Quinn Paul: Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Quinn Paul: Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10350] 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 The Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill is quite a simple bill. All it sets out to do is to remove the vote from anyone who is imprisoned on the day of an election. I am quite happy for the bill to go through the select committee process to work out any procedural issues. If the Opposition is hung up on the fact that it removes people from the electoral roll then let us just leave them on the roll and say that if they are in prison they do not get on a bus to go and vote. [ 
Interruption 
] I know that the bill does not say that but that is what the current Act says. All I have done is extend that provision. The simple fact is that the select committee is charged with finding the most appropriate mechanism to achieve the aims of the bill. 
Labour has accused members on this side of the House of practising dog-whistle politics. Talk about rhetoric! Those members have talked about anger. Most of the anger and most of the rhetoric has come from them. In fact probably the best contribution to this debate the most civilised and the most thoughtful I thought was an outstanding contribution from my colleague Simon Bridges. There is a man who has been at the coalface of crime. I think that his contribution to this debate was very worthwhile of being listened to. 
It was suggested by Lianne Dalziel and again by David Clendon in the contribution from the Green Party that this was against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The fact of the matter is that section 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act allows in exceptional circumstances section 12 of that Act to be overridden. This debate is all about whether there are exceptional circumstances and if so what they are. Already both the royal commission and the Solicitor-General in his opinion of 4 or 5 years ago confirm that at some point in time there is an exceptional circumstance. What this debate is about is where the line in the sand is around exceptional circumstances. That is all the debate is. I suggest that if Lianne Dalziel had read the royal commission report more fully she would know that the only reason the provision for 3 years is there is that the commission thought there should be some exceptional circumstances. We have said that people who go overseas for more than 3 years lose their right to vote. The commission thought that sounded OK so it applied the same ruling to prisoners. If she had read the report she would understand that that was the basis for the provision of 3 years. 
No other reason was given in the royal commission’s report. Someone who makes the choice—his or her own choice—to go overseas for 3 years or more loses the right to vote and therefore prisoners should be treated on that same basis. Yet we are talking about people who have transgressed against society. They have abused the rights that the community values and that the people who fought in the wars commemorated by the memorials in this Chamber fought to defend. But no Opposition members want to stand aside and not have that conversation. Well I say that it is an appropriate time for this conversation to occur because we are faced with and challenged by the fact that the community can go only so far in being able to defend people’s rights. I believe that the community has the right to decide when it will no longer provide the protection that it offers when it protects people’s right to vote. 
That is what this conversation is about. I hope that this bill is referred to a select committee so that we can have an informed debate rather than the rhetoric and anger that came from the Opposition. Thank you.