Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10339] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I rise to advise the House that the Labour Opposition will be opposing the Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill. I do not think any mock outrage on the other side of the House will cut any mustard on this side of the House. We know why this bill is being introduced: it is called dog-whistle politics. There is nothing worse in this House than to see matters of substance raised in a debate such as this. I take the strongest possible exception to using an amendment to electoral law to argue this dog-whistle position to attack people who are in prison at a particular time. 
This matter has a very very strong history to it. It was the subject of consideration in 1986 by the Royal Commission on the Electoral System. During the royal commission’s consideration of our electoral system it raised the issue that no prisoner could vote when that prisoner was in jail on election day. That is how the law applied at that particular time. That was the concern that the royal commission addressed and it was ahead of its time. The royal commission was several years ahead of the passage of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is what led to the Crown Law Office writing the opinion that the member seems to think Chris Finlayson wrote all by himself but that is by the by. The point I make is that the royal commission which considered this issue in depth—and did not have the benefit of New Zealand being subject to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—decided that it was not correct to say to people that they do not have the right to vote if they are in prison on election day. 
The question was raised in 1993 when changes to the Electoral Act were being proposed. In fact the Solicitor-General at that time John McGrath advised the Government that denying all prisoners the right to vote was a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act by that stage. So the Government of the day—a National Government—under a very good Minister of Justice Doug Graham considered the whole question in the light of our obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It was said that imposing a limitation across the board on those rights could not be justified. The limit was arbitrary. 
Paul Quinn 
: So why did it give 3 years? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member should read the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It says that a limit cannot be arbitrary. In this case the reason that it was arbitrary was because it did not take into account the seriousness of the offence. A person convicted of a minor offence simply because of timing lost the right to vote for 3 years whereas someone convicted of a more serious offence might not have lost the right to vote at all. That was the unfairness of the situation. 
I will talk about the right to vote. People talk about the right to vote. May I recast that a different way? I ask this House to think about the duty to vote not the right to vote. Let us recast it as a duty. We have an obligation under our law to be enrolled to vote. Paul Quinn says with this bill that prisoners should not be allowed to go on the roll yet we require by law everyone else to be on the roll. So we would say to people who have committed an offence and who happen to be in jail during the period of time when there is an election that they cannot be on the electoral roll and yet we require by law everyone else to be on the roll. 
Paul Quinn 
: The current law says that. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The current law says that because it was changed in 1993. The way the current law was changed was to ensure that there could be a distinction made between those who were convicted of more serious offences. The position was adopted of choosing the time frame of more than 3 years which was a parliamentary term and which actually solved the problem—drawing those people into the group of people who lose the right to vote because they go overseas for more than 3 years and have not been back within that 3-year period. So actually the whole thing makes logical sense. The only way that Paul Quinn can argue what he is arguing is if he does not accept that there is somehow a moral duty to vote. I do not think any person should stand or sit in this Parliament who does not believe that it is a duty to vote as opposed to merely a right. I think a duty is far stronger than a right. 
The member Paul Quinn is saying that we should take prisoners off the electoral roll which means that if they are in jail at the point that they are seeking to re-enrol they will come off the electoral roll. I say that getting marginalised people in our society on to the electoral roll is one of the hardest things that we have to confront when we try to sign up people during the election campaign. Every member of this House will know how much resource we put into the Electoral Commission to make sure that people are on the roll in the lead-up to both the local-body elections which take place this year and the general election which takes place next year. I think that people should think very carefully about what this bill really means. It is not about punishing people; it is actually about minimising the duty that goes with electing our members of Parliament and also electing our mayors city councillors community board members and regional council—if we still had one in Christchurch. 
I think that the fundamental issue is that the member Paul Quinn is using this as a dog whistle to those who want to see the Government as having a tough stance on our prison population and who are saying let us get tough on prisoners. My view of that is that this idea is completely out of date and out of time because it was considered in 1986 and it was implemented in an appropriate way by a National Government in 1993. The point I make is that the situation has become even stronger. The explanatory note with this bill says that the Royal Commission on the Electoral System failed to consider prior convictions before a custodial sentence was imposed. By the time one gets to a custodial sentence there are more serious offences that have been committed in the past. That was before the days of home detention which in my view makes an even stronger case for the royal commission’s position. This bill states that if an individual gets home detention they are allowed to vote but if they are in prison they are not allowed to vote. 
Simon Bridges 
: Well there’s a less serious offence. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Oh now the member has just given me the answer to that question! I tell that member that there were two young men convicted in Christchurch last year of exactly the same offence. One lived in Fendalton with a very supportive family. One lived in Aranui with a very unsupportive family. What happened? The one from Fendalton got home detention and the one from Aranui went to jail. So why should one be taken off the electoral roll and told that he cannot be on the electoral roll when the other one from Fendalton is allowed to stay on the electoral roll? 
I think that the Government has got this completely and utterly wrong. They need to work out that the underlying issue is much more important than this dog-whistle political bill. This bill will undermine what I believe every person in this country should accept: it is a duty to vote. It is not a right to vote; it is a duty to vote. It is a duty to be involved in our political system whether it is local government or central government. All that this bill is doing is telling people who have been convicted for 3 years and who have to spend their time in jail as opposed to home detention that the Government wants to differentiate between those two. I say shame on the members opposite. It is an absolute shame that this bill is allowed to come before this House and bring this House into disrepute by not seeing this as the important issue that we are entitled to see it as. It is a duty to vote and I believe that this bill undermines that very duty.