Pillay Lynne: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 Along with my colleagues on the Justice and Electoral Committee I am happy to take a call on the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill and to acknowledge and confirm the points made by Chester Borrows about the hard-working committee. This bill was no exception and a lot of work was done on it. It was given a lot of scrutiny much of it around the status of the new Electoral Commission. As a member of the committee I can say that having a commission that is one entity has always been seen as the best way forward. Indeed many people have lobbied about what a good idea it would be and I think it has always been the intention. So on this occasion I commend the Government as I think this is very sensible legislation. 
I also acknowledge the agencies that have worked so hard and have done so much work around our elections. Although I did not like the result of the last one—and indeed most New Zealanders do not now—I acknowledge the work that was done by those agencies. There was the Chief Electoral Officer we had assistance from David Henry during our consideration the Electoral Commission and also the officers of the Chief Registrar of Electors through the Electoral Enrolment Centre. It is a really good chance at this time to acknowledge all the work they do. 
Living in a democracy there are things that cause us some concern. Participation not by the agencies themselves but by third parties who tend to get involved in election campaigns is perhaps not something that we in New Zealand feel proud of—and certainly members on the other side of the House should feel really ashamed of that. But we are not here to talk about that negative stuff today; we are here to talk about the good work that those agencies have done throughout numerous elections. Save for a few glitches that happen from time to time I do not think anyone in this House would question the commitment of those agencies. 
Indeed going forward to having one electoral agency which will be in place for the next election in 2011 we will then have one commission and the duplication or the confusion that can arise when we have three agencies will certainly not be such a challenge. Certainly we on this side of the House are looking forward to the next election—very much so. We are really looking forward to it and we are looking forward to it being run in such a way—[ 
Interruption 
] There is a little bit of passion from members opposite. Bring it on! We are looking forward to that election being run in such way that we celebrate the democracy we have in New Zealand. [ 
Interruption 
] Goodness—I think I have woken up members opposite. 
As others have said most of the bill is technical; indeed most of the discussions were very technical. I acknowledge the really really excellent submissions that the committee received from individuals and also from the previous executive of the Electoral Commission. The previous Clerk of the House of Representatives David McGee played a key role in giving us really really constructive advice. We heard from Professor Andrew Geddis who is renowned for his knowledge and has always played a very constructive role in other submissions that the Justice and Electoral Committee received when it was considering electoral law. There was also the New Zealand Law Society and other individuals who put a lot of time and effort into commenting and offering constructive advice on the bill. 
One of the key issues and indeed many submitters submitted on this was about ensuring protection so that there was no politics—if I can use that term in respect of the office. That is why many of the submitters submitted that the new Electoral Commission should be an officer of Parliament. I think it would be fair to say that that is something that the committee gave the most consideration to. As I said before we had very good advice from David McGee and also David Henry—the Davids as it were—on this. One of the concerns was that the officer of Parliament role was more a scrutinising of the executive whereas the Electoral Commission’s main responsibility is more of a doing role—it is about delivering impartial and transparent elections in accordance with the law in order to maintain public confidence in our electoral processes. So the committee gave really careful consideration to that. We realised that although the request was for an officer of Parliament the advice we were given was that it was not appropriate in this instance—it was really important not to have that conflict. 
That is why some additional protection was recommended by the committee in that the appointment of the commissioners would not be by the Minister in case that Minister could be conflicted. Whether or not there was a conflict there could be a perception that there was political interference and there was certainly a complete meeting of the minds that whether or not that was happening we on the committee would not want that perception to be there. The best way of ensuring that did not happen was seen to be by having the appointment made not by the Minister but by Parliament itself. As Chester Borrows has said it would not be about consultation it would be a decision that Parliament as a whole would make. The members of the select committee felt that went a long way to put at rest any concerns that submitters had on that issue. 
There was also another protection in terms of the membership of the Electoral Commission. The bill as introduced provided that the three members were appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice as I said before. They will now be appointed by Parliament. The board’s structure for the new Electoral Commission relates to that of the existing commission before the 2008 general election. Before the election the existing Electoral Commission required its board to meet and consider its response to complaints. We think that is really important. We are looking this time for the commission to be a completely new entity. It is really important that this legislation is enacted now to enable us to get all of the checks balances and processes in place to get the commission selected by Parliament up and running and effective in time for the next election. 
In closing I congratulate the Government; I think there has been consultation on this bill. But more electoral bills will be brought before this House and I very very respectfully urge the Government to consider transparency around donations. That and other issues are very important. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.