Belich Camilla; O'Connor GregCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill and I want to join some of my colleagues in congratulating the member sponsoring this bill for having the bill drawn and for bringing some really interesting issues to the House. As you would have heard from previous speakers from the Labour Party it's not a bill that we will be supporting today. However I believe that most of us come to this House in order to enact real change and so I think it should be some consolation to the member sponsoring it that a great number of the ideas that she has suggested in her member's bill have in fact either have already been adopted by the Government or form part of an independent review. So I'm sure that the change itself will be reward enough for the work put into this bill even though I understand that she may be disappointed it's not progressing. So what I thought might be interesting to do is just to go through the main points in this bill and just spell out exactly really what's happening already in this space for clarity. One of the key points raised in this bill is enabling voters of Māori descent to change roll type at any time. I think that's a very valid point. I was pleased to see the then Minister of Justice—Kris Faafoi—announce that we would be making this change in time for the 2023 election and I understand that this is currently before the Justice Committee at the moment. Another thing that we'll also be implementing before the 2023 election will be removing the requirement for New Zealand citizens living overseas to have visited New Zealand within the last three years. That's a really practical pragmatic change on a temporary basis due to the obvious travel restraints we've had through COVID-19. So that's also happening as well. Also prisoner voting rights: last term there was a reversal of the 2020 changes that were brought in by the National Party that had limited voting rights for prisoners so that's something that's also been implemented. We've heard at length today about the implementing of the Electoral Commission's independent changes and in fact we're supporting that review which is due in November 2023 as I understand it. There are also other things: strengthening transparency around donations has been announced by the current Minister of Justice Kiri Allan and other law changes have been announced in order to remove the requirement for local government candidates to have their address published. So that's another type of electoral reform. One thing that as a list member I was particularly interested in was looking at the section in this bill as it related to list seats. It's something that I'm quite interested in in relation to how list members fit in and the role that we play within the democracy that we have. I was quite surprised at the extent to which this bill looked to change some very entrenched provisions that have been in place for a very long time within our democracy. So for example to go through a few of the things this bill is I understand proposing: a threshold change from 5 percent to 4 percent which is something that has been discussed throughout the time that I have studied our politics and our democracy—a significant change. There also wouldn't be coat-tailing as it's colloquially known under this bill. So I think even in some circumstances there would be a reduction in the number of seats within this Parliament. In New Zealand we don't have an Upper House we don't have state government and we don't have regional parliaments so that would actually be quite a significant change I think which is being proposed within this bill. Now that's not to say that I don't think there's value in debating these ideas as they're outlined in this bill. I think that very many of these ideas have merit and have been discussed from a constitutional perspective in relation to the best way for us to see our democracy progressing. The thing that I would agree on with members on this side of the House and also members in other parties is that a member's bill is in my view not the appropriate way to move forward significant changes within our constitutional frameworks and that is what this bill proposes to do. So I do commend the member for bringing the bill and for allowing us to have these very interesting discussions and to reflect on a lot of the work which is already taking place in this very important area and I don't begrudge her the opportunity to bring a bill on an important subject matter through the member's bill process. We are all members of this House; we use the tools that we have to draw attention to the issues that we feel are important. But unfortunately I will not be commending this bill to the House today. Thank you. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Hon Member: One more. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh sorry my apologies.