Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Oh thank you very much Madam Speaker—delighted to take a call on the Election Access Fund Bill. This is a significant piece of legislation. I know that we have many pieces of legislation pass through the House and on a members' day I look at the Order Paper and we're probably going to talk about half a dozen bills today but I do personally believe this one is incredibly significant. This is a piece of legislation that people will talk about 10 20 30 years on from now because what this piece of legislation is doing is opening a door. Yes it's only opening the door slightly but that door though will get wider and wider as time goes on.As we know this bill seeks to establish a fund administered by the Electoral Commission that would facilitate the participation of disabled persons in political life aiming to ensure that everyone has equal ability to be involved in politics. Now we have heard from some previous speakers around equal opportunity to be involved. In New Zealand we generally have an inclusive society but we're not there yet—we're not there yet. We've still got challenges around transport at times various access and as this bill highlights we do have some barriers around integration into political life.As the previous speaker Maggie Barry noted local government is often a pathway into central government. School boards and DHBs are often pathways into central government. Now this bill only deals with central government and so I am also hopeful that at some point in the future there may be an opportunity for this bill to be extended out to other areas but it's certainly a good start and as I said the door has been opened around access. I look forward to that door opening wider and wider as time goes on.There's another point I'd like to highlight here which is the aspect around how a disabled person can receive money and support before being selected as a candidate. This is a very important point and we spoke about this in the Governance and Administration Committee at some length. Before I get on to that point I will just acknowledge the select committee the chair Jian Yang and I think it was Brett Hudson before that—this bill covered two chairs. Actually we had Chlöe Swarbrick in—at one point it felt like you were there every week Chlöe coming in—Chlöe Swarbrick: I was.JAMIE STRANGE: Yeah you were. But that just shows Chlöe's diligence to get this bill through the select committee to iron out any challenges to work through the processes. Chlöe worked very closely with officials because obviously the officials were there with Chlöe every time and I would like to acknowledge the officials. They certainly did a lot of work on this bill. They had a good look at some overseas jurisdictions as well particularly the UK and that gave some guidance around how to frame the bill but also around the potential cost of the bill there. I think it's fair to say the bill will be towards the lower end of cost.But just to segue into the point there that people can receive the money and support before being selected as a candidate. This is very important. It's important that we don't gloss over this because I will say all political parties have a very robust process around becoming a candidate and many times that process is contested. So let's say for example a seat is open for nominations and at times it'd just be that one person is nominated but more often than not that seat will have two three four five people nominated. Before the person receives the endorsement to become a candidate or the vote to become a candidate there is a lot of work to be done. Many times there are months of work to be done.When I talk about that work—and I say that members in the House will obviously know this because we've all been through this but for the benefit of members of the public to understand—often there are months' worth of work before a vote is made on who the candidate might be for that seat. That work involves attending meetings. It involves visiting people. It involves various forms of verbal and written communication often over quite an extended period of time. So I'm very pleased that this bill provides support for disabled people who would like to be a candidate before the date of the selection because that's certainly very important and that process is extensive and exacting at times.Now that's for an electorate. In terms of the list in a way it's similar because as people know a party list is ranked and to achieve a winnable list position on your party list there is quite a bit of work that has to be done and in a way a similar sort of work. Effectively it's a form of lobbying at times: lobbying members proving areas where you add value to the party and that takes resource that takes time and that takes effort. So just to highlight that point there because I think it's a very important point from this bill here.I'd like to acknowledge Mojo Mathers. Unfortunately our time didn't cross in Parliament; I came in as she was leaving Parliament but in a way she prepared this bill like John the Baptist for Chlöe Swarbrick to come and take it over if I could use that. I'm not sure Mojo's ever been called John the Baptist but there we go. In a way she prepared the way she did the groundwork and Chlöe has certainly come on board to complete that piece of work in terms of as I say opening that door a bit and hopefully that door will open more and more.I'd just like to move to some of the submissions that we had on the bill and obviously I was a member of the Governance and Administration Committee. Our committee received 84 unique submissions on the bill with many submitters providing supplementary information at the oral hearings. In addition we received 385 form submissions using a form provided by the Access Alliance. Now that's quite a significant amount of submissions and if I could put that into context that is certainly more submissions than most bills generally receive and I think that's sort of a fair point in terms of my experience here. So it shows the interest in this bill not just from the disabled community but from the wider community as a whole. I'd like to highlight one of those submissions which was from the Disabled Persons Assembly—Christchurch & Districts and this is what they said. They said Currently there are too many barriers to participation in elections. This makes it particularly difficult for disabled people to make informed decisions standing for all elections lobbying political parties or [getting] their issues onto the political agenda." They specifically used an example of someone who is Deaf or hearing-impaired and they said "A Deaf or hearing impaired candidate standing for election currently has to find funding for their own access needs (such as … interpreters or note-takers) in order to participate in a candidate forum." There was a key point that stood out to me. In the final line of their submission they said "It should be noted that there are far too few positive role models in the Deaf and hearing impaired community who hold public office within New Zealand." and I believe this bill is primarily about leadership. It's about enabling people within the disabled community to have the opportunity to provide leadership. Now each one of us in this House—there's 120 of us—we're all leaders. We're all providing leadership for our local area and also within our party and within our general constituencies. It's absolutely vital that we have leadership from the disabled community and that we have role models from the disabled community and this bill certainly helps to encourage that which is important. I'd like to touch on the points we heard from the Hon Tracey Martin who noted that it's important that political parties support a diverse range of candidates. I think that generally political parties do this OK but we've all got areas where we can improve and that's the challenge for each of us—so each of us sitting in the House here today and all of those who are leaders in various forms within political parties and right across New Zealand. It's important that we all have a look at ourselves and see how we encourage more diversity of candidates—how do we practically support candidates with disabilities for example? In the last sort of 30 seconds I'd just like to highlight that the administration of the funds will be through the Electoral Commission. So the Electoral Commission will basically decide how the funds will be distributed. We had many discussions in the committee talking about "Well is it money first or do you pay and get the receipts reimbursed?" and we probably went down a rabbit warren that we didn't need to. So we'll leave that to the electrical or the Electoral Commission—not the "Electrical Commission"—and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you."