O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It gives me pleasure to draw a close to this long debate. It seems to be a matter that's been round some time.Chris Bishop: This'll be pretty terrible.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! The member Chris Bishop go back to your seat. The member will stand withdraw and apologise. He knows very well members do not walk around the Chamber interjecting.Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologise Mr Assistant Speaker.GREG O'CONNOR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.As this debate draws to a close I can't help but draw a cynical smile at the efforts of the previous speaker who of course is following along the steps of the perennially outraged Dr Smith in being outraged by the local transport system which seems to be giving her something of a pedestal so as a result should be in fact very much in favour of local bodies. When in fact it was the peak-top model introduced by the previous Government that must—Chris Bishop: What are you doing? Being a lazy member.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! Order! Chris Bishop do not bring me into the debate. When you use the personal pronoun you" you are bringing the Speaker into the debate.GREG O'CONNOR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker on the third attempt to get some common sense into this debate.I think we all as MPs have quite a bit of contact in our electorates with member-based organisations most of which have democratic processes to elect. It would be a rare organisation in our electorates that doesn't lament the apathy of the members when it comes to electoral time. And of course that apathy tends to extend to the local body elections. We've had many speakers talking here tonight on apathy that 2016 resulted in a 42 per cent turnout in local body elections the highest actually 52 percent and again in the perennially outraged Dr Nick Smith's Nelson.But I actually have another interpretation of that. What I've found as someone who was in charge of a member-based organisation is that actually apathy is not necessarily a bad thing. It means that—we've only got to see what happens when members are outraged. We've had some discussion earlier on about Wellington with the local transport. I think we'll probably find this year that there will be a somewhat higher turnout in this election in Wellington simply because of the matters that have been raised previously. So I think introducing another method—and often when we as elected members go back we're told that "Well you haven't really got a mandate because so many people turned out; it's such a small turnout." whatever place we are. Actually what it does do by ensuring we do introduce another electoral method albeit in local bodies this year—what we're actually doing is testing that method. So again we're ensuring that those who may be apathetic—may be actually quite happy with the system that they are operating in—can actually when they do complain when they come forward and say "Look we couldn't. We wanted to participate."—actually you did have another chance. You had the opportunity to take part in the postal ballot. You had the opportunity to take part in electronic voting. So actually this is another opportunity to test the I suppose apathy or test actually the willingness to participate which is a slightly different thing in the democratic process. It is a relatively minor change but what it does is again allow us to just ensure that those who will later on object those later on who'll test and challenge the democratic process—they have now another method by which they can vote. So going back to my premise I believe that actually as long as we provide the systems to vote if people choose not to take them that's not necessarily a bad thing. What is more important is they have the opportunities. I don't think this will necessarily result in a huge voter turnout but what it does do is just provide that further opportunity and if you like refuse an excuse for people not to vote. So I commend this bill to this House.Bill read a third time."