Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This bill is another shonky chapter in the very poor process that this Government has had in respect of electoral law. If we take the first issue around process every Government electoral bill that was introduced in the last nine years of the previous Government or in the nine years of the Bolger-Shipley Government involved consultation with all parties. This is not the first; this is not the second; this is the third time the Minister of Justice has introduced electoral law changes without any consultation with the Opposition at all. Now we could take from the speech that we just heard from Shane Jones that this Government's view of electoral law can be summed up by Shane Jones with these words: We won you lost eat that." That's their constitutional priority around electoral law. If we want to cheat and screw the scrum to win the next election by changing the electoral law to advantage ourselves well that's what we're entitled to do because we have a majority in the Parliament. Then we even heard worse from Tracey Martin from New Zealand First who said these words: "You cannot trust the Parliament."—you can trust the Government but you cannot trust the Parliament. What sort of arrogance and anti-democratic views we now have in the Government that purports to represent New Zealand. When we come to electoral law here are the important considerations that we on this side of the House sign up to. The first of those is that we want to maximise the participation. We want to ensure that every New Zealander who's eligible to vote is able to vote. Equally so we would argue that we want an electoral system with integrity. We want to make sure that people can't cheat that people that aren't eligible to vote aren't able to get into the electoral system. Then the third key priority for National is that we have an efficient and fair electoral law. Now I want to draw attention to the process around this bill and the conventions of this Parliament. After every election we have a Justice Committee inquiry and the normal process—the process that's been adopted in the previous Parliaments all the way back to World War II—is that after an election there's a select committee inquiry where we work cooperatively across the Parliament as to how we can improve electoral law. We make recommendations to the Parliament and the Government then brings a bill to the House. None of that process has been followed. All of the issues in this bill are currently before the Justice Committee. The Government has jumped the gun ahead of that Justice Committee process.The part that had me choking on my Kornies was when the Minister said that the reason the Justice Committee has not completed its inquiry into the 2017 election is National's fault. Well let me put the record very clear. The Justice Committee of which Raymond Huo was the chair did not even start the inquiry until September of 2018. Whose fault was it that nothing was done for the first year? The Labour chair of the committee did not put the item on the agenda. Then we've had six changes in the chair of the Justice Committee. We've got the fiasco of the Justice Committee having a chair of the committee who has not heard a single submission. [Interruption] Mr Greg O'Connor disputes that. It is absolutely true that we are now on to the sixth chair of the inquiry into the 2017 election. Then I say to the House in respect of that inquiry the Minister who accused us after of going too slow writes to the committee in December last year and extends its terms of reference. Then the ultimate bad faith from members of the Government on that select committee inquiry into the 2017 election was the decision for Labour to substitute one of its members for Jami-Lee Ross whose sole purpose is to carry out—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member but it would be very advantageous if he could speak to the bill.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is the longstanding practice that electoral reform bills follow the Justice Committee. The Minister has said that the reason this bill is being introduced to pre-empt that process is because of that Justice Committee process and that is why it is entirely appropriate that I address that. Now the first provision of this bill takes an exception to what is the practice in other democracies such as Australia such as the United Kingdom such as the European community. In all of those democracies people are required to enrol before polling day. The question that I have for members opposite is: why does New Zealand want to step away from the electoral norm? What is the point in having a law that requires people to enrol if we say with this bill that you can enrol and vote at the same time? There's a very simple incentive that goes with this bill and that is if you can enrol and vote at the same time why would any New Zealander bother to enrol in advance? The second point on the provisions around same-day enrolment and voting is that the Electoral Commission has said that they cannot provide the writ and the result of the elections for another 10 days. It's only been mentioned by the Minister today—he never mentioned it when he put his press release out. The implication of same-day enrolment is that the writ for the election results is going to be delayed by 10 days. That is 10 days less in which we have a Government. That's 10 days more that we have bureaucrats twiddling their thumbs at a cost of tens of millions of dollars each day. Why should the formation of Government be delayed because people are not meeting their legal requirement to enrol prior to voting day?I also want to say there's a dual right that goes with elections. As candidates in this Parliament have a right to be known by the voters in advance of an election equally candidates have a right to be able to make contact to be able to write to voters and to be able to communicate with them. How can candidates communicate with voters if they are not required to enrol? Then we come to the second provision of the bill which National members support and are quite relaxed about and that is in respect of allowing premises that have an alcohol licence—to give a greater flexibility for those places being able to be polling booths. We have no difficulty in that regard. We do want to scrutinise at select committee the issue around votes not being counted at the polling place. It is a longstanding provision that the votes are counted in the same place in which the polling results actually occur. Then in the bill the bill gives very wide powers for returning officers to be able to override other provisions in the Electoral Act in respect of issues of where there is disruption from a storm or event or something else. It is our view that the Leader of the Opposition should be consulted and that is not provided for in this bill.New Zealand is very unusual. You couldn't introduce a bill like this into the Australian the American or many other Parliaments. We don't have a constitution. We run our electoral system on conventions and those conventions are that we work on a cross-party basis to try and develop the very best of electoral law. What this Government has done once with the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill secondly with the Electoral Referendum Bill and now with this Electoral Amendment Bill is to provide absolutely zero consultation with the largest party in this Parliament. I've a simple message for members opposite: electoral law is not a plaything for the Government of the day. You don't get to pick and choose the Electoral Commission recommendations that might advance your own re-election. We need to have some respect for electoral law and ensure that we have an electoral system that serves our country well—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time for his contribution has ended."