Local Electoral (Abolition of the Ratepayer Roll) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Local Electoral (Abolition of the Ratepayer Roll) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

I am hoping that there will be a repeat of what we’ve just seen in the House again tonight, as I ask the House to consider this very important bill. As we stand in this building, everything reminds us that we are part of a continuum; that the 54th Parliament we are part of stands on the shoulders of parliaments and parliamentarians that came before. Statutes which we amend and even repeal often date back to a past era, but deep in that history, there are seminal moments which are highly significant today. One of those was the advent of universal suffrage in 1893. But even before then, in the 1890 election, which brought the reforming first Liberal Government—eventually led by Richard John Seddon—had been the first where plural voting had been outlawed. Before then, plural voting allowed landowners to vote in every electorate where they owned property.

Perhaps those who changed the legislation were influenced by the quote from Sir George Grey, who in 1878 spoke of the “monstrous” inequity of a man having two votes. In fact, Sir George moved an amendment to the Representation Act Amendment Bill to prohibit electors from voting in more than one district. This was enabled perhaps at the time by the fact elections were held at different times in each electorate. In that 1890 election, for the first time, property owners had to choose which electorate they voted in.

Then, in 1893, when universal suffrage was introduced, the one-person, one-vote principle was enacted. This was to become a fundamental feature of democratic electoral systems in the 20th century. So even that anomaly—a choice of electorate—was removed and a voter only voted in the electorate in which they resided.

Now, here we are in the 54th Parliament, 131 years later, debating an identical issue around whether owning property should bestow on individuals the ability to vote in multiple jurisdictions or local councils. Theoretically, with 78 local authorities representing all areas in New Zealand, including the 110 community boards and 21 local boards, an individual could vote 209 times if they owned property in each. Just in case that does sound too far-fetched a proposal, one individual in Auckland enrolled in eight different community board elections, all of which he owned property in.

What my bill does is abolish the ratepayer roll, which enables that sort of activity. Section 24 of the Local Electoral Act 2001 qualifies individuals that own property outside the area they reside in to vote in that area in addition to their place of residence. For example, someone living in Wellington who owns property in Masterton could vote in local body elections for both territorial authorities—could vote both in Masterton and Wellington local body elections. A person living in Auckland and owning property in Wellington could vote in an Auckland mayoral election, the Wellington mayoral election, and also the Greater Wellington Regional Council election.

My bill amends the Local Electoral Act 2001 to abolish the ratepayer roll for local body elections. It also consequently amends the Local Government Act 2002, the Local Electoral Regulations 2001, and the Local Government Act 1974. Essentially, this bill fixes an anomaly left in 1893 when New Zealand introduced universal suffrage, being the first country in the world to give women the vote—something we are justifiably proud of as a nation. It did leave in place this dual voting concept for local bodies, which my bill seeks to modernise and repeal.

Of course, the one person, one vote concept has been very much a hot topic in recent times. Members of this House have railed against proposals around water reform which dealt with voting issues. David Seymour even took time to pen an op-ed in the New Zealand Herald in 2022, in which he states, “First up, [that] believing in one-person one-vote democracy does not make you [a] racist.” He had an ally in the current Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, who told Newsroom in 2023, in explaining why he would not work with Te Pāti Māori after the election, that it was because his party stands for one person, one vote. Speaking about the ratepayer franchise this bill addresses, he is quoted as saying, “one person, one vote works well.” When asked whether he would therefore get rid of this option, he is quoted as replying, “Possibly, yes.” Given those statements by both leaders, I’ll be disappointed if those parties don’t support my bill.

Although the number of individuals enrolled on the ratepayer roll is relatively low—7,277 in the 2022 local body election—unfortunately, so is the turnout at local body elections, thus the potential for a well-organised group to influence an election is a very real possibility. Those on a ratepayers’ roll vote in considerably higher percentages than those on the conventional roll. I’ll give an example: in the Wellington mayoral election 2019, my good friend Andy Foster, now a member in this House, won the chains by 62 votes. In that election, there were 219 ratepayer electors, and I’m sure Mr Foster will be happy to vote for my bill to ensure no accusation would ever be made that out-of-towners influenced an election—obviously, that’s absolutely no aspersion on Mr Foster or the merits of his victory; the point being that it does highlight this anomaly.

In fact, speaking of Wellington, a recent by-election was won by only 45 votes. It’s such a close contest, any attempt to mobilise those eligible, in any way, to enrol on the ratepayer electors’ role could easily have swayed the result. Given the importance of that councillor position in determining the voting balance of the whole council, with the potential for such an event, it is extremely important that the voting criteria be transparent and limited to individuals who live in the jurisdiction.

Perhaps a better example of that is the Thames-Coromandel District Council, where 8.42 percent of voters are ratepayer electors. This is an area with a large number of holiday homes. Auckland resident but Coromandel property owner Gary Gotlieb proudly told The Spinoff that he’d encouraged his fellow holiday homeowning Auckland friends to become ratepayer electors in the 2022 election in that area and to vote for him, and he was elected. He told The Spinoff at the time, “If others are jealous (of ratepayers getting two votes) then I’m sorry, that’s life!” To those who would argue no taxation without representation, then that argument would take us back to the 1800s, where that logic would mean anyone who owned a business in a general electorate anywhere other than where they reside should be entitled to vote in that electorate as well. Surely, by that logic, someone living in the fine Ōhāriu electorate but owning a business in Levin would be entitled to vote in the Ōtaki electorate as well.

This is very much a matter of principle. I know there are members opposite who have a strong sense of Kiwi fair play. I know, when I first became aware of this issue—and, at this stage, allow me to acknowledge Dan Rosewarne, a colleague from the last Parliament, who actually produced the bill. I was actually amazed that such anachronisms still exist today. Councils are far more than just the rubbish, rates, and roads organisations they once were, and, as much due to central government devolution as anything, any absentee owners are likely more interested in lower rates than libraries and supporting local events than the local residents. It’s also important to remember local residents who don’t own property will be paying rates vicariously through their rent. They, arguably, have equal rights with the property owner.

One reservation I did have about this bill is that were it to fail, it may just alert more absentee property owners to their ability to enrol on the ratepayer roll. In that case, we would see an even bigger potential of local voices being subsumed by those out of town. This is unfinished business from the 1890 legislation. Many of the arguments against this bill—mainly, that you should be able to vote where you own property—are very much arguments rejected by that reforming Government. Vote for this bill and you can proudly walk past the statue of “King Dick” on the forecourt, knowing you’ve been part of carrying on the work of that Liberal Government—the same one who initiated the welfare reform which saw us get the pension. I implore members opposite to vote for this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m standing here today to oppose the Local Electoral (Abolition of the Ratepayer Roll) Amendment Bill. The member opposite—Greg O’Connor—advocated for a continuum of change. One thing that he didn’t do was provide an overwhelming amount of evidence that local elections were being skewed in any way by ratepayer roll voters. The member opposite also talked a bit about the American Revolution and the assertation of no taxation without representation, which I will go into a little bit later on in this 10-minute call.

But what I’d like to say is this bill seeks to amend the Local Government Act 2002 to abolish the ratepayer roll. And there are many reasons why the National Party will not be supporting this bill. First and foremost is the removal of property owners’ ability to vote in local elections. This is the core concept of taxation without representation, and it flies in the face of natural justice. It alienates a proportion of ratepayers from taking part in local government affairs and local democracy.

We already have an issue in this country with low engagement in local government affairs, as the member opposite pointed out. Why should we further legislate against community and ratepayer engagement? The member opposite discussed turnout in local elections and how it was so low, and his answer for low turnout was to reduce the number of eligible voters, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

One of the core concepts of New Zealand’s rating system is the link between ratepayers and council accountability. Removing the ability of some ratepayers to vote erodes this crucial part of our democratic process. National believes that all councils should remain accountable to ratepayers. Removing the ability of those ratepayers, who do not live within the jurisdiction, to vote erodes this accountability.

We have always had a proud history in the National Party of supporting localism and devolution, demonstrated by our policies such as Local Water Done Well, which restores local ownership and control of water assets. It is paramount that councils are accountable for those who fund them: those who are the true investors in projects and critical infrastructure that councils develop and maintain.

In the Waitaki electorate, we have numbers of dwellings that are owned by people who live outside those council areas. And to suggest that those people have less interest or should have less rights than other residents is clearly the wrong approach. Whether you are a ratepayer in Hāwea, Wānaka, Cromwell, Ōmākau, Ranfurly, Twizel, Tekapō, Geraldine, Waimate, Kurow, Oamaru, or Palmerston, you deserve to be able to have a say in the way your money’s spent.

Rawiri Waititi: Gosh, where are those places?

MILES ANDERSON: Come down and visit. It is not as if people are having multiple votes in the same jurisdiction. It remains the concept of one man, one vote.

Celia Wade-Brown: What about the women?

MILES ANDERSON: And one woman, one vote—there you go. It is much the same as New Zealanders who live in overseas jurisdictions, such as Australia or the UK, who are still eligible to vote in our general elections here in New Zealand.

As the deputy leader of our party, Nicola Willis, had so rightly put, the principles of one person, one vote is critically important. What we are seeing with the issue of people who are resident in two jurisdictions is that they are not being afforded any more vote in that jurisdiction than anybody else.

So the question remains: how much of an influence are these ratepayers actually having on voting outcomes? We would be far better as a country to get more engagement in local and regional government processes or elections than trying to penalise those who demonstrate an active interest in their community.

Arena Williams: Give the 16-year-olds the vote, then!

MILES ANDERSON: No, not at all. So, as I said earlier, the American Revolution was a—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Good segue.

MILES ANDERSON: Yes, good segue. The American Revolution—

Arena Williams: Do anything to avoid that one!

MILES ANDERSON: Thank you very much. The American—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you to the member for sticking to this piece of legislation.

MILES ANDERSON: Yes. The American Revolution was a revolution that was fought over the concept of no taxation without representation. And here we have something very similar today that’s been proposed by the member opposite. The idea that somebody who is a ratepayer in one jurisdiction and a property owner in another is somehow—

Rawiri Waititi: Get it out, man!

MILES ANDERSON: —“Get it out”; yes, I am—screwing the scrum when it comes to democracy is a nonsense. So the—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Oh, this is painful.

MILES ANDERSON: Ha, ha! It is really, isn’t it? It was supposed to be five minutes to start with.

Hon Member: He’s doing a good job.

MILES ANDERSON: Thank you very much.

Tom Rutherford: Tell us about the towns in your electorate again.

MILES ANDERSON: Which one do you want to hear about?

Hon Member: Wānaka.

MILES ANDERSON: Wānaka is a beautiful place. Right on the shores of Lake Wānaka.

Reuben Davidson: Well, your voters would be proud of you.

MILES ANDERSON: Thank you very much. So, however, long story short: we oppose this bill.

Well, I will briefly go back to 1852, where the franchise was based on property—but we have moved on. I want to start with a quote from the Dominion Post, 8 June 2010: “A voting loophole that could give property owners multiple votes has been labelled undemocratic by a Wellington mayoral candidate”—couldn’t think which one. “The Wellington branch of the Property Council has sent a letter to property investors urging them to sway local body elections by utilising the little-known ratepayer roll. The Property Council letter urges members to register a nominee for each of their property interests. ‘Often the sway of elected representatives can be a matter of only a handful of votes’, says the letter, signed by branch president Ian Cassels, who lives on the Kāpiti Coast.”

Well, if we go to the most recent by-election, as the member said, that was 45 votes. That was 0.5 percent. It wasn’t even 1 percent of the votes, so it could make a huge difference. So it’s something to take seriously. But who pays the rates? Is it the property owner or is it the person renting? Excuse me, but we expect, generally, that the rents would cover the costs of the house, including the rates. So I say the citizenship, the residency is what matters.

The UK, the USA states that I’ve been able to look at, France, Switzerland, Denmark—there’s a fairly random set of countries we call democratic; none of them—none of them—have got a ratepayer roll. So voting should be based on residency and citizenship, not property ownership. I don’t often quote David Farrar, but he did say, “I hope the bill passes first reading at least, as it would be good to have a select committee process.”

Give it a chance. Have a think. Don’t let those margins be caught up by a narrow pressure group that cares more about the value of their property and low rates than for libraries, community services, swimming pools, roads, cycle lanes. Whatever is done or not by the local council should be a matter for the people living in that area. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this member’s bill. Now, we’ve heard an argument put forward tonight that one person, one vote means you should only get one vote. But, really, what it means is that all votes should be equal. I’m sure the member opposite wouldn’t want to see a situation where a New Zealand citizen, who also has voting rights in another country, forfeits their voting rights in New Zealand, because that is the level of analysis being done on the other side tonight. If you own a property outside of the rating area in which you reside, you should have a right to vote in that, because you have a vested interest in what happens in that community, what happens with the debt levels, what happens with the rates, and what happens with your investment in a town, which means a person who invests in a town would like to see a town get better. I do not think that the level of analysis has been properly applied by the members opposite tonight.

A better principle which we could use, which has been spoken about by my learned colleague Miles Anderson, is: no taxation without representation. Now, Tauranga residents have had a long time of being rated without representation. We are waiting. And thank you to the Minister of Local Government for declaring that we will be having an election in July. Finally, the people of Tauranga will get to enjoy that privilege, which is one of being a free citizen in a property-owning democracy: the right to vote in your local body. As I say, we know what it’s like to go without it, and I would not want to be on the side removing the right to vote from somebody.

Now, we should have a say in the use of the rates which are charged on a property which we own. I’ll address the member across the House saying that it is the renter that pays for. Well, that is not always the case. Sometimes, when your property has been left in a state of disrepair and you must go through the process of renovations, because of a leaky-home crisis or some such, you’re still paying rates. So it’s not always on the renter. I grant that is a minor case, but what you are doing is—sorry, Madam Speaker; what a purchaser of a property is doing is investing in the long-term prosperity of a community and wanting to have a say, because they have a vested interest. If the community does better and people would like to move to said community, then the property value will go up and that is where the property owner will benefit.

So, I think, another benefit on that train of thought is that people who have worked hard, started businesses, provided goods to the community, have used their skills and whatever natural endowments they have, talent wise, to produce wealth and have been able to invest it in more property—what we want to see is those people investing in areas perhaps outside of their immediate neighbourhood, spreading the wealth and the knowledge around the community. They may take governance skills, business skills, even the skills of being able to swing a hammer or roll on some paint, to another community in which they can provide benefit, if we were to remove a current situation, that is another hurdle which someone would have to cross when completing an investment in a property outside of their immediate neighbourhood.

Now, another thing that comes up quite often when we’re talking about local government and local democracy is we hear people decrying the low voter turnout, and specifically in the Tauranga area—[Bell rung] Oh, I didn’t realise that the call was only five minutes, but cool—we hear of sub 40 percent voter turnout. Now, why would we want to do another? Why would we want to do another thing to put a hurdle in the way of people getting involved in local democracy? We want more democracy, not less. The ACT Party opposes this bill. Thank you.

Given this is a five-minute call, I’ll get straight into it. Look, we fundamentally disagree with the premise of this bill. You don’t get extra votes; what you get is one vote in each separate election. The introduction to the bill talks about—[Interruption] Be quiet; you might learn something. The introduction to the bill says that, in respect of the country as a whole, the practice of voting in multiple elections was abolished for general elections in the 1890s. Why was that abolished? Because that was multiple votes for one electorate, and that electorate was this electorate: Parliament. But when you’re talking about local government, we have 67 separate territorial authorities—67. They are each, effectively, sovereign—sovereign under Parliament, but sovereign. They are separate elections.

Eleven regional councils—look, I’ll take this for one more, and that is, Greg O’Connor, in introducing this, talked about two examples: a property in Auckland and a property in Wellington. You own both of those. Those are two separate elections; you get one vote in each of them, if you’ve got properties in each of them.

You then used the example of a property in Wellington and a property in Masterton. In that case, you get one vote for the Wellington City Council, you get one vote for the Masterton District Council, but you get one vote for the regional council. One vote for the regional council because that is one election that you’re voting in—one, in that case. That is one vote because—and everybody who is involved in Wellington City will get one vote for each of those, everybody involved in Masterton get one vote for each of those, but if you have a property in both, you’ll get one vote for that regional council.

What happens if you have two or three properties in the same jurisdiction? How many votes do you get?

Cameron Brewer: One.

ANDY FOSTER: One—one vote. Now, of course, you could get some other people to help you. We had that example that Celia Wade-Brown was saying. What about these big property owners? Well, what about the person who pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for a commercial property? Do you think that they should be able to find somebody to vote on their behalf? I think that they should. In Wellington City, close to 50 percent of the rates are paid by about 18 percent of the value of the city. They cross-subsidised, big time, the residential sector. Should they have the right to have a say? I think they should have a right to have a say, and, at the moment, they do.

This bill is about trying to take that right away. I guess, what it brings to me is it says to me that it questions the very basis of local government funding, because, at the moment, the bulk of local government funding comes from a rate on, what? It comes from a rate on a property. Why would you then take away the right for property owners to vote? If you don’t want that, the logical approach to take is to arrange things in a different way, arrange the funding base in a different way. I think Maggie Thatcher tried to do that, and I don’t think it was terribly popular.

But what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to disenfranchise people who contribute to that rating base. It is, as we’ve already heard, no taxation without representation. And what you want to do, on that side of the House, is you want to give people who contribute, essentially, virtually nothing to the cost of running a city—you want to give them the vote, but you want to take it away from people who contribute an enormous amount to the running of a city. I think that, while this bill is intended to try and be more democratic—and I think that the intention is a good thing to do—the reality is it is doing exactly the opposite. It is taking away people’s franchise that they’ve had for many, many years.

I also would say, how do you determine that a person who has, say, a holiday home in one place and lives most of the time in another place—maybe who represents a part of the country in one place and maybe has bought themselves a property in this place—how do you determine which one they’ve got a foot in? How do you decide that they have no stake in both of those places? I think that’s quite wrong. They should be entitled to have that stake in both places. So I think the intent of the bill is an honest one, but the effect, to me, is an anti-democratic one, and we will be voting against this bill. Thank you.

I’d like to talk to this bill about the American Revolution—was that what we were talking about?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It has been brought up in speeches before.

RAWIRI WAITITI: Three hundred years of black slavery. They didn’t get the right to vote until 1965 through the civil rights legislation. Let’s really talk about the American Revolution. Anyway, it’s very similar to what’s happening here.

We heard all of this talk about universal suffrage—one law for all; one person, one vote—during the debates for the Māori wards. Like Māori were going to get these extra votes—what a whole lot of rubbish! That was a whole lot of rubbish. Co-governance, the Māori wards, the Māori seats—Māoris were going to get these extra votes. In actual fact, what we’ve heard from this side of the House is an admission that universal suffrage actually doesn’t exist in this country, is that there is privilege in this country—there is privilege in this country where people get more than one vote. If you own one house in one city, and you own another house in another city, you get two votes.

Now, just say, for instance, you’re the Prime Minister and you have seven houses—you own seven houses in seven different cities—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not me—not me.

RAWIRI WAITITI: Not you; you’re not the Prime Minister, Madam Speaker. Apologies for that. But you imagine if you’re the Prime Minister. I’m not talking about any Prime Minister; I’m just saying, if any Prime Minister owned seven houses in seven different cities, he gets—

Hon Member: Or she.

RAWIRI WAITITI: —seven votes, or she gets seven votes. This is not universal suffrage; this is not one man, one vote. This is privilege—this is privilege, absolute privilege. Christopher Luxon said he would not work with Te Pāti Māori because he believed in one man, one vote. He shouldn’t be working with himself if it’s one man, one vote, because you get the opportunity to vote in two spaces. This is a matter of fact. People should not determine or influence or gamble with the lives of others that live in other cities. You should not gamble with the lives of others. You should not be able to vote in other towns if you are privileged and rich enough to own a holiday home.

I live in a very rural area called Whangaparāoa or Cape Runaway—a beautiful place; beautiful place. There are holiday homes there. And you’re going to tell me that those people that own those holiday homes get a right to determine what happens with the people who were born and bred there, who live there, who contribute to the economy, who have lived there for many, many years, post- and pre-colonisation, that we’re going to allow people to determine what happens in our particular area. That is absolutely unfair. They are paying for a holiday house; they are not paying for anything else. They’re not paying for anything else; they’re paying for their holiday house. So this is the break of a privilege that rich people have because they get more than one vote.

It was admitted by New Zealand First—they admitted that. You get one vote here, you get one vote there, here a vote, there a vote, everywhere a vote, vote. That’s “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”, not “Old Rangi Had a Farm”; it’s “MacDonald Had a Farm”. And this is the problem, and this is the privilege that this side of the House, the Government, drowns in. They drown in their privilege, and they make admissions that they get more than one vote. This is not universal suffrage; it’s not one man, one vote.

So we will be supporting this bill because, Labour, this is not about politics; this is about doing what is right. And we’ve got to do what is right, and that’s to ensure that there is a fairer—absolutely fairer—voting system here in Aotearoa. That universal suffrage is an institution that should be valued in any democracy—any democracy. The problem is that you do not believe in true democracy, you do not believe in universal—they do not, Madam Speaker. We commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m pleased Mr Waititi has a loud voice, because he certainly needed it for the competition. The Hon Kieran McAnulty—we’ll see how loud your voice is.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s absolutely extraordinary that there are members in this House, who, in the last campaign, rallied vigorously up and down the country, on the basis of a principle that they said they held dear: one person, one vote—any change to that would be an affront to democracy!

As my colleague Greg O’Connor pointed out, the leader of the National Party expressed support on behalf of his party for the idea of removing the ratepayer roll. But it’s important to understand that the only reason Christopher Luxon said that is because he was under the pump on his position on co-governance, in terms of the Treaty. It is very clear to me that if the National Party were today debating the concept that rural people got two votes in rural areas, they would be defending it; if it was Māori people with two votes in their areas, they would be opposing it. It is very clear to me that they are motivated by the idea of property ownership.

They scoff, but I’ll put their arguments back to them. They stood there tonight and justified that someone who owns a property in this district should get a vote and also get a vote by owning a property in that district. What about renters? What if someone owned a property in one district, but, for their work purposes, rented a property in another? They wouldn’t support that, so what’s the difference? The difference is property ownership, and that is the guts of this issue. Now, all they need to do—

Andy Foster: Wrong, wrong.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: —is vote—listen up; you might learn something, Andy Foster! All they need to do is put this through to select committee and allow the people to have their say—allow those renters who are part of a community who take an active role in those communities, and if that was their sole point of residence, they would have a vote, but because they rent a property and don’t own it, they therefore don’t get a vote, but they have just as much to do with that community in that district, that council, as someone who is an absentee ratepayer who happens to own the building.

“No taxation without representation” is another saying that the Government has clung to tonight. So I would put to them: what about teenage workers that pay tax? Are they going to advocate for them to have a vote on local councils? What about immigrants who pay, through a work visa, work hard for our economy, contribute to their community? They pay tax. Is the Government going to advocate for them to have a vote in this community? No, they’re not. None of them own property. None of them are able to vote. That is the key here. None of them can vote. None of them own property, so they don’t care. It is inconsistent to their position. They are sticking up for their mates. They are sticking up for people that own property.

It is actually an affront to the basic principle of one person, one vote—the very principle that they used to oppose the opportunity for tangata whenua to have a say in their customary rights. There is a word for that, I will not say it; people can draw their own conclusions. But to stand up during an election and say that “We hold this principle dear” and then, confronted with an opportunity to apply that principle, they have backed away—every single one of them have backed away.

New Zealand First campaigned on this vigorously. They have mentioned me by name. What I said as Minister for Local Government to defend co-governance, they opposed that on the basis that people should get the same level of democratic participation. Oh, no, not today, because they are looking after those that own property. They are looking after those that own businesses—it might be fisheries or forestry, or whatever.

Their interests are not aligned to the general public. Their interests are not aligned to renters and people who otherwise only get one vote. They had an opportunity today to stand up to their principles, and they have folded like a piece of origami. They should be standing up here today and backing Greg O’Connor—at the very least, backing the select committee and letting the public have a say; the public they say they represent and the public they’re letting down today.

Point of order. Madam Speaker, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but the House has absolutely turned to custard. I don’t know who’s instigated it, but I like to hear the speakers, if that’s possible. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Yeah, thank you. It has been a very vigorous debate, and perhaps we can still have interjections, but just keep the noise down a bit. It’s a fair point, because the speakers are having to yell.

There’s been a lot of supposition as to who this side of the House is actually representing.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Oh, we know.

CAMERON BREWER: We are representing, Mr McAnulty, people like those that were victims of the Christchurch earthquakes, for example, that might have moved out to other suburbs beyond Christchurch and are in a fight with the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and insurance and the Christchurch City Council and they’ve been forced out of their homes. Why can’t they have a say? Why can’t they have a say on who governs and how their property taxes are spent?

Why can’t the people of Muriwai that have been forced out of their houses and moved into other parts of Auckland—why can’t they have a say on how their property taxes are governed and how they are spent when they are forced into another house in Auckland, when they’re up to their eyeballs with EQC, with Auckland Council, and with insurance?

Why can’t the people of Esk Valley that might have moved out of the Napier electorate and moved to Tukituki—why can’t they have a say in their abandoned house with EQC, with the council, and with the likes of insurance companies? Why do they have to forgo their say?

Why do the people of Coromandel after Cyclone Gabrielle—some of them were forced out of their area. Why can’t they have a say with how the territorial local authority spends their money?

Why can’t the people of Kaikōura have a say—those that were forced out of Kaikōura in 2016 after the Kaikōura earthquakes? Why can’t they have a say on how their district council spends their money while they face abandonment on their home ground?

We are representing people from all over New Zealand who can’t live in their houses for whatever reason but who need to have a say. They’ve got a vested interest in their property, and so that’s why we are not supporting this bill.

Referring to the last speaker, Cameron Brewer, most of those people could still vote if their primary place of residence was still where they’re not currently living. If they’re currently displaced from their house and their primary place of residence remains their old home, they can still vote there. So that’s a nonsense argument. Who pays the rates? [Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, just calm it a little bit. Mr Parker hasn’t got such a loud voice as everybody else, so just take the level down a bit.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don’t have a very loud voice, but I don’t think I should have to shout in this place to be heard.

We’ve heard the argument about rates. Well, in effect, it is generally the tenant who pays the rates, as Celia Wade-Brown and other speakers have said.

What is wrong with limiting the right of people to vote in a local election to the people who live there? What’s wrong with that? It’s a pretty simple proposition. It’s what happens overseas. In most jurisdictions, they seem to operate fairly enough. Who suffers the lack of services if, on a close vote, the candidate who wins the election is, effectively, voted in by a small number of people who are voting in more than one locality? The people who live locally; the people who pay the rent, who pay the rates.

Andy Foster: There’d be a whole lot of other people who voted for them to even get to that point.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yeah, I know. But in the end, if it’s one person, one vote, and one extra person gets to vote in an area and sways the election because they’ve been able to vote from outside the district, that does affect the outcome. I would’ve thought even Mr Foster would be able to count and work that out.

This is an anachronism in today’s world, and I don’t think we need property owners to have a right to vote outside of the area in which they live. If they want to move to an area and live in their house that they own in another area, well, they can vote there, but until they do, they should not be able to vote there. I think this bill should be supported through the House.

I don’t want to take this so close to the night that we’re not going to get a vote tonight, so—

Greg O’Connor: Keep going—keep going.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, he tells me to keep going. [Interruption] Well, he’s thinking that maybe if he exercises his power of persuasion, he’ll be able to cause enough people to vote for this to go to select committee.

I really think that if the National Party and ACT and the New Zealand First Party let this go to select committee, they’d hear that most people in New Zealand don’t think that there should be a right that is accorded to an owner of property who doesn’t live in an area to vote. They would find that most people think that the people who live in an area, who suffer the lack of services if a council comes in on an austerity vote and shuts the libraries, shuts the pools—it’s the local people who suffer those consequences, and they’re the people who should determine what the rates are. They’re the people who pay if they own and live in a property, and they’re the people who pay if they rent a property off a landlord. I don’t support this bill, and I do note the—

Tom Rutherford: You don’t support it?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I do support this bill—I’m a bit tongue-tied tonight. I do support this bill—you see, I’ve just used up another 15 seconds there. Only 54 seconds—I’ve only got to make another 10 mistakes and I’m there!

In terms of the one person, one vote, I do want to disagree with something that the Māori Party representative Rawiri Waititi said. I did think that the Rotorua bill was wrong. I do think it is important that suffrage be on the basis of one person, one vote, and I did think that having wards that had different numbers of voters in them were wrong. I extend that same principle to here, where if you have a ward that, effectively, doesn’t have voting that is in proportion to the number of residents that live in an area, that, to me, is a distortion of the voting system as well. I support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was intending to take a very, very short call to allow the member whose bill this is before the House, Greg O’Connor, to actually have the vote take place prior to the House suspending, but he’s given quite clear guidance that he’s actually not keen to have a vote on this bill at all tonight. Actually, I’m not going to even drag this out, because, actually, I want to have the vote on this bill tonight—and I’ve got a vote and I want it to count. So we are not supporting this bill.

Well, this has been a very interesting debate tonight. I’ve watched particularly the speakers on the other side stand up, and you always know, and as you’ll know yourself, Madam Speaker, when someone’s standing up, they actually don’t believe what they’re saying. You can tell that they’re actually—they’ve read the notes, they know what they’ve been told to do by the party whips, they hunt for little examples that might be the pièce de resistance that will get them across, but, actually, they don’t really believe it. I’ve sat through just about all of your maiden speeches, and what you did in your maiden speeches—there have been magnificent maiden speeches this year. What they’ve done is outline—some of your soul is actually exposed during a maiden speech, a real part of what you are. Most Kiwis are very fair-minded. Most Kiwis understand something that’s not quite right.

I’ll tell you what, I’ll give a good example at the moment—Mr Mitchell’s sitting over there—the police pay. One thing about police: police know what’s fair, as much as they know an amount. And what’s happening at the moment is unfair. In fact, the police are a good cross-section of society—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we go back to the member’s bill, thank you.

GREG O’CONNOR: Coming back to this bill—because everybody gets a vote, and they should only vote once.

But what I’ll say to those opposite is that, deep down, you know that this is a country that was built on egalitarianism. We escaped the sort of stuff, the sort of arguments that you’re putting up. We escaped that when we left that terrible class system of Europe, the class system that meant you were what you were born. The whole system entrenched privilege. We don’t want to entrench privilege. All that entrenched privilege that we escaped was all about ownership. It was all about those that owned the estates, whether you were up in the Scottish Highlands, whether you were on those estates in Devon that were taken away from people—they are the things that, actually, we knew were wrong.

I’ll tell you what, too—and, Mr Anderson, you should know this. There’s a man called McKenzie—Jock McKenzie—who was part of this Government that actually made the changes that we talked about. Have you heard about the land reforms—the McKenzie land reforms? New Zealand was nearly like a South American nation, the South American nation where it would have been owned by about 200 families. What did Jock McKenzie do? Jock McKenzie—we’ve got the statue out the front of Richard John Seddon, but it could well have been the statue of Jock McKenzie, because he was responsible for the land reform that meant the estates were broken up. Those estates, basically, if you lived in the Wairarapa, if you lived down there in Central Otago, it was virtually owned by three families. The reason why the estates were broken up was because those big landowners, all they did was grow wool. They didn’t need to grow meat, because they were wealthy enough without it. So when we needed the good intensification of farming, coming from Europe, we had to break up those estates, so that those coming from Europe could actually farm, and farm intensively—and I note there are quite a few farmers on the other side, and you, yourself, Madam Speaker. So understand the history of how we’ve got to where we are. That history is an incredibly important part.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Back to the bill.

GREG O’CONNOR: There we go, Mr Patterson on his beautiful bit of land down there in West Otago, a great bit of land. That piece of land was all owned by one big family, basically everything west of Balclutha today. But it was broken up so that people like you could do this.

So bringing this back, this allowing a vote around landowning, it’s just wrong. You—sorry, Madam Speaker, not you, although I suspect being a fair-minded person, you probably do.

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order.

GREG O’CONNOR: But the rest opposite, I know that you know that this is actually—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We have a point of order.

GREG O’CONNOR: Sit down, please, Mr Rawiri. So before we go to this vote—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

GREG O’CONNOR: Can I just ask you, I know—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We have a point of order from Rawiri Waititi.

GREG O’CONNOR: —what you’ve been told what to do by your whips. I’m hoping that perhaps—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr O’Connor! We have a point of order from Rawiri Waititi.

Rawiri Waititi: Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes?

Rawiri Waititi: When that member is the Speaker of the House, he always reminds us: stick to the bill. I’ve always wanted to say this to him.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: So I—

Rawiri Waititi: Mr Greg O’Connor: stick to the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I actually have been listening, and Mr O’Connor has been talking about landowners who have more rights on voting than other people, which is exactly the intent of his bill. So carry on, Mr O’Connor. I think you’ve got 29 seconds left.

GREG O’CONNOR: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I look forward to sitting in the Chair next time that member’s speaking. But I do leave this: I know you’ve been told what to do by your whips. I also know that each one of you knows inherently that this is a right bill; this is the right thing to do. I’ll invite just one of you to come across and vote for this bill. I thoroughly recommend this bill to the House.

Point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I seek leave to put the vote on this bill in the next members’ day. The reason for that is that party whips cannot be sure that they are casting their votes after 10 o’clock with the right number of votes when there was no intention to vote.

Yeah. See, leave has been sought for that purpose. I want to ask if there’s any objection. We do have discretion to run till 5 past should we need to. There is objection. So we’ll take the vote and I’m going—

Hon James Shaw: Point of order, Madam Speaker. By my watch, it actually is 5 past.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it’s 22.04 [Interruption] and I’m going to take the vote in silence. The question has to be determined. It was not 5 past and it’s still not on my clock, and I’ll remind people, seeing as we’ve had a noisy night, that votes will be taken in silence.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the House. The House is adjourned until 2 o’clock tomorrow, and Mr Shaw may want to adjust his watch so he arrives on time.

The House adjourned at 10.06 p.m.