Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Thank you Madam Speaker. National is pleased to support this Election Access Fund Bill. That is a step in the right direction for including a wider range of people in this important institution that has responsibility for the lawmaking and the governance of our country. I want to compliment Chlöe Swarbrick and the way in which she has managed the legislative process around this bill being a strong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities but also understanding the importance of electoral law and their conduct being in a fair way. I think it reflects well on this Parliament that there is sufficient confidence in the political neutrality of the New Zealand Electoral Commission to have responsibility for allocating these funds.I also want to acknowledge the advocacy of Mojo Mathers in her work as a member of Parliament in making us all more aware of the challenges for the deaf community in being able to participate in parliamentary processes. This bill just actually represents a number of other steps including providing subtitles and other provisions in our select committees that have helped make our Parliament more accessible.The core part of this bill enables the Electoral Commission to set up a fund that will enable candidates for central government elections parliamentary elections to be able to apply for the extra costs that they face as a consequence of their disability and being able to be refunded for that. If there was a disappointment with the bill—and we discussed it at select committee—it was whether it could be included and extended to local government because actually whether it be our deaf whether it be our blind whether it be people that have other physical disabilities the ideal for us would have been to provide a fund that extended it further. We note that the Justice Committee inquiry into electoral law talks about better aligning our local and parliamentary electoral laws and that is a future challenge from this bill.Whenever it comes to issues of electoral law National is of a view that you need to be very careful in the allocation of whether it be public broadcasting funds or others that you do so in such a way that it doesn't try and screw the scrum politically one way or other. We are satisfied through the pursuit of the detail of this bill that we are genuinely providing a fund that will meet those reasonable costs without the risk of it being used by one political party at a disadvantage of others.I would have one more cautious view than the sponsor of this bill in that money is just one of the disadvantages that we seek to address through this bill. Yes whether it be the extra costs of travel of accommodation or of specialised and technical equipment that exist today that is able to assist people with disabilities I don't think we as a Parliament should pretend that that removes all of the barriers. I actually think there is equally an attitudinal issue both for electors for this institution for public servants in our society more generally that we are improving in the way in which we deal with people with disabilities. This bill is a step in the right direction but I do think we would be a little overstating it in accepting that providing a fund would remove all of those barriers. We still have other issues to resolve and those attitudinal things is something that Parliament can lead that Parliament can talk about but is not something that can be simplistically fixed by a change of law.So again I compliment those that have been advocates for this bill. The Election Access Fund Bill is a bill that is going to improve the diversity of this Parliament. How this Parliament has changed over its 160-plus years in being more diverse in respect of the ethnicities that are represented here the big change that has seen so many more women in this Parliament and the hope that goes with this bill is that it will see the full range of people that have different disabilities also having a voice in this institution. I commend the member who has sponsored the bill and particularly the law change. National looks forward to working with the Electoral Commission so that we can have more candidates for Parliament and more members that represent the diverse disabled community.