Bakshi Kanwaljit SinghKANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to stand and oppose this Electoral Amendment Bill. The points which have been raised by the previous speakers—I would like to touch upon one of the very crucial points which is democracy and the right to vote.I come from a country which is one of the biggest democratic countries in the world; people queue up up to a kilometre to exercise their right to vote. Just now we heard from the member of the Green Party Gareth Hughes that we are trying to deny someone the right to vote. They could have registered; as the calculations were presented by my learned friend there are more than 1000 days available when that person could have gone and registered himself. We're not saying that it is wrong but we're saying that there is ample opportunity available for everyone to go and register themselves so that they can exercise their right to vote.We went to see the chief election commissioner in Delhi and Greg O'Connor my good friend was with me. They told us how difficult it is to maintain that system when they go into the phases to let people come and exercise their vote. About 700 million people exercise their vote and there are polling booths which are far flung and people carry electronic voting machines on their backs to make sure that every person can have that right to exercise that vote.Why can't we have people go and register themselves? There were many excuses given by the Green Party member. Yes I agree that there are challenges but they have time. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes to register for their voting right and the enrolment roll. So those are lame excuses that the person can only register himself on the very last day of the election.Whereas we have got a system—we are very lucky to live in New Zealand—where we have got a right to vote two weeks in advance. We can go and vote at any polling booth and register ourselves and exercise our right. But why on the last day?Hon Members: Why not?KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Why? I'm asking you why. You answer. No why are you asking me? It is your bill—it is your bill. I have given my logic that they have got 1000 days to register themselves. Why don't they register on those 1000 days; why on the last day? So these are the lame excuses being taken on.Marja Lubeck: Why not? No answer.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: I have given you the reason. If you don't understand it's your problem.The Minister was saying that there has been a tradition over the years that the Government comes to the Opposition to discuss the Electoral Amendment Bill. But this time in this term of the Parliament this is the fourth bill where the Opposition was not consulted. Again it is a denial of democracy and a denial to the Opposition to participate in such—Hon Andrew Little: Oh rubbish!KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: —process. It is not rubbish. I think the Minister should have explained why he did not take that opportunity to come and talk to the Opposition whereas when he was in Opposition he had all the opportunity when the Government of the day came to the Opposition to talk about it.This bill has got some good things which I did mention during the contribution of the committee of the whole House. The opportunity for people to have access in supermarkets is a great idea and we should support it and the National Party supports that. Another aspect which is part of this bill is that the Electoral Commission has got the right to make some decisions if there is a civil emergency and it is very important that the Electoral Commission has got that right. As we have seen in the past there could be a flood there could be an earthquake and those things we should keep in mind and give the opportunity to the Electoral Commission to make sure that people have got the right to exercise their vote.I think there are as Chris Penk mentioned good things bad things and the ugly. So we are not able to support this bill at this stage. Thank you Madam Speaker.