Nash Stuart: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Nash Stuart: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
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STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 It is good to stand up in support of the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2). A lot of people do not realise that about 80 percent of bills that pass through the House have agreement between National and Labour. Labour supports good legislation. We support strong legislation and we support common-sense legislation. In fact the only sort of legislation we do not support is the sort of legislation that strips away rights from workers—and we have seen a little bit of that recently as Mr Assistant Speaker Roy is well aware. We have debated that long and hard and I think the vast majority of New Zealanders understand that National is the party for the few; Labour is the party for the many. 
We support this legislation but the other sort of legislation we do not support is the sort of legislation that gives massive tax cuts to those very few at the top. As an example we are talking about the 650 New Zealanders who earn $1 million or more. They have received a tax cut of about $1000 a week or more. People on the median wage in Napier have received less than $5. That is the sort of legislation that Labour does not support because it is not fair or equitable. It is not what everyday New Zealanders support or in fact what the vast majority of New Zealanders actually voted for. It is not the sort of legislation that Labour would support. 
Michael Woodhouse brought up an interesting fact when he started speaking about the Mana electorate. It sounded like the rhetoric we hear from the New Zealand cricket team when they talk about moral victories. National has said there was a moral victory in Mana. John Key stood up and said: “Coming second has never felt so good.” Well he will come second again in about 12 months so I hope he feels the same way then. I tell him that members on this side know there is a winner and there is a loser; there is not a moral victory. So I tell him to enjoy his moral victory because he will have a lot more moral victories. But on this side of the House all we are concerned about is real victories. Chris Fa’afoi won; Hekia Parata came runner-up—again. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: No she doesn’t “do runner-up”. 
STUART NASH 
: That is right: she does not do runner-up—but she does. I do not quite understand that but it is the sort of gobbledegook we are used to hearing from members opposite anyway. John Key was “ecstatic” at National’s coming second. Well he will be laughing a long time next year I assure him. 
I must admit that it was good to hear the contribution from the ACT Party. I think it was a retort that said something about free TV. I ask my chief whip how many votes the ACT candidate got in Mana. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Half a percent. 
STUART NASH 
: I think that was about 100 votes. I saw the Hon Rodney Hide in the Koru Club one time when I was heading back to Napier to work hard in Hawke’s Bay because we are going to take those Bay seats back. I asked him where he was headed to and was told he was going down to Mana. I thought to myself: “Why is he going down to Mana? Is there something to do with local government down there? Is there a local government conference?”. But he was going down to campaign in Mana. Why would he? ACT got 100 votes. I have to say that he is a man who was against perks. He was a perk-buster. So how much money did it cost to get Rodney Hide from Auckland down to Mana and back again?”. It was about $1000 per vote I suspect. That is not a good use of taxpayers’ money at all. 
Paddy from TV3 came up and asked: “How much taxpayers’ money did it cost to get you MPs out to Mana?”. I said: “To tell the truth it did not cost the taxpayers any money but it cost me $6 on the train.” He said: “Oh there goes my story.” I said: “Absolutely!”. No taxpayers’ money was involved because we were on the train out to Mana every day.” At 6 a.m. we were on the train. It did not cost any money because I was down here on a Thursday anyway. I just decided to go out and help out a mate in Mana because that is what we do in the Labour Party. At 6 a.m. we are normally at the gym or going for a run but that Thursday I thought I would go and help out a mate; I went and waved some signs. It cost me $6 out of my own pocket. So it was a moral victory for National but it was a real victory for Labour which is what we are concerned about. 
I come back to the bill. As mentioned we support the bill because we support good common-sense legislation—legislation that makes it easier for all New Zealanders to engage in the voting process. As my colleague the Hon Pete Hodgson mentioned before this bill is about making it easier to enrol and using online electoral enrolment. That is a good thing and I give one reason: when I was out doorknocking in Mana many people were either not enrolled or were not living at the address shown in the current electoral roll. When people are not enrolled they become disenfranchised from the system and we all know the statistics of people who have turned up on enrolment day in a general election wanting to vote but not able to vote. The people I met wanted to have their say. They had taken time out to go and vote once every 3 years—that is all but if they live in Mana it is a little bit more often—but they had been told they were not on the roll. Well that is not right apart from the fact that we know it is actually illegal not to be on the roll. Unlike Australia where it is illegal not to vote here it is illegal not to be on the roll. 
We have to make it easy for people to obey the law and to get on the roll. If there are any impediments to that then it is really the role of this Parliament to ensure that those impediments are removed or at least mitigated and to make it easy for people to engage. That is what this bill does. It provides for a more efficient way of checking that electors’ immigration status legally allows them to be on the electoral roll. Anyone who has been to a citizenship ceremony will understand the importance that new immigrants place on voting in this country. For a lot of countries that is not a right and the reason a lot of people are here is that they have been denied their fundamental democratic right to vote. But in New Zealand we think it is a very fundamental right to vote. It is probably the No. 1 right when one becomes a New Zealander—one’s right to choose the next Government. We have to make it easy for people to do that; I think that everyone would agree with that but in Mana there were many instances where that was not the case. People did not know they could not check and they did not have the ability to check. This bill will make it so much easier which we are all for. 
Another thing I would like to talk about which has already been alluded to is electoral finance reform and referenda. The Government’s initial refusal to provide spending caps on so-called parallel campaigners or third parties was actually a black mark against electoral reforms. But Mr Power saw common sense and realised there needed to be transparency so we reached a workable compromise. I thank my Labour colleagues very much who suggested to Mr Power that that would be a good suggestion. He listened and here we have what we have now. I understand that the new spending limit on third parties is about $300000. To a lot of people $300000 sounds like a lot of money but when we hark back to the 2005 election we know there was a group—I think the Exclusive Brethren—who spent a million dollars. They were not aligned to any political party—in fact they are not even allowed to vote according to their religion—but they spent a million dollars. This bill brings the limit right back to $300000. Under a citizens initiated referendum it would be down to $50000 and we think that that would be a good idea; as I said we must have transparency and accountability. 
Under the former electoral administration set-up we basically had three separate bodies. There was the Chief Electoral Officer—but let me tell members a story. I was standing beside one of the electoral blokes on election day in Mana. He got a call saying there was a “Nash Labour car” driving through the electorate. I was standing beside him and he asked where my car was. I said that I had driven it right through the electorate and it was now sitting in the parliamentary car park underneath Parliament House. We relayed that and the electoral officer said—well I cannot repeat what he said but I can tell members that he was not very happy about that at all. We have to use a bit of common sense in this situation but the blokes on the other side ignored that common-sense test well and truly. 
Under the former set-up there was also the Electoral Commission and the Chief Registrar of Electors. Now we have a new Electoral Commission and it conducts elections deals with donations informs the public about electoral matters apportions broadcasting time and funding registers parties and logos and maintains the electoral roll. 
This is good common-sense legislation. As I have said Labour supports common-sense legislation. Thank you very much.