Little AndrewELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a third time. It is a great pleasure to be contributing to this the third reading debate on this very important piece of legislation—some small changes to our electoral laws but some very significant ones in terms of the impact on people's lives. The people I'm thinking about in particular are the roughly 19000 people who turned up to a polling booth in the 2017 election but unlike many of their compadres and compatriots who had turned up to polling booths in the two weeks before who could both enrol and cast a vote for the general election those people couldn't. Those 19000 people couldn't. Then I think of the thousands of others who turned up but whose electoral roll details were wrong—the wrong address because they'd moved several times because the National Party left the housing market in such an abysmal state—and their votes weren't counted at all. So this will restore the democratic right to those people.It is interesting seeing the debate through this House because I would have thought this would be something that every member of Parliament—this the crucible of our elected democracy the place where people celebrate democracy—that every member of the House would like to see democracy maximised and that every citizen get the benefit of their democratic rights but it turns out that's not the case. There are some people here who think that New Zealand citizens of voting age should actually be denied the right to vote. The argument from members opposite seems to be Look if people can't organise their lives"—when it's in a complete shambles because of the housing market the National Party left us and the labour market and all those other things—"then the response we should have to that is that they should be punished by not being allowed to vote." That's the National Party.There is a very strange sort of thread that runs through much of what the National Party stands for and that is that they love punishing people. They love to punish people. Now some would describe it as a fetish. I'm not going that far at this point but I do say it is a common and consistent characteristic of the sorts of arguments that the members opposite put up. They don't like some people having rights that they themselves and various other people in positions of privilege have. They love to punish people so they think that it is right that the thousands of people who have not had their vote counted in the last election and for whom we could make some minor corrections and some minor changes—that they should continue to be punished. Well that will not continue with the passage of this bill.So we will allow people who have not been able to organise themselves and sort themselves out but who turn up willing to participate in our great democracy on election day to a polling booth—that they can both enrol and also cast a vote that will then be counted. Likewise those who haven't been able to renew their details or update their details but who are otherwise on the roll—they also will have their vote counted.As part of a general approach of trying to make it easier for citizens of voting age to vote we're also allowing the Electoral Commission to determine that they can put polling booths in places like supermarkets and malls and what have you. Now they can do that during the advance voting period—nothing wrong with that—but on election day the law as it currently is means that if it is a place that sells alcohol a licensed premises even if it's a place where alcohol is not consumed the polling booth cannot be there. That will change so that polling booths can go into supermarkets. A consequent change is that the votes at the conclusion of the voting day—at 7 p.m. when the polling booth closes—can then be carted off to somewhere fully witnessed by the scrutineers from the various parties so that there's no hanky-panky or you know that sort of behaviour that the National Party clearly likes to indulge in. They will then be taken somewhere else in order for the votes to be counted.So these are all quite sensible things. Then of course because there is extra administrative work required in the days following an election where a fair number of people—19000 in the 2017 election—will both enrol and cast a vote by way of special vote a little bit of extra time is required to finalise the result. So the return of the writ which I know exercises the Hon Nick Smith—he's really exercised by this return of the writ period. No one in New Zealand—no one in the history of New Zealand—has lain awake at night during the days after a general election wondering how the return of the writ is going. I can say that as a matter of fact. I've asked scholars from every university "Can you please find me the research into people who in the days following an election lay awake at night were anxious about or spoke to radio talkback show hosts about the return of the writ and whether it is coming along nicely." No one could find anything—no one could find anything. I asked friends to put up surveys on Facebook. I canvassed people talked to people in my street and no one—no one—could identify anybody who had a sense of anxiety about just how the return of the writ was going.So we are extending the period by which the writ has to be returned. The interim result which is largely known on election night with the odd exception—1993 somebody recalled the other day. People know what the result is or where it's going and so that will continue to happen. The world will continue to spin on its axis during that extra 10 days and that's been guaranteed—not in the bill of course but I've had assurances from good authority that in fact that will happen. So that is also provided for in this bill.In the end these are good changes. The great thing is they will be put in place for the 2023 general election. I know Dr Nick Smith—he gets into this high dudgeon and has faux constitutional concerns. He hasn't articulated a single credible real constitutional principle I think in the two years since I've been the Minister but there we go. We will hear more this afternoon and we'll all sit here entertained because that's pretty much all you can be about it. But the good thing is the Electoral Commission having said that they would prefer to implement these changes for 2023 when asked said "Look this is actually quite important—19000 people missed out in 2017. How many more thousands in 2020 before we implement for 2023?" And they were happy to accept it. You know we could do it but we need to get the legislation passed.Of course it would have been nice to have passed this legislation earlier. In the end because of the delay in the inquiry being conducted by the Justice Committee I wrote to them at the end of 2018 and said "Look you know the Electoral Commission have done their report; they've made these recommendations. Look we're just going to proceed with these things. They're not actually controversial; they're actually good and sustain and support our democracy so we're going to go through with this." Of course there was no demur from the committee—no demur from the committee. No member of the committee wrote to me and said "Oh how dare you Minister writing and saying we're doing these things and we haven't even approved it." No one said that. No one said it—that is until the debate this week and then Dr Nick Smith rewrote history and came up with a different account of events to say that he was opposed to it.That's the sad state of the National Party. They've given up on democratic principle. They've given up on democratic values. They don't care about a whole bunch of people and that's very sad but we care about people. We care about people being able to exercise their democratic rights. We care about people being able to exercise the full range of their citizenship which means participating in our democracy which means being able to vote. This bill paves the way—just a little bit of extra help to get more people participating and exercising their vote.There is more to come in terms of electoral change but what I really look forward to and really hope that we can cooperate on with members opposite is the ground-up rewrite of our electoral law. That is well overdue and well needed and we should be able to have a discussion about the process with that what that looks like the sort of experts we want in place to do it because that is much needed. But in the meantime for the 2020 general election a whole bunch of people now who previously would have had their vote discounted will have it counted and that will be good for all of us. I commend the bill to the House."