Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. It's been an interesting event the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill this afternoon in its first reading. We've heard a range of opinions across the House but I think what we are seeing here is a pattern of behaviour. The issue here that the Labour is trying to fix or the problem it's trying to find is the option for switching in and out of the Māori roll and on to the general roll or from the general roll on to the Māori roll. That can happen at any time in the electoral cycle and it has no restrictions on the number of times that voters—electors—can choose to switch on those rolls. It seems to me that there's a recipe for disaster—what a mess it's going to be.The other issue that raised its head was the cost of this and I expect that the select committee will turn its mind to it. How many people is the Electoral Commission going to have to employ to manage the constant switching in and out of the rolls especially as it gets closer to a by-election or to the general election? I can see it turning into an absolute disaster especially when it goes right up to election day. So there is plenty of room for mistakes to be made there.The rationale behind the current system is based around the census. The reason that's important is because the census sets the population positions across the country and then those locations are used to define boundaries and they're also used for the representation reviews for local government. So local government needs to know exactly where people are within plus or minus 10 percent so that they can set the representation in their wards. Those wards have very fluid boundaries so having confidence in those electoral rolls and the location of people is really critical to being able to do that.The problem I believe is not the rolls; it's actually the voter turnout. I would suggest that the Government would do better to use some of its hundreds of comms staff that it's got employed across the public sector to run a campaign and educate people about when the census is happening so as to get themselves on the roll that they feel they want to be on but also to get out there and vote. The get out and vote campaign as we all know runs prior to the general elections and if there is a problem with people exercising their votes then let's engage the comms teams to do that.But what amazes me is how much time this Government has devoted to tweaking voters' behaviour or electoral rules across this country in the time that they've been in Government. We've seen Māori wards; we've seen Environment Canterbury and just yesterday we were debating that; we've seen the Rotorua bill—well that turned into a mess and that's somewhere in abeyance—and now we've got this new electoral roll. It's like the Labour Government doesn't have faith in its support base enough that it can just leave the electoral regime alone—this pillar of our democracy in this country. We've got to have faith and confidence in our democratic system and the voting system is an absolute no-go zone in my book—you do not play with the electoral system.Now the other thing that amazes me is how much time this Government devotes to it. Wouldn't you think that they would do better to focus their legislative programme on things that are actually going to make a difference to people in this country and will drive the productivity of the country up? Things that lift children out of poverty perhaps or things that get children out of hotels into homes—there's a novel idea—or maybe build homes. Or here's another idea: things that deliver on KiwiBuild. That would be great—that would be great.So what we want to do is ensure that the country has a stable democracy and that people have confidence in the electoral system. This won't do it.