Hodgson Pete: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:11012] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I want to read into the record only a few remarks. First I acknowledge the role of the Minister of Justice in the lead-up to this phase of the legislation. Not only has he been consultative but also we have something resembling a consensus on this legislation. I acknowledge the Minister’s role and his consultative behaviours and I want to return soon to the issue of consensus in respect of other aspects of electoral law reform. 
Second I endorse the remarks of my colleague Charles Chauvel in respect of the regards that he paid to the two organisations that are being taken out by this legislation and being replaced by one and thank them for their efforts including during the really rather interesting phase in our electoral history when we made the move from first past the post to proportional representation midway through the last decade with the challenges that arose for those organisations. In fact one of them was set up precisely because we had made that change—the Electoral Commission. 
Third I point out that the good work and the harmonious and accurate nature of our elections have not always been the case. Although we have had 150-something years of elections during which time no shot has been fired and we can be pretty pleased about the long history of change of Governments backwards and forwards over those decades the second leg of the double for this amendment bill is to fold in the Electoral Enrolment Centre. In recent times the electoral enrolments processes in this country have been a joke—not that recent; actually I am referring to the 1978 election when the rolls were hugely inflated by hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who were either non-existent or who were double counted on more than one roll. In the event I suspect the amount of dual voting that took place was not huge but the reason that happened was that in the 1975-78 period the then Government decided to give the job of putting the rolls together to the then Department of Justice. To cut a long story short the department stuffed it up. Post-1978 the process was put out to tender and it was taken up by New Zealand Post or whatever its predecessor name was and since then the process has been managed by the Electoral Enrolment Centre as part of New Zealand Post. 
I make that point because it is within living memory and things can go wrong in modern democracies and sometimes they do. Whether it is the “hanging chads” of Florida or the mess that we saw a few decades ago in our country these are very expensive mistakes. I say that to the House because I hope that the next piece of legislation the second leg of the double is one that is being written with the lessons of that history in mind. 
I want to make a point about consensus and to say that we do not it appears yet have consensus in this House. In fact by one perspective we have never particularly had it—I will explore that a little—and we do not have consensus or broad consensus or mostly consensus on what I think will be the next few bills regarding electoral reform as it applies to donations spending caps parallel campaigning and all of these things. We know what we are talking about here. I do not want to talk about the issues; I want to talk about the value of consensus. I acknowledge we have never had it but in the 1980s and in the 1990s when there was near-consensus throughout those decades—and they were turbulent enough in general but as far as electoral law was concerned they were rather quiescent—the main point of contention was when the rolls should close. Should they close 28 days prior or should they close the evening prior? As Governments changed in that time so did the electoral law. 
The point of that is that the electoral law is part of our constitution. We always say that we have an unwritten constitution; in fact we have it written in several places and the rest of it is just tradition or by arrangement. It is part of our written constitution and it is not a good idea for the written constitution to change reliably upon the change of Government. If one is to address that the question is how we get somewhere close to a near consensus on it. We are some distance away in respect of donations spending caps and parallel campaigning. 
Let me put it on the record that the electoral law that existed in this House at the time of the last election is not one that I think Labour would die in a ditch over. That is to say we would be up for negotiation. I think that is the mood on this side of the House; we will see whether other speakers condone that sentiment. It is also important that the Government’s opening bid is not its last. We do need to make some sort of attempt to partially close the gap. 
Hon David Parker 
: But that’s not consensus. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: No it is not consensus. It is a movement towards some sort of agreed plank that is broad enough that all parties can find— 
Hon David Parker 
: They just want the status quo. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well the status quo is not consensus. Members will see that the thing about the status quo is that if one reflects on the status quo and says that because we do not have consensus about where we can move to we cannot move at all—if that is the line that the National Government takes and I hope it does not—then we will be changing our constitution every time we change the Government. That is a bad idea because it changes reliably. 
Paul Quinn 
: You should have thought of that last time. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Indeed indeed; I accept the member’s comment absolutely. We have our set of truths which I will not rehearse here about whether we attempted to achieve consensus. But certainly whether or not we attempted to we failed; there is no doubt about that. I think that saying that we cannot move anywhere from the status quo because we do not have the perfect position to land is not very smart. I think that we should think afresh about whether we can move closer so that if you will parties are equally unhappy about the way that the electoral law stands. Then there is more or less a balance of terror and quite possibly the electoral law would withstand endless changes of Government without having endless big changes. 
So if it is to be part of our constitution one of the things about our constitution is that it is supposed to be reasonably reliable. If we do not manage to get somewhere closer to agreement broad agreement equal unhappiness or something like that we will be in a position where we as a nation are going to change part of our constitution every time there is a change in the Government. That is just wrong. So I say to the National members opposite that I do not think we have got that aspect of our electoral law correct or anywhere near it. I am saying that for me anyway I think we would be wide open to a negotiating position that left us somewhat uncomfortable. That is the nature of a deal. I think that defending the status quo on the basis that there is no consensus on the point of destination is just wrong.