewhere in the bill, so I’d be very interested to see what the select committee may have to say about that in terms of the anomaly and the illogical basis for that exception to the exception, even according to the Government’s own statement of intent—namely, that by-elections should not be subject to the possibility of tactical roll-switching.

Of course, there is a bigger question as well that we’ve again highlighted, which is about the possibility that voters would be able to switch from one roll to the other up to and including the period in which a general election is being taken. Now, anticipating the objections of those who say that that would be different from the case of a by-election because in an MMP environment, every vote everywhere is worth the same and, therefore, there is no such thing as a seat of particular significance, in fact, the winning or losing of individual electorate seats can be significant. The reason for that includes some of the peculiarities of our MMP system, and for those who regard them as peculiar, they are, nevertheless, part of the system’s design, which is that an overhang in the Parliament can be created if more electorate seats—that is, constituency seats, as they’re referred to in the UK—are obtained than a party’s share of the party vote. When they get, of course, the benefit of the higher of those two numbers and an overhang in the Parliament is created, this isn’t a fanciful notion. Indeed, it has taken place before in relation to terms of the Parliament before my arrival in this place, but I think I’m right in saying—well, in any case, it was during the three terms of the last National Government that the Māori Party obtained, I think I’m right in saying, two electorate seats but a smaller share of the party vote than would have equated to two seats in this House.

So for that reason those were significant, and for the similar but reverse situation whereby a party might outperform along the lines of the party vote its result in electorate seats and it might be able to gain one electorate seat but, let us say, 4.9 percent of the party vote, of course under the rules of MMP as they currently are, they wouldn’t gain any seats in the House by virtue of their 4.9 percent, except that the significance of winning a particular electorate seat would allow that to be so, and of course they’d get the five or six seats that would be afforded to them at that point. So it is significant to contemplate the result in an individual seat, and a combination of such motive and such opportunity as afforded to the bill—namely, the roll-switching at any time up to and including the conduct of a general election—means that we can’t support the bill.

I do want to acknowledge that the Minister has been prepared to engage with us on this particular point. My colleague and friend the Hon Paul Goldsmith is our justice spokesperson, and so would continue those conversations, no doubt, and of course at select committee we will engage in good faith with those who submit, those who provide official advice, and anyone else for that matter who may wish to provide some advice or opinion in this space.

The electoral system is of crucial importance to all of us, not only all of us here, the 120 souls, if there are 120 souls—there are 120 people anyway; we can say that much. I’m sort of—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Are you saying you’re soulless, Mr Penk?

Yeah, that’s right. I’m getting some legal advice from across the House not to self-incriminate, I think.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Privileged, of course.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m reminded of that classic saying, and I want to attribute to Sir Winston Churchill because, of course, that’s always pretty safe, whether it was him or not. He said witheringly of an opponent that an empty car pulled up and the Leader of the Opposition got out, or whoever it was who was the target of his opprobrium at the time—so anyway, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, but suffice to say that there are 120 people in this House who are directly affected by these kinds of matters. There are—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Bonus points for quoting Winston Churchill, though.

Yes, that’s right. Always bonus points for quoting Winston Churchill—thank you, the Hon Michael Woodhouse. So there are many more who want to be in these 120 seats, and I say good luck to them.

Next year, it will be important that we have a democratic process that enables everyone to have a fair and equal and equitable opportunity to enter this place. As I’ve said, our nervousness isn’t around either the idea that there could be more flexible arrangements for Māori voters to identify one way or the other, nor, indeed, the basis of the two separate rolls, but rather the possibility of illogical opportunities to be provided.

I did just want to actually point out as well, of course, that the existing arrangements are in place for a particular reason. They are afforded to voters who are entitled to identify either as Māori or non-Māori for the purposes of the electoral roll, coinciding with the quinquennial exercise that is the census, and the census is the basis for understanding the ethnic make-up of our country at that moment in time. The significance of that is manifold, and one is, of course, the provision of services. They might be allocated to different areas where geographical lines are appropriate to ensure that resources are placed in different parts of the country, and so on.

Similarly, we rely on those figures to understand how many of the New Zealand population at that moment in time might be said to be belonging to one roll or the other, such that we can have a number of Māori seats and have the remainder being general—that reflects that. So that’s the integrity of that system, and by saying that the bill doesn’t maintain that integrity, I don’t mean that in an ugly way, but it would be a departure from that logical basis on which the arrangements are currently made, along with the other calculations that go into the mix in terms of the number of geographical seats versus list seats, and so forth.

So for those reasons, I think I’ve made it reasonably clear that we don’t support the bill in its current form. We will look forward to engaging further and, in particular, with the possibility that the wrinkles that I’ve identified can be ironed out at select committee or in any other forum.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, that’s 10 minutes of my life that I won’t be getting back in a hurry, but thank you very much. It was really good, by the end of that speech, to understand that National won’t be supporting the bill, because I couldn’t understand throughout that speech what their position was.

So I think it’s important to get the debate back on track and to outline what this bill actually does. The bill will let Māori voters change rolls at any time, up to and including polling on the day. That is specifically subject to a particular area, which the member Chris Penk had outlined yet still indicates they won’t support, and that’s by-elections. So those are particularly carved out. Māori voters will not be able to change between the Māori and the general rolls during a by-election if that change would place the voter in the electorate where the by-election is occurring, and that is to make sure that this is robust.

The main aim for this bill is to make sure we increase voter participation and we increase access to having an operating, democratic society in New Zealand. So it’s really disheartening that those members opposite don’t support the underlying principles of this bill.

The timing of the Māori electoral option creates a barrier for Māori voters, and we know that through the research and the analysis that has been undertaken to date by justice officials. This is because the option only occurs every five to six years. Aside from when they first enrol, it’s the only time when Māori voters are able to exercise the option to move rolls. This bill will, in fact, remove that barrier, allowing voters to change rolls at any time—as I’ve already indicated—up to and including on the day of actually voting, and that’s what we’ve seen in the past. Building up to the election date, we get a lot of inquiries about those who want to change their electoral roll and that creates confusion, and that uncertainty and confusion can be a real barrier to those people wanting to vote and participate.

We welcome the select committee stage and really look forward to receiving a wide range of submissions to fully understand how we can further strengthen this bill, and I look forward to reading those submissions when they come in. The Ministry of Justice has undertaken targeted engagement on this particular option since mid-2021, and the feedback overwhelmingly supports the implementation of a continuous option like the one contained in the bill.

This is a good bill. It promotes voting, it promotes democracy, and it enables those Māori voters to have the flexibility that they should deserve in terms of being able to engage with our democratic system. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, that’s two minutes and 27 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back, but it really felt like 30. It was the political equivalent of having your wisdom teeth pulled without anaesthetic. If that’s the best the first, lead-off speaker for the Labour Party could do, they’re all obviously wanting to head out the door and they think they’re a bit too busy and important to be debating the meaningful electoral law changes that this Government is putting up.

One of the things that has underpinned our parliamentary system over 180-odd years is the fact that electoral law reform has generally had two very important characteristics: (a) it is carefully thought through after consultation, and (b) it’s largely bipartisan. Not always—we don’t always agree. What we have at the moment is a very piecemeal approach to electoral law reform. This is the second—well, this is the first bill, but we had an announcement earlier this week on donations transparency, and now we’re doing Māori electoral roll changes. We’ve got a number of other things in the pipeline.

This was done after what I would describe as targeted consultation, and it was interesting to know who the targets of that consultation were. The donations policy changes that the Government wants to put through: targeted policy changes.

We have a Justice Committee review of elections every year. We, apparently, have a much larger review of electoral law going on right now, and what surprises me is that we’re not actually taking a more measured approach to the connection between all of the changes that the Government wants to do. It’s being drip-fed out, one by one by one, and that is poor policy. It’s not bipartisan. It’s not with the level of consultation that I think these sorts of reforms should have. Yes, certain Māori stakeholders and academics have been consulted, according to the departmental disclosure statement, but I think this is a bit more important and requires a broader stakeholder engagement process than that, and I hope we get that through the select committee process. As my colleague and friend Mr Penk has said, while we oppose this bill at first reading, that will not detract from our contribution to a really important and meaningful conversation that should take place about, actually, whether this is even necessary.

Of course, the Māori electorates have had quite an interesting history. They’ve been around for 155 years, but when the legislation was first passed to give effect to them, it was only meant to last for five years. It was extended for another five years and then made permanent in the 1870s, and throughout the remaining period of time, there have been a number of reflections and challenges to whether the Māori electorates even needed to exist. There have been several reviews.

💬 Stuart Smith: MMP.

The most significant one—that’s right, Mr Smith—of them was in 1986 with the royal commission into alternative electoral voting systems, which recommended a number of choices that the public, basically, made through a referendum, and MMP came out on top. Now, when the royal commission made its recommendations, it recommended that the case for having Māori electorates no longer existed. Of course, we were in a very different country in the 1860s, and we certainly didn’t have universal franchise. Women could not vote until 1893, men that did not own property—and not even any property; there had to be a minimum amount of property, as I recall—were not able to vote either, and, of course, because of the way Māori land was held in common te ture whenua Māori, it was a very, very significant barrier to Māori participating in our democratic process, and so it was right for that time. But, as the royal commission pointed out in 1986, its time had passed.

What’s interesting about the introduction and deliberation on the bill that gave effect to our mixed member proportional system was that when it was introduced, it did propose the elimination of the Māori electorates, and both the National Party and the Labour Party supported that. But in the face of very strong opposition from Māori in the country, that was dispensed with before the final Act was passed. Now, the National Party has a view that it had then, but we certainly support the position that was taken by the previous National Government that that is a matter for Māori to deal with, and, of course, because of our proportional system—and we all know here that what determines Government and our representation is the party vote—the influence of the electorates is perhaps less so than it once was under first past the post.

Now, the Minister talked about constraints on the freedom to move and said that this was unjustified and unfair. I don’t agree with that. I think the question that we need to consider is that either this is such an important and material issue that a widespread move of Māori from one roll to another would have a disproportionate and a distortionary effect on electoral boundaries—in which case there are representation risks with this bill—or it is so minor and inconsequential that the case for this bill has not been made, and, actually, my submission is that it’s the latter. This is not a material issue, and if one looks at the practice over the last 25 years when Māori have had the option to move from one roll to the other, there’s a very intensive four-month period where the taxpayer funds a significant advertising and marketing campaign to encourage Māori to understand what their options are and to make informed choices. In 1997, the net movement on to the Māori roll was 2,664.

💬 Hon Member: Wow!

Oh, sorry, that was the gross movement. The net movement was that there were far more Māori—two to one—who actually went from the general roll to the Māori roll, but half of that number went from the Māori roll to the general roll, and that was 25 years ago. That was probably the zenith of the movement and the exercise of this discretion.

Four years ago, when the last option to move was taken, the net effect on the Māori roll was 1,200—1,200. So we have somewhere in the region of half a million people who identify as Māori and a net movement in that whole campaign was 1,200 on to the Māori roll, and, actually, because of the number of younger Māori, there was actually a bigger impact of 4,000 going on to the general roll, which I think is quite interesting in terms of what our young are doing.

So 25 years ago, 54 percent of Māori were on the Māori roll and 46 percent were on the general roll, and 25 years later, it’s 52 percent on the Māori roll and 47.5 percent on the general roll. So for all of the campaigning and for all of the case being made that this is about unfairness and unjustified restrictions on the movement of Māori, Māori are voting literally to either stay or to go on to the general roll. They have that ability.

So my strong view is that this is a solution looking for a problem. This is not the most material issue facing Māori right now. It’s certainly not the most material issue in terms of electoral law. If one wanted to look at the list of things that could be considered, one could go to Golriz Ghahraman’s member’s bill, which I think we will be debating in a few short weeks. It is a pot-pourri of options for how we change electoral law in this country, many of them I don’t agree with and a couple of them have actually been picked up by the Government already since the bill was drafted.

But what I would say is that there seems to be a Golriz Ghahraman approach to electoral law reform by the Government, which is this pot-pourri of “Let’s put a bill in here on Māori and let’s put a bill in there on donations transparency.” Actually, this requires a much more considered, carefully thought through and consultative process to carefully change our electoral laws and, preferably, with bipartisan support. That hasn’t happened in this case, but in any event the very case for these changes has not been made.

My old PhD supervisor used to say “There’s many a good article in a bad book and there’s many a good note in a bad article”, and I would suggest that there’s many a good statement in an overly long speech to Parliament. So I will keep this short and sweet.

As a sixth-generation Pākehā, I fully support this bill. I see no reason that Māori should be penalised to a four-month period, and I look forward to debating it in the select committee as part of the Justice Committee.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin by congratulating the new Minister of Justice, the Hon Kiri Allan.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: She’s going great guns—going great guns.

Sorry, I’m being heckled already! This is a historic day. It’s a historic day because Māori are being given a right that they should always have had. They are being afforded a right that’s been repeatedly recommended by the Electoral Commission, that’s been campaigned for by various groups, and that has been consulted upon—despite what we’ve heard from the Opposition—including by expert bodies, our leading expert body on electoral reform. The change, despite having been recommended in those processes repeatedly, has been ignored and buried by successive Governments.

So if we’re going to look at where it came from in terms of an independent recommendation, we could look at the Electoral Commission’s 2009, or 2012 recommendation—well, there were two, but let’s look at the last one—on strengthening MMP. The last speaker talked a lot about our mixed-member Parliament and one vote per person, and the National Party’s commitment to upholding independent electoral reform that was recommended in terms of upholding our system. Well, that’s where this came from. It came from the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. They were thorough. They followed two rounds of consultations in which in one round, just over 2,000 people submitted, and in another round, almost 3,000 people submitted. The recommendations, including this change, were then buried by the then Minister of Justice, the Hon Judith Collins, and we didn’t see them again.

So I want to congratulate this Minister and I want to congratulate all the voters that this change will impact. We know that Māori are a group that is less engaged with our democracy, less likely to be enrolled to vote, and less likely to vote even when enrolled, so it is important that we do everything we can to uphold the rights of Māori voters and to engage that community. It’s odd to say that this isn’t a material change when one is speaking from the perspective of a community that’s not impacted by this limitation—this arbitrary limitation—that was always baseless.

Since numbers are being quoted in terms of once 25 years ago, and another in the last round when the option to change opened, I note that in the last round, I think the number was quoted as being 1,200 people. So 1,200 people’s rights were breached that time. But let’s look at how many Māori attempt to change rolls in the years when they’re not able to. Well, in 2020, 24,000 Māori voters attempted to change rolls and they weren’t able to. That’s not quite right; that is a material issue, actually.

So this is a good day. It is a day that that increases inclusivity and equality in our system, but the bill doesn’t quite go far enough. A Green Party change would lift the limitation on by-elections, in terms of when Māori can change rolls. We don’t see why that should be. We note that when the Electoral Commission recommended this change, they recommended ways that this could be done to prevent the fear of gerrymandering from being real. They are the Electoral Commission, they had heard the submissions, they had heard from experts, and they themselves are experts. So to say that they are wrong is disingenuous from the Opposition, but also to attempt to address an issue outside of the parameters of what the Electoral Commission has set out as being the necessary safeguards, I think, goes too far in terms of what the Government has proposed. We do look forward to engaging with that and why that limitation was adopted by the Government and why it’s being seen as being necessary in this bill, and, hopefully, we’ll come to a place where the change is made that Māori are able to elect a roll based on their preference at any time.

I do want to talk about democracy. My bill was put into the ballot in 2018, so we’ve been campaigning on this change and other changes that would engage Māori voters and that would uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi but also would actually strengthen our democracy in lots of ways. The Minister pointed to the other electoral reform around donations that was announced this past week, which is also historic and which is also opposed by the Opposition, and that is to bring more transparency to our donation systems. We know that like this change in the bill, which is around equality and our democracy, getting big money—especially when it’s donated in secret—out of our democracy will go a long way to ensure that one vote per person democracy that we want and that inclusivity and that equality that we want in our system.

Of course, there is a pot-pourri of changes in my bill, and there have been other aspects of it that have been adopted since 2018 to today, which I do want to congratulate the last Government and this Government on. But the idea is that behind every aspect of the changes proposed, we go back to our independent bodies: the Electoral Commission, the Justice Committee, the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal. All of those changes come from independent, expert bodies, and it’s about taking party politics out of electoral reform and looking at what is best and healthiest for our democracy as a House of Representatives.

So it is a good day to see the Government finally pick this up. It’s also disappointing to see the Opposition play party politics with it rather than look at the facts and the evidence. But it’s a good day for voters, so I do commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of ACT to speak to the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill.

Before I start, I just want to pick up on something that my colleague across the room there—Michael Woodhouse—said when he gave a bit of a history lesson about Māori voting and when they started, and it made me reflect. What my reflection was on was how often we come into the House and we hear stories about how hard-done-by Māori are and how we need to give Māori options all the time and we need to lift them up, and I think sometimes this is done at the expense of not acknowledging some of the very good achievements that Māori have made—and do—throughout the years that this House has been sitting, at least. It made me reflect on the fact that Māori men who were determined to be landowners actually got the vote here in New Zealand before many of the European settlers that came here, purely for the fact that they were landowners. So they have been exercising the right to vote for a very long time and, in some respects, for much longer than some of our European settlers.

The ACT Party also opposes this bill, but we’re not opposing it for opposition’s sake. We’re opposing it because we have got real concerns about it—concerns that we think actually can be fixed—and it’s not about politicking Māoridom at all. It’s actually about making sure that we have a fair and just system as we move forward. We agree with the concept and we agree with the reasoning; we just don’t agree with the time frames that are being implemented. Māori voters should have the same rights as everyone else when it comes to voting, and we across the House can all agree on that. Being locked into two general election cycles is inflexible and it is impractical, and we can all agree on that too.

The current set-up we have for elections is where you enrol to vote on either the general or the Māori electoral roll. You’ve got that small four-month period every five to six years within which Māori voters can move between the rolls, and there was genuine reason for this. It was to align those electorate boundaries with the information received from the five-yearly census, and this is to make sure that each electorate has around the same number of people in it, giving equal representation within Parliament. It also allows for the boundary reviews to occur, making sure that there are enough electorates for the population.

The South Island has 16 electorates, the North Island increased from 48 to 49 electorates in 2020, and the Māori electorates number seven. The population quotas for those electorates are 65,400 people for the South Island, 64,900 for the North Island—that’s under the general electorates—and 67,500 people for the Māori electorates. So where the people are situated will determine how those boundaries are managed and whether electorates will increase or decrease, and how many Māori electorates they will have. I’m explaining all of this for the people at home in case they’re wondering why this is an issue and why we have opposition to it and what the problem is here.

The Government Statistician’s report will be used to conduct the boundary review that changes the boundaries for those electorates so that it does align with where the population is, and so that was part of their reasoning for having it align with the census. But we all agree, as I said, that having that window of four months every five to six years so a voter can change which roll they’re on is absolutely ridiculous, and, as I mentioned earlier, it is inflexible and it is impractical. To be stuck on a roll when a voter wants to change for two electoral periods in the row just does not make sense.

It’s easy to agree across this House that we all want more people to participate in both general and local elections. However, ACT doesn’t agree with having the ability for anyone to be able to swap electoral rolls at any time up to and including the actual polling day.

Should the Minister decide to amend the bill to allow a change in roll to occur only at the same time as a general election so that it’s every three years, then we can support that as it means that everyone eligible to vote in New Zealand has the same options for eligibility and sign-up at the same time. More importantly, no one group is singled out as having any advantage over another. It’s a recipe for further division within our communities that is not wanted or warranted, and this can be alleviated if there is consistency in how everyone here in New Zealand registers their interest to vote. Allow that move once per election cycle, with sign-up conducted at the same time for both rolls.

We would further suggest that in keeping with section 74 of the current Act, a voter’s choice of roll should be made at least one month before a polling day. I sit on the Justice Committee and we’ve heard the frustration of voters who cannot either get on or get off the Māori roll in time for an election, and some voters who I have spoken to that are on the Māori roll wanted to get off it to vote in the 2020 general election, participating on the general roll, but they were unable to do so. I expect that as co-governance issues continue to raise the ire amongst some in our community, there will be both Māori wanting to move off and those wanting to move on to the Māori roll.

Everyone should be given the opportunity to choose, but that opportunity should occur for every voter in New Zealand and at the same time. The Government has already pointed out within their bill that a change in electoral roll should not be able to occur in the lead-up to any by-election, and we do agree with that. Changing rolls continuously is not only not fair on those who can’t but it potentially gives one person two votes. In a fair and democratic society, we want to enable people to be able to vote and have their say, but to do so equally.

In life, when you make decisions, you often have to live with the outcome of those. There are many Labour supporters who are apologising to us for their voting decision in 2020, but their choice was made and they are living with that decision and the consequences of it until they get to change it in 2023, and that should be the same for everyone. If the Government could show some consistency here and change their bill to address our concerns, then we can change our position and support it at future readings.

ACT believes that at each general election, a voter should have the ability to choose their roll, make their choice with the options available to them, and, if they want to change again, they do so every three years. Democratic consistency here is the key.

Every person eligible to vote should have the opportunity to contribute by voting on the roll of their choice and not have to wait five to six years in order to change those rolls. Voters should be able to join a roll that they are comfortable on and that will allow them to vote for the person or the party who will help get their electorate to become a thriving community, especially when crime is so rampant across the country—a person and party they can vote for that will help restore our economy so that it’s healthy again, with our kids not paying decades of debt—and how can they do it without a national debate ensuing over co-governance, unfairness, and undemocratic processes, because, really, Māori just want to be able to vote. We want to encourage that, but it needs to be fair for all. So, at this stage of this bill, ACT cannot support it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As someone who is directly impacted and whose children are directly impacted by this piece of legislation, I am pleased to see it before the House today. I see this piece of legislation as being one that encourages participation and removes barriers for people to participate in their democratic ability to vote for Governments going forward.

Reducing barriers is an important part of ensuring that people come along and vote at their local government and general elections. Anything that we can do to encourage participation and remove barriers, I say, is a good move, and I commend this bill to the House.

I call Maureen Pugh—five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s been an interesting event, the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill this afternoon in its first reading. We’ve heard a range of opinions across the House, but I think what we are seeing here is a pattern of behaviour.

The issue here that the Labour is trying to fix, or the problem it’s trying to find, is the option for switching in and out of the Māori roll and on to the general roll, or from the general roll on to the Māori roll. That can happen at any time in the electoral cycle and it has no restrictions on the number of times that voters—electors—can choose to switch on those rolls. It seems to me that there’s a recipe for disaster—what a mess it’s going to be.

The other issue that raised its head was the cost of this, and I expect that the select committee will turn its mind to it. How many people is the Electoral Commission going to have to employ to manage the constant switching in and out of the rolls, especially as it gets closer to a by-election or to the general election? I can see it turning into an absolute disaster, especially when it goes right up to election day. So there is plenty of room for mistakes to be made there.

The rationale behind the current system is based around the census. The reason that’s important is because the census sets the population positions across the country, and then those locations are used to define boundaries and they’re also used for the representation reviews for local government. So local government needs to know exactly where people are, within plus or minus 10 percent, so that they can set the representation in their wards. Those wards have very fluid boundaries, so having confidence in those electoral rolls and the location of people is really critical to being able to do that.

The problem, I believe, is not the rolls; it’s actually the voter turnout. I would suggest that the Government would do better to use some of its hundreds of comms staff that it’s got employed across the public sector to run a campaign and educate people about when the census is happening so as to get themselves on the roll that they feel they want to be on but also to get out there and vote. The get out and vote campaign, as we all know, runs prior to the general elections, and if there is a problem with people exercising their votes, then let’s engage the comms teams to do that.

But what amazes me is how much time this Government has devoted to tweaking voters’ behaviour or electoral rules across this country in the time that they’ve been in Government. We’ve seen Māori wards; we’ve seen Environment Canterbury, and just yesterday we were debating that; we’ve seen the Rotorua bill—well, that turned into a mess, and that’s somewhere in abeyance—and now we’ve got this new electoral roll. It’s like the Labour Government doesn’t have faith in its support base enough that it can just leave the electoral regime alone—this pillar of our democracy in this country. We’ve got to have faith and confidence in our democratic system, and the voting system is an absolute no-go zone, in my book—you do not play with the electoral system.

Now, the other thing that amazes me is how much time this Government devotes to it. Wouldn’t you think that they would do better to focus their legislative programme on things that are actually going to make a difference to people in this country and will drive the productivity of the country up? Things that lift children out of poverty perhaps, or things that get children out of hotels into homes—there’s a novel idea—or maybe build homes. Or here’s another idea: things that deliver on KiwiBuild. That would be great—that would be great.

So what we want to do is ensure that the country has a stable democracy and that people have confidence in the electoral system. This won’t do it.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Well, I tell you what, quite disturbing are the messages coming out from both National and ACT on this particular kaupapa. To continuously work towards continuing to silence Māori in this world-class democracy is an absolute disgrace. Our electoral law is discriminatory, it is anti-democratic, and it is downright racist. When we hear about voter suppression and the undermining of voters’ rights, we usually think about corrupt countries like the USA, who pass law after law to make it harder for black Americans to cast their vote, and let’s not talk about their forgotten tangata whenua and the rights to vote there.

E ki e ki, National and ACT have spoken like true pro - Hobson’s Pledge supporters. The very reason why Māori have bigger issues is because of racist laws like this. You lock us out and you make sure that it is your superiority that controls the democracy in this country, and it must stop.

The country is watching, but voter suppression is very much alive and well in Aotearoa. In fact, it has always been the reality for tangata whenua, going right back to 1867. Electoral participation and basic rights for Māori to exercise in Aotearoa are guaranteed in article 3 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. There should be no barriers for Māori participating in the electoral process. Currently there are only two opportunities for Māori to choose electoral roles, either at the time of initial enrolment or during the Māori electoral option period. The last one was in 2018, so they missed the opportunity to participate in the last election on the roll of their choice, and, I can tell you what, there are more wanting to swap from the general roll to the Māori roll. The statistics are there, so let’s not make up things in the ACT Party about more wanting to go from the general to the Māori—it’s rubbish.

They will miss the next election because the next electoral option is 2024, so the next election to vote on the roll of their choice is 2026. Come on! This is 2022. We must do better as a country to ensure that Māori rights, under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and as the tangata whenua of this country, are upheld and that we do not have the lockouts that we have currently in the legislation that is before us. What this does, in effect, is lock us out. Indigenous people, tangata whenua—it’s the only legislation in the world that does it for fully participating in this world-class democracy for up to eight years. It’s an eight-year lockout. This is a stain on this country’s democracy and it’s a disgrace.

Thousands of Māori request to change electoral rolls every year. This has likely led to thousands of Māori disengaging from the electoral process, although I don’t blame them.

Since 2011, the Electoral Commission has proposed legislative changes which would address the issues, and in the 2017 report on the general election recommended that voters of Māori descent be able to change roll types at any time as this would better meet the needs of Māori voters. Māori, tangata whenua, have been pushing for this for much longer. For decades, our calls have fallen on deaf ears, and it sounds like there are still deaf ears in this House.

That is why last year I entered my member’s bill into the biscuit tin: the Electoral (Right to Switch Rolls Freely) Amendment Bill. With amazing timing, my bill was drawn last week at exactly the same time as the Government released this bill. I wish I could have been there to see the face on Willie Jackson.

Anyway, we are supporting this bill at first reading as it would—like my bill—enable Māori voters to switch between the Māori and non-Māori electoral rolls at any time. However, we call on this House to also support my bill through to select committee to enable a debate. There are a number of differences in this bill that concern us. We believe Māori electoral boundaries should be redrawn after each election based on current enrolled voters, not after every census—that’s another five-year locking-out. So Labour is proposing to transfer the lockout of tangata whenua to another part of the electoral law, which continues to tighten the colonial noose around our necks and lock us out for another five-year period when it comes to electoral boundaries. Come on!

We also think there should be a legislative requirement that if someone stipulates they are Māori when enrolling but doesn’t choose an electoral roll, they are placed on the Māori roll—simple.

Our bill would also change the name of the general electoral district to non-Māori electoral district, as Māori are always made to feel like the other. You have the general roll and then you have the general elections. Come on! These are some of the things you all need to be looking at, because it places Māori as the other.

We agree to stopping people from changing rolls before a by-election, maybe three months before—I agree with that. But Pākehā and non-Māori shouldn’t be able to change their addresses to their holiday homes and baches that they own and also to their family addresses during a by-election to skew or influence the outcome of by-elections, which we all know happens.

I look forward to the opportunities to engage with colleagues from across the House to make this legislation a reality for our people. Let’s get this racism and voter suppression—

The member’s time is up.

Tēnā koe. Ngā mihi nui. Mr Speaker, thank you. I rise in support of this. I want to acknowledge my colleague Minister Allan for bringing this to the House. She has already identified this afternoon that it’s within the context of a suite of wider electoral considerations around the nation’s funding and, obviously, people internationally overseas during COVID time in terms of elections. But, as we’ve heard already, this proposed law applies to those Māori who are already registered to vote. Therefore, they are entitled to the element of choice, and this bill seeks to address the anomaly that lies with that.

This is an issue of fairness. We all know that the electoral periods are in three-year chunks, yet for some electors who have gone through due process and have registered to vote, they potentially could not have the choice to change that, even though they wish to—and the stats and data indicates that—for five years and, in some cases six years for when that option comes along. It is the right thing to do. The Justice Committee will hear submissions from the community. I commend this bill to the House.

Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill, although we are not supporting this bill to select committee. It’ll pass, probably, anyway, I’d have to say, but it will be very interesting when it gets to select committee, because I think what will be a key task of the select committee is to actually look into what policy work went in behind this bill. How did they arrive at this particular policy that underpinned this bill and what process did they go through to look at various options around, because there were lots of potential options here. The four-month prior to a by-election lockout has not been carried through to a normal election. What was the rationale for that, because I think that if the rationale is that it could be used, potentially, to stack a particular seat, then why wouldn’t that carry also as true through a general election?

It’ll be quite interesting, but I suspect, like many other of the bills that come before this House, the policy work will be found on the back of an envelope somewhere. That’ll be about the extent of the work that went into it.

What we’re talking about here is that the census plays a very key role in this, and I have to agree with and share the frustration of some of the members on the other side of the House, in particular, about that. But look, James Shaw—the truth be known—made such a hash of the last census. I know that in my electorate, we were one of the larger electorates that had—particularly in Marlborough—such a very low turnout for the census. They never made the effort to do it properly, and that’s just what happens when the Greens run anything. We had people—particularly in the Sounds—that don’t have access easily to get into town to get on the census and get their records recorded, and that meant a significant disadvantage for that electorate. It has a significant impact because of the health funding and all those sorts of things based on that census data but also electorate sizes, and I think that that’s something on which they did a great disservice for us.

But it does carry over to this particular bill as well. How do we know—as has been suggested before by the Māori Party speaker Rawiri Whaitiri—that they should be able to just change after any election, based on those registered voters within an electorate, but what about the people on the general roll as well? Are we actually going to change electorate boundaries? Some of those electorates grow or decline quite significantly. If we’re going to change one section—the Māori seats—why wouldn’t we be looking at the general roll as well? I think that that would have to be the same. If we’re talking about fairness, fairness goes for everyone—isn’t what it means? Fair being equal, colour-blind, ethnic-blind, gender-blind, just being fair to everyone.

💬 Maureen Pugh: Age-blind.

Age-blind. What we also learnt from the Green speaker Golriz Ghahraman was that she’s actually in favour of abolishing the Māori seats completely. This is clearly news to me that the Green Party are supporting the abolition of Māori seats.

💬 Jan Logie: What?

Well, she quite clearly said that it was scientific: what the Electoral Commission says about electoral rules should be followed religiously. Well, the Electoral Commission said that when MMP came in, the Māori seats should be abolished, so, clearly, the Green Party supports the abolition of the Māori seats. So I look forward to debating through the election next year with the Green candidate about the abolition of Māori seats, because I suspect most people aren’t aware of that.

💬 Jan Logie: Neither are we.

Well, perhaps you should have been listening.

I also wonder about self-declaration. I do remember reading in the legislation that came through the House about the unemployment insurance, where in the schedule in that bill, it’s quite clearly stated that one of the things that the ACC should be recording and looking for was ethnicity and self-declared ethnicity, so we now have in legislation self-declared ethnicity. So does that apply for people going on to the Māori roll? Can you self-declare as a Māori and go on to the electoral roll?

Now, I’ve had a quick look at the law and it doesn’t appear that way, but now we’ve got legislation that contradicts that. That could actually be the case that people could do that, so we could have a scenario here where people could declare that they were Māori and go on to the Māori roll to stack a by-election, for example. Quite clearly, this legislation allows that. Given the clause that allows “except when a local election is being held”, when you can actually change across, there is a way to stack, let’s say, a local government by-election for whatever reason. It could easily be done, so that’s what really underlines my point about the policy work being on the back of an envelope. They haven’t actually thought about this. They haven’t gone through it properly.

I think it really comes now to the difficult things, which is something that I think all New Zealanders increasingly are being concerned about, which is the moves by the Labour Government to play around with electoral laws, as long as they don’t have to have the supermajority, to try and chip away at democracy by not having to go through the supermajority process that they would have to do. So this is one example. Another example is, of course, three waters, with all of the 50 percent control of that going to Māori. There is also, of course, the local government review, or the future of our local government, which talks quite a lot about giving 50 percent of control to Māori ratepayers.

There may be a debate that we could have about this, but it should be a supermajority. Actually, it should go to a referendum so all New Zealanders have a say on what is going to dramatically change our electoral laws; in fact, it’s going to make them Third World, as far as I can see. I think it is absolutely outrageous that they are trying to chip away at our democracy in the way that they are. It’s like the boiling frog: you don’t realise that it’s just being chipped away, and, before you know it, it’s gone.

Then, of course, we’ve got nepotism rife on the other side of the House. I mean, nepotism came from the practice of popes and bishops appointing so-called nephews into roles, and that’s exactly what we’re getting here. Well, this goes to the electoral laws that are being quite gerrymandered, in my view, and I think they should put these things to a supermajority, or they should have the courage to put it to the people of New Zealand. They don’t have the courage to do that.

💬 Chris Penk: That’s the other option.

Yes, absolutely. So we have plenty of opportunity for electoral laws to be looked at. We have a review of that going through select committee at the moment. This bill is unnecessary. It’s poorly thought out. It is actually quite outrageous, and I condemn it to the House.

Just a very quick call. I want to compliment my colleague Kiritapu Allan for this. This is a brilliant bill—something that Māori have been asking for for some time.

I’m going to clarify for Maureen Pugh what our new democracy is. Democracy changed in 1996. It was called MMP, and that’s when the new democracy came in. It meant that we got more Māori, more Pasifika, more Rastafarians, more women, and more minorities in Parliament—that is what you call a new democracy.

It also changed somewhat in 2011, when their fabulous Prime Minister did a dirty, rotten deal in Epsom with the ACT Party and made sure that Rodney Hide became a member. I’m just interested in what they would call that in 2011, when we had a clear change in terms of democracy as we know it. So the National Party and ACT are compliant in terms of turning around democracy when it suits them, and that’s what you call a new way and a new day.

So I just want to say well done to Kiritapu Allan, well done to us, and I support this bill going forward. Kia ora tātou.