SpeechHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well Darroch Ball who's just resumed his seat has endeavoured to suggest that the National Party is opposed to all measures in this bill. That isn't the case but of course we have to oppose it because there are important aspects of this bill that are objectionable and we have no option but to oppose the bill in its entirety while those objectionable provisions are there.I want to make the point to the member that one of the practical outcomes of the enactment of this legislation if indeed it is enacted is that it will push out by about 10 days the period which will be available even for the commencement of coalition negotiations. Now I know that New Zealand First has a proud track record of delaying the formation of a Government as long as possible but the voters don't like that and it's worth noting that during that period of uncertainty business confidence and markets tend to get spooked. They don't like the uncertainty that comes with not knowing what the shape of a future Government is going to be. So there are some practical implications of delaying that. That's just a point I'd make to him.I think far more important is the fact that we're halfway through this debate and not a single member of the Government has yet acknowledged the very important objection that the Opposition is putting forward and that is that we have had in the main a very proud history in this country of a bipartisan approach to changes to our electoral laws for reasons that will be patently obvious to anybody listening to the debate and that is that no party should be able to screw the scrum by changing electoral laws to suit its own objectives. Of course as has already been mentioned in this debate the Labour Party attempted to do that quite spectacularly in 2007 with their far from lamented Electoral Finance Act. I would actually argue that the Electoral Finance Act was one of the most significant final nails in the coffin of Helen Clark's Government and I've had former Labour members of Parliament confirm that to me—that they hated the Act with a passion when they realised just how bad it was. But they'd supported it and ironically exactly the same parties—three parties—in this Parliament that are passing this particular bill were the ones who were responsible for that travesty: Labour New Zealand First and the Greens.But even more importantly going back several decades in this country we have had the approach taken by in the main National Governments of reaching out to Oppositions led by Labour to show goodwill and a desire to get electoral law that everybody can agree with and see as being fair. It happened under the Bolger-Shipley Government. It happened under the John Key - Bill English Government. It even went back all the way to 1956 when the first National Government consulted with Labour on a set of changes that everyone could live with to end a period when things like the length of the Parliament had been mucked around with by the Government of the day. And yet Labour is reverting back to type.We only found out about some of the sneaky changes in this particular bill when questions were asked at the Estimates hearing a few weeks ago and it became apparent that they were going about this in a sneaky way with poor process. And of course we've had the Minister today complaining that the committee had failed to do its work and that that is why he needed to take the steps of introducing this measure. Well that is absolutely nonsense because it was he who wrote to the committee last December wanting the terms of reference extended and it was Labour members who wanted local electoral law included. So the fact that the committee has taken longer to get on with its job must be laid fairly at the door of the Minister and his parliamentary colleagues in the Labour Party and the other parties.It is unbelievable that we are here tonight debating another unjustifiable and unprincipled electoral bill immediately after the outrageous referenda frameworks bill which preceded it—and I say referenda" deliberately because as my colleague the member for Helensville—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: There's no such word.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Of course there's a word. Referenda? My goodness I cannot believe that the Minister of Immigration says there is no such word as "referenda". I invite him to go back to school and discover that that is the plural of the word "referendum" and that is probably why that bill was misnamed from the outset—the title is incorrect and so are all of its provisions. But the point I wanted to make was that we had that extraordinary moment in the House during the previous debates when the Hon Tracey Martin a Cabinet Minister in this Government gave us the observation that Parliament cannot be trusted.So New Zealand First which has not a single electorate member in this Parliament which chose two years ago not to coalesce with the largest party in the Parliament following the 2017 general election—the party which probably had the strongest mandate to be in that position and of course they were thumbing their noses at the wishes of tens of thousands of New Zealanders in doing that but that was their right to do that—and which on recent opinion polls has been languishing on about 3 percent so stands very little chance of being back here—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Feel free to speak to the bill.Hon TIM MACINDOE: I am speaking to the bill Madam Speaker. Yes a Minister in that party was telling us that Parliament cannot be trusted and that I suggest is absolutely—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Feel free to speak to the bill.Hon TIM MACINDOE: —fundamental to the bill. So this Government is advancing another obnoxious measure this Electoral Amendment Bill ignoring constitutional convention ignoring parliamentary precedent and abusing our treasured democracy.There are three obvious main purposes for this bill but you won't find them in the explanatory note of the bill which I'm holding up at the moment because the first obvious purpose of this bill is to ignore the detailed inquiry conducted by Parliament's Justice Committee because this Government clearly thinks that the committee is unlikely to recommend some of the more egregious provisions of the bill. The second is clearly to bypass longstanding conventions around electoral law which are vital to upholding and preserving our parliamentary democracy. And the third obvious purpose of this bill is to boost the chances of Labour and Green MPs being re-elected by screwing the scrum to suit their own purposes while adding considerable difficulty to the work of the Electoral Commission and delaying the declaration of results as I mentioned at the outset and the commencement of expected coalition talks. Well if time permits I'll return to some of those matters.I do want to stress that there are some measures of this bill that we could on this side of the House support. Of course we want as many eligible people in New Zealand to enrol and to vote and to participate in our democracy. Minister Little's silly claim to the contrary earlier was absolutely laughable. That's why expanding the range of places in New Zealand where we can cast our votes is reasonable; we're happy to support that. It's hoped that that would increase voter participation. We expect that the Electoral Commission will be able to identify secure and appropriate premises such as supermarkets—as long as they're away from the area where alcohol is sold—conference centres community centres sports clubs and so on. I don't think that many people would disagree with that. There are some measures that could be taken to improve the electronic technology that is now available to us and the way that it is used in future elections. There probably are better ways of dealing with electoral irregularities than current procedures provide for but I don't want to pre-empt the possible recommendation of the Justice Committee in our yet to be completed and reported inquiry into the 2017 election.Therein lies one of the great failings of this bill. It renders almost pointless the work that the Justice Committee has been doing in its inquiry into the 2017 general election by rushing measures of this nature through that haven't been fully scrutinised by that committee or recommended to the House by the committee in their report. Not only is the Justice Committee being ignored; so too is the Opposition despite the time-honoured and vital convention as I mentioned earlier that Governments consult Opposition parties on all such matters before proposing changes to electoral laws—for reasons that I'm sure are obvious to people listening to this debate at home even if they are understood and not considered significant by Government members. Well I say shame on them for that. Shame on those Government members. A Government that rams through controversial changes to electoral laws to suit themselves as those same three parties did with the Electoral Finance Act 2007 cannot be trusted to govern. And as I said I believe that when they made that mistake in 2007 it was a big factor in their defeat the following year.It isn't difficult to enrol in New Zealand; doing so in good time is made very easy by the Electoral Commission and I would suggest is a responsibility of all New Zealanders who take seriously our democratic freedoms which we should all treasure. I accept that it's their right not to be interested in the election but I do not accept it as their right to frustrate the will of the people and delay our democracy."