Dean Jacqui: Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4734. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I want to firstly congratulate Iain Lees-Galloway on bringing this bill to the House. It is always—Chris Bishop: Don’t do that. He doesn’t deserve any congratulations.JACQUI DEAN: Of course he does. Every member deserves congratulations on bringing a member’s bill to the House. It is a great privilege for a member of Parliament to have the ability to bring a member’s bill to the House and with that privilege comes a high degree of responsibility. And therein lies one of the issues I have with this member’s bill. It is to do with the fact that it is completely out of date and that concerns me. For a member who comes to the House and wishes to implement quite sweeping changes to the Electoral Act across a number of fronts he brings a faulty bill to the New Zealand Parliament. I find it extraordinary that a member would do that and it rather undermines any argument that that member might advance towards his bill.So if we go back in history a little in respect of the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill—the member himself wished to go back in history so let us do our own little bit of history—we recall that this is a bill that was first brought to the House by the Hon Maryan Street—Iain Lees-Galloway: No Lianne Dalziel.JACQUI DEAN: I beg your pardon. It was Lianne Dalziel back in 2012; that is right. So back in 2012 the bill sat in the ballot as do a number of bills and it was not drawn by the time of the 2014 election—oh well—Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes it was.JACQUI DEAN: Well it was not drawn by the time the Hon Lianne Dalziel left the House. I am thanking the member for helping me with the history because here we get to the nub of the argument. This is the member’s history of course which is why I am seeking his help with it and I am grateful for it. But if the member cares so much about the history around this bill then maybe he might have thought to update the objectives of the bill which I would have thought were pretty pertinent to the debate at hand. So I would invite that member to approach the Table and pick up a copy of what is now his bill. He did pick it up on behalf of the Hon Lianne Dalziel who left Parliament and promoted it as his own bill and he has argued very passionately in this House this afternoon towards the objectives of the bill.Unfortunately the objectives are out of date.Iain Lees-Galloway: Hope to get to the substance.JACQUI DEAN: Well you see now the member is trying to defend himself by saying that this is not the substance of the bill.Iain Lees-Galloway: But you haven’t actually told me what I’ve done wrong yet Jacqui.JACQUI DEAN: Well let me help the member and I will read from page 1 of the bill “Objectives”. These are Iain Lees-Galloway’s words: “This Bill proposes to implement the main recommendations of the Electoral Commission review of MMP in time for the 2014 election.” This bill is out of date—this bill is out of date. This member did not take the opportunity to update the wording in his own bill.Iain Lees-Galloway: Ha ha! Own goal—beautiful own goal Jacqui. Well done. Is this the best you can do?JACQUI DEAN: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The first point—[Interruption] No the first point of order was from Jacqui Dean. I will hear Jacqui Dean.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Rare and reasonable interjections are fine but I think a barrage of shouting is a little unreasonable.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am the judge of that. I hear what the honourable member is saying. I did indicate to the member who was interjecting Iain Lees-Galloway that it was unacceptable and I know he will not do it again because I am not in the frame.JACQUI DEAN: Thank so much Mr Assistant Speaker. I do find it distressing that even now the member has not caught on if you like to the fact that he did not take the opportunity when he assumed ownership of this bill to update the bill and felt that it was acceptable to bring a bill to the House in this state.I will just turn perhaps to page 2. Right at the very bottom—the member may care to do that; he clearly has not looked at this bill since he assumed it. Maybe he might have taken the time before bringing the bill to the House to have a look at the final sentence on page 2: “That is why in order to keep faith with the integrity of the referendum these changes must be implemented in time for the 2014 general election.” Is this lazy work on behalf of this member? It is indeed very lazy work on behalf of this member who could not even read the bill—his own bill. It is pretty symptomatic of that party I would contend. He is too lazy to read his own bill before he resubmitted it in the ballot and now we have an objective in the bill that is out of date.However—Iain Lees-Galloway: You’re a star!JACQUI DEAN: I think he has been hurt a bit because he is getting a bit personal. I think that may have cut a little bit deep. However—Iain Lees-Galloway: No I feel bad for you Jacqui because you are making such a fool of yourself.JACQUI DEAN: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Similar to my first point of order rare and reasonable interjections are fine I know but a barrage of noise—perhaps not.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I hear what the member is saying and I will just ask that from now on we actually concentrate on thesubstance—[Interruption] I am on my feet; well I am standing—of what is in a first reading and that there be some material now related with 4 minutes to go to what is actually in the bill. Thank you.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. So it is no surprise I would imagine that National does not support this bill. National opposes this bill. It is shoddy it is lazy and it takes no account of the proper processes that underpin the electoral process in New Zealand. New Zealand is so fortunate that our electoral system has a very high level of integrity. I would have thought that any member bringing a bill to this House around the electoral system would have presented a bill that at least was not so laughably out of date.Prior to the last election new electoral laws were passed—which is why it is so embarrassing that this member has brought this bill to the House now—to provide better services to voters candidates and political parties. A number of changes were made to enable people to enrol and update their details fully online which is very beneficial particularly for people residing overseas. The law was changed to make loans to parties subject to disclosure rules for greater transparency in our electoral law and to allow parties to lodge bulk candidate nomination and party list documents by email. Good process underlined and underpinned those changes. Good process is integral to good electoral law not I would imagine out-of-date lazy members’ bills. It is important to continuously improve our law and processes in light of changing—Iain Lees-Galloway: It was drawn on 14 November 2013. Didn’t you bother to read that?JACQUI DEAN: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am attempting to make a contribution to this debate but there is a barrage of noise coming across.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No look this is a debating chamber—[Interruption] I do not want any comments when I am ruling. This is a debating chamber. I am the judge of whether I feel that the barracking is unacceptable and in that case I did not accept that it was. So with 2 minutes remaining I will ask the member to continue.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I invite the member who is obviously so passionate about this issue that he presented a bill to the House that is horrendously out of date to make a submission to the inquiry into the 2014 general election. Although the member may feel that a way to influence electoral law is to do it by way of a member’s bill I believe that a more substantive and responsible way is to in fact make a submission to the inquiry into the general election. In fact I invite the member to do that. In fact I will go further than that. I challenge the member to do that because he raises some substantive issues that of course have been raised in the review already. We have kept in the Justice and Electoral Committee the terms of reference deliberately wide and open so that all views can be heard. Instead of cherry-picking a few recommendations or a couple of issues that were originally from a previous member of this House—nothing wrong with that—it would be better in my view when we are looking at electoral law to look at it as a whole. That is a process with far more integrity than just looking at one narrow part of electoral law.So in closing National will not be supporting this out-of-date narrowly focused bill that has been picked up by Iain Lees-Galloway but I invite—and indeed challenge—him to make a submission in the proper place which is to the Justice and Electoral Committee’s review of the 2014 general election. Thank you.