Clendon David: Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Clendon David: Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:667;Page:14686] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Last evening I made the comment in the Chamber that some bills that come before this House are important; they are profoundly meaningful and significant. Others verge on the ridiculous. I think there would be no prizes for guessing where the Greens locate this Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill on that spectrum. 
The effect of passing this bill would mean that any person imprisoned in New Zealand would be taken off the register of electors and therefore deprived of their right to vote. The rationale appears to be that all convicted prisoners should suffer further punishment on top of the punishment of being imprisoned. The bill the discussion and even the debate such as it was offers remarkably little in the way of justification of any evidence or of arguments why these steps should be taken—why this would be a good or a desirable change to make. There has been no evidence provided that this bill would reduce crime that it would facilitate reintegration or that it would provide any service or succour to victims of crime. 
There are on the other hand very compelling reasons why we should leave the status quo or why any change that was effected ought to expand to broaden rather than reduce the opportunities for prisoners to retain the franchise. Clearly the Greens will continue to oppose this bill in its entirety. The bill will do nothing to make our society safer. If anything it will make it more dangerous by further marginalising prisoners and by making more difficult their reintegration back into society and their acceptance as part of that society after they have served their sentences. 
The balance of submissions was overwhelmingly opposed to this bill. The point has been made that the mover of the bill supported it as did one other—shall we say well-known—character; the majority of submitters were clearly offended by it. 
This bill constitutes an unjustified violation of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as was confirmed by the Attorney-General. It is contrary to article 25 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of which New Zealand is a signatory and which we have ratified. The bill is completely out of line with international law relating to blanket restrictions on the rights of prisoners. This bill if enacted would put us offside. It would violate our obligations under international law. It would lead to criticism by the United Nations and other international forums. 
The mover of the bill in his opening remarks referred to people in ivory towers critiquing the bill. Perhaps the Human Rights Commission dwells in an ivory tower though I think not. Its submission spelt out very clearly the major flaws in this bill and the constitutional violations. 
Paul Quinn 
: They’re chardonnay socialists. 
DAVID CLENDON 
: I am sure they are. The right to vote the commission said is considered fundamental to representative democracies. In Western democracies it said it is well recognised that the right to vote applies to all citizens subject only to the narrowest exceptions. The commission went on to say that the bill is inconsistent with international standards and made the very valid point that if passed it would impact disproportionately on Maori both men and women and would therefore contribute directly and indirectly to discrimination that could not be defended as reasonable. The bill is inconsistent according to the commission when we consider that the aim of the penal system is to rehabilitate offenders because the bill will do nothing to rehabilitate offenders. It is at odds with the concept of democracy. The commission’s final statement was that the bill undermines the tolerant inclusive society that New Zealand prides itself on being. 
The New Zealand Law Society perhaps also trapped in the same ivory tower was similarly scathing of the bill. It called it an unnecessary and retrograde step. The society insisted that the current law maintains the correct balance between the maintenance of a free and democratic society the right to vote for all New Zealanders and the removal of certain rights from prisoners. We have achieved that balance. Despite the mover’s assertions to the contrary it was not an arbitrary decision to settle on 3 years as being the minimum imprisonment time after which prisoners lose that vote. The decision was thoughtful; it is a measure that has been accepted and practised for a very long time and we ought not to meddle with it. 
This bill reflects a punitive irrational approach to the rights of prisoners. If enacted the bill would be counter-productive. It would alienate prisoners and recently released inmates further from society despite the major objectives of the Department of Corrections and the corrections sector which are to prepare and facilitate the reintegration back into society of those who have offended. 
A number of community law centres also made a submission—and I think that no one even stretching the longest bow could suggest that people working in community law centres lived in ivory towers. They have day-to-day contact with real people the real world and real problems. Their submission was based on their experience in working with offenders and with victims. It was highly critical of this bill and it demanded the bill’s rejection. 
We can think of the practical issues involved. The Electoral Enrolment Centre put in a submission but quite appropriately took some care to take no political position and to make no political statements. It noted that even the current system of deregistering prisoners is labour-intensive and time-consuming and often fails to the extent that the necessary documentation is not completed. The report back from the Government majority on the select committee noted the issue. It said that the committee had considered some changes to the process of deregistration and had decided essentially that that was too hard a project. They put it in the too-hard basket and that decision was made under the current situation where only a relatively small number of prisoners are deregistered or reregistered. 
There is a pious hope expressed by Government members that the Electoral Enrolment Centre will work with the Department of Corrections to develop a procedure to encourage prisoners to re-enrol upon release from prison and members expect the introduction of a re-enrolment procedure in due course. But that is undoubtedly a kick for touch—it is too hard and the department has chosen not to go there for obvious reasons. About 9000 people are released from New Zealand prisons every year. We can imagine the logistics of processing that number of prisoners every year in order to remove them from the roll and to put them back on the roll. Many of those people go into prison with drug and alcohol dependency and with literacy problems. Significant numbers of them find it difficult to get accommodation when they come out of prison. The reality of getting those 9000 people a year back on to the electoral roll would frankly not happen. We would build up an ever-increasing pool of people who were permanently disenfranchised permanently removed from the business of voting and one step further away from integration into a fair and a safe society. 
This House needs to have real debates about real issues in relation to the Department of Corrections imprisonment and a fair society. The department’s budget as noted by our own Minister of Finance recently is fast becoming the largest single department in terms of expenditure. The current year’s budget sits at $1.16 billion of which about $750 million—some 65 percent—of that vote of over a billion dollars is spent on prison-based custodial services. We spend a massive amount of money to lock people away. 
By comparison we spend less than 12 percent of that budget on reintegration and rehabilitation services. Some $138 million is all we can find to reintegrate prisoners and rehabilitate people who have offended. It seems we would prefer to spend huge amounts of money on concrete steel and prison guards than relatively small amounts of money on endeavouring to ensure that we do not have that inexorably growing rate of recidivism and the appalling blot on our social profile from that high and ongoing rate of imprisonment and society. 
We can do better than that and we need to do better than that. This House needs to turn its mind to the real issues about the corrections system crime and punishment and meeting the needs of society. This bill does nothing towards that end. It is a waste of this House’s time and the Greens would like to see it sent away and given the send-off it deserves. Kia ora.