Street Maryan: Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16488. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill as it stands simply seeks to bring into line other pieces of legislation that are affected consequentially by the passage of this bill. They are the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000 the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011 and then there are amendments to the Electoral Regulations 1996. I wonder whether I might prevail upon the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce to participate in this debate and simply explain whether at the end of the bill in Part 2 where the amendments to electoral regulations are outlined there have been any changes to this provision since the enactment of the Legislation Act of last year—in fact of 2012 but which became effective in 2013. The Electoral Regulations 1996 are I presume disallowable instruments. I would just like that confirmed because here Parliament is talking about and considering electoral regulations and amendments to them in front of the Committee rather than having regulations go through Order in Council. So I ask the Minister in the chair just to clarify that point for me as to whether these come under particular provisions that are provisions of the Legislation Act which would make these disallowable instruments and not legislative instruments. I can only assume they are legislative instruments because we are addressing them in the Committee of the whole House in Parliament.I wish that the legislation in Part 1 which we have just passed could have been amended and that it could then have enjoyed the support of all of the parties in the House. It is a shame that part of this bill has not enjoyed the full support of this House. This legislation is too important. Any legislation around the electoral provisions that we have in law in this country ought to be passed not by just a simple majority of 61 to 59 which is about as slim as one can get it should enjoy the support of the vast majority of parties in this House. If the Government had seen fit to accept some of the amendments that were put up in the last part then this piece of legislation could have enjoyed that support. As it is we will support these technical bits in Part 2. There is no point in opposing them. It would be simply not only churlish but a bit stupid to oppose them. But what this does then do is make the passage of this bill problematic. If we pass these technical bits in Part 2 as a Committee of the whole House but we cannot bring ourselves to pass as a Committee of the whole House the essential and substantive parts in Part 1 then this Electoral Amendment Bill is a farce.It should not be this way in this Committee. It should not be this way in a democracy like ours which has the benefit of being a small democracy and is therefore transparent by necessity and also by convention. It should not be that we have a piece of legislation amending our electoral laws that does not enjoy the full support of the Committee in all parts. It is not impossible for a piece of legislation to enjoy the full support of this Committee. If the bill were fair and it did not put up barriers to people participating in the voting process then it could have enjoyed the full support of this Committee. As it stands we will support clauses 57 58 and 59 through to 64 because it would be silly not to. But if only the same courtesy had been done to the Supplementary Order Papers in Part 1 then we might have had a logical and consistent piece of legislation that we could then say is the electoral law of the land as supported by all parties. As it is we will be compelled to go out to electors to the people of New Zealand and say that the Electoral Amendment Act—as it will become—did not enjoy the support of all the parties in Parliament. That should have been front and centre of the Minister’s intentions. We will support Part 2 because it is silly not to but we wish that the members opposite had been generous enough to seek multipartisan support for electoral amendments that were provoking some disquiet and concern on this side of the Chamber.So it is with reluctance that we support Part 2 but we will make it clear to the people of New Zealand that the electoral legislation that we have was not as well supported in this House as it could have been and that in fact it was only marginally supported by a majority in this House. That is not good enough. When it comes to electoral legislation the Government should have tried harder to get the consent of all parties. It was not beyond its wit to do that. I hope it finds that Part 2 is a great trophy for it. This part is the administrative rats and mice. It makes other pieces of legislation consistent. It amends them because they are affected by this one. If that is the sort of achievement that the National Government takes pride in then God help all of us because it is not good enough when it comes to electoral legislation. We will support Part 2. There are no Supplementary Order Papers on it to my knowledge. There is no need for any. In supporting Part 2 we reflect on the wish that we might have been able to support in full Part 1 of this bill.