Hughes Darren: Inquiry into the 2002 General Election — Consideration of Report of Justice and Electoral Committee 
Hughes Darren: Inquiry into the 2002 General Election — Consideration of Report of Justice and Electoral Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13118] 
TIM BARNETT (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of the report of the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Inquiry into the 2002 General Election.  
This is a rare and welcome opportunity for a select committee to present to the House a significant report that in this case took 19 hours and the work of a team of expert advisers to prepare. Over the last 15 months the Justice and Electoral Committee has worked on its review of the 2002 general election. This is one of those brief moments amongst the cauldron of legislative and set-piece debates in the House when the unique work of a select committee floats to the surface. 
Darren Hughes 
: It’s historic. 
TIM BARNETT 
: I say to Mr Hughes that it is historic indeed and it is for a brief moment that I will speak about it. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee mainly deals with justice issues but since 1999 it has covered the Local Electoral Act the famous electoral integrity legislation and the electoral amendment legislation. This is its second report into an election. 
After the review of the 1999 election 87 changes were made to the way the election of 2002 operated. That election was by all accounts the most smoothly administered general election we had had for many years. As part of the committee’s inquiry it reviewed some of the factors by which elections can be compared. The notable aspects of the 2002 election were that the enrolment level was up 3 percent to 94.2 percent of eligible voters the turnout was down from 85 percent to 77 percent the turnout was significantly down among people on the Maori roll the number of early votes cast—because the election was in a winter holiday period—went up from 5.22 percent to 6.45 percent and so forth. Overall indications were that the 2002 election was extremely well administered. 
The committee’s inquiry has come up with three recommendations and it awaits the response on those from the Government in the next couple of weeks. Those recommendations are: firstly that there be a fundamental review of the law relating to parliamentary elections; secondly that the recommendations of the committee from the 1996 and 1999 elections relating to electoral broadcasting be put into effect in time for the election next year; and thirdly that a package of extra items also be acted on. 
In terms of the fundamental review the committee identified a whole variety of issues including electoral organisational structure State funding disclosure of party donations taxation status of political parties and various other items which are sitting there ready to be reviewed. The committee would like to have had that job done at this stage and I am sure that Mr Donald will refer to that later but we are content to say that it is a major task that needs to happen over the next short period. 
The second package of our recommendations basically repeats the unfinished business of the 1996 and 1999 election reviews. One problem with the process of having select committees look at elections is that not all that they recommend is ever enacted in this busy place the Chamber of our Parliament. Those recommendations are about anomalies concerning electoral broadcasting—making the administration of those rules easier for the Electoral Commission and recognising that both elections and broadcasting are dynamic fields in which changes are made from time to time. 
The third recommendation relates to a whole package of new items. These are mainly additional broadcasting matters that came up through the last election but they also include such things as national guidelines on electoral hoardings—a matter of great interest to many people in this House—and party access to the electronic lists of non-voters so that political parties can encourage higher turnout. As well there is the recommendation that all electoral broadcasting on television funded from the public purse be captioned so that people who are deaf or hearing-impaired can access those broadcasts. The committee also recommended that the amount of money in the Budget for electoral broadcasting be significantly increased to $3.212 million an increase of about 50 percent in recognition that funding has not gone up in the last 10 years. 
An important role of a select committee is to conduct these reviews of electoral law. As I said the committee has flagged the urgent need for a fundamental review of the Electoral Act. One example of the difficulties being created was the issue last year concerning citizenship and electoral law. That was an example of how complex and convoluted that legislation has become and I certainly urge the Government to take up this recommendation. 
In a sense it is at the core of our democracy that people representing eight different political parties can meet together over a period of 15 months and discuss a whole variety of electoral issues can agree on an awful lot and can disagree on a few. That is all part of democracy and that is how we deal with the bread and butter of our activities as professional politicians. I commend the report to the House.