Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a proud moment standing here in our House of Representatives tonight. New Zealand is a proud nation of universal suffrage. We stand for human rights we stand for democracy and we stand for equality—and tonight this House makes headway toward that. We stand here reversing a change to our law that was passed in the dead of night under urgency with no process at all by a member's bill by a bare majority taking away fundamental rights. We've been told that by the New Zealand High Court by our Court of Appeal by our Supreme Court—who almost never intervenes with the affairs of this House—by the Waitangi Tribunal by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission the guardians of our human rights.We in this House in the past Government breached fundamental rights. We degraded New Zealand's justice system. That's not what we're here for. That is why we're restoring the right to vote. It's not I might remind that side of the House extra rights. There's no such thing as extra rights. We all have rights; they are universal they are indivisible. That means you can't have a democracy when some people don't have the right to vote. We don't have human rights because we are good but because we are human and starting down the slippery road to taking away basic human rights based on arbitrary moral judgments by individual Governments is degrading to all New Zealanders.Our system of justice is there to protect our communities. There is no punishment allowable in our system of justice that takes away basic human rights without a valid criminal justice purpose without the purpose of protecting communities rehabilitating prisoners and reintegrating them successfully back into the community and taking away the right to vote has none of those purposes. We've been told that by every juris by every expert by the community. We have no right in this House to do what breaches fundamental human rights without a valid purpose.So tonight is a night of celebration for New Zealand because we do stand for democracy and we do need to talk about victims. So let's protect victims. Let's really protect victims. Let's do what will rehabilitate prisoners; let's do what will help them to reintegrate more successfully into our community. I've been in those parole hearings and they always require the prisoner applying for parole to prove they remain connected with the community.Now why would we have law that disconnects prisoners from their community that disenfranchises them that tells them that they are less than human in this society and then ask them to show that they're connected with their community? The evidence shows that that is the only way that they will remain safe once they re-join our community the only way that they will successfully get a job and successfully live in that community without resorting to crime. Why would we do something that undermines that in this House? For vengeance? We have no right to do that. We have no right as the representatives of that nation to take away basic human rights. It actually undermines the safety of our communities. Just to make ourselves look tough on crime? That doesn't protect victims.So let's talk about victims. What about investing in mental healthcare for victims? In hospitals in homes in jobs—why not invest in victims? They didn't do it.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes we did. You took it away.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: They did not do it. They did not do it and they did what would make them look good. It's callous. We won't be doing that.Marama Davidson: It's dangerous.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: It's dangerous; that's right. And let's talk about who we are disenfranchising when we take away the right to vote from prisoners. Let's talk about the fact that on this side of the House we look at the evidence we look at what we know is the truth: that Māori are disproportionately targeted by our system of justice that other communities of colour fare far worse in our system of justice that poor people fare far worse in our system of justice for doing what anybody else has done. That we have a higher rate of Māori being spoken to by police when spoken to by police of being charged when charged of being convicted and when convicted of being sentenced to imprisonment than other people and—let's not mince words—than Pākehā. So that's who we're disenfranchising. That's why the Waitangi Tribunal stood up against this law. It is a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi; it is a breach of our work toward equality and decolonisation in this House.So when we talk about a Treaty when we talk about shared sovereignty when we talk about land and resource and language that was never ceded and then we talk about who we imprison in a colonial system and then on top of that we take away the right to vote it is abhorrent and it doesn't help victims. It has always been Green Party kaupapa to stand for democracy and for fairness.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is that why you stood up for genocide?GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: So we celebrate tonight. We celebrate tonight because we know that in our system of justice where everyone has a right to a defence—we've just heard from the Hon Nick Smith by the way that he opposes the right to defence in a justice system because he equates defence counsel with those who stand for a crime. That is the danger; that is the slippery slope—he's just demonstrated it. When they talk about taking away the right to vote they also mean the next step is the right to a defence. They want to take away our justice system and our human rights altogether; isn't that right Mr Smith? Isn't that abhorrent? Isn't that backward? That's not what New Zealand's about; we're a modern democracy and almost no modern democracy abolishes the right to vote in their justice system. No modern democracy has members of Parliament opposing defence counsel acting legitimately in a trial. Can you imagine? I can't imagine.On this side of the House we're focused on fixing our system on fixing our society and our communities so that crime actually goes down so that victims are taken care of. We are not concerned with making ourselves look tough on crime at the expense of New Zealanders and our fundamental human rights. So tonight we celebrate because it is Green kaupapa that's come to the House as part of my member's bill on strengthening democracy that's just been adopted in the House and we're not going to stop there. We will continue to strengthen our democracy because come September when that side of the House has shrunk to just a few seats we won't have to debate whether defence rights are even a thing. We won't have to debate whether universal suffrage is a good thing or not because we live in the 21st century and we stand for human rights we stand for inclusion and equality. Thank you Madam Speaker.