SpeechHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Chair. I apologise to my colleague. There's been a bit of a misunderstanding between myself and the whip. But I am pleased to take a call. I sat on the select committee throughout the entire process of hearing the submissions on this particular bill. Subsequent to that I have left the Justice Committee because I've had a change in my portfolio responsibilities within the National Party and so I regret that I haven't had a chance to do further work on it.Hon Chris Hipkins: What brought that about?Hon TIM MACINDOE: What brought that about? Well I'm sure you're well aware of that Mr Hipkins. Given that it resulted in a small promotion for me I'm very happy about it. But anyway thank you very much for his interest in the furtherance of my career. I'd like to get back to the bill because I'm sure that's what the Chair would like me to do.I do want to draw attention to the fact that there were some very significant compelling submissions both in favour and against the bill and so I acknowledge those. I regret that I was unable to speak about those submissions last week in the second reading of the bill and the reason for that was that the House was sitting under extended hours while my new select committee was sitting and I was required to be in an Estimates hearing. So I didn't get a chance to speak about those submissions but I do want to acknowledge those who submitted both for and against the bill because I think that they brought many compelling thoughts to bear. It was particularly interesting to hear from a number of those who have formerly been through our penal system. We don't often hear from prisoners or former prisoners on bills and their implications and I listened to them with particular interest and was glad that they took the time to submit. The interesting thing was they weren't all unanimous in their views on this bill either. But I do want to say how outraged I was—and I made a big noise about it during the time—that our select committee was required to do that work while the country was in lockdown having been given an assurance by the Leader of the House who is in the House at the time that there was no public interest in non-urgent matters being dealt with while the whole country was in lockdown and the House was adjourned. I for one would probably not have supported the motion to adjourn when we did had I known that the Government would renege on that very significant commitment that they made. So I did raise my objections all the way up to the level of the Clerk of the House and I wasn't particularly satisfied with the way the whole matter was resolved. But I just put on record that I do not think that the average member of the public supported the fact that the select committee was dealing with that bill at that time. In fact we asked many people who were submitting whether they were aware of this opportunity long before they were given the chance to present via a Zoom meeting and they said no they weren't. Clearly many of them had been contacted by members of the Labour or Green parties and urged to put in their submissions very quickly because they were getting caned in the early stages of the select committee's hearings. The fact of the matter is overwhelmingly people I have spoken to said surely at a time when the country was focused on COVID matters—a very serious issue—Parliament was suspended and the country was unable to operate as would normally occur that was not the time to be dealing with any non-urgent matter. In particular getting to the point where now under urgency we are rushing through a bill to give prisoners the vote suggests very warped priorities on the part of the Government. It's not so much therefore the principle of the bill that I object to but the practicalities of the way it has been managed. I feel that the Government misled the Parliament and misled the nation in moving the adjournment and suggesting that no non-urgent bills would be covered and then they did. I feel that members of the public are right to feel outraged about the fact that they didn't know that it was happening as a result of which many of them who would have submitted on this bill didn't because they were ignorant of it. Now that's outrageous in a democracy when you have people who really would have a strong interest in a bill not having the ability to know about it. We asked them whether it had received much media attention in their areas and the vast majority of people asked that question said Absolutely not. We've heard nothing about it whatsoever." So I put on record my strong criticism of the Government for the way in which they are putting this bill through the House. I understand the reasons for it and I certainly understand the reasons against it. In particular I hope that the Government listen to the strong concerns of victims of crime who felt yet again that this was an insulting slap in the face for their concerns particularly during the lockdown because we heard many distressing stories from victims who felt deeply aggrieved and insulted by this bill's consideration."