Hodgson Pete: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:10897] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I associate myself with the remarks made by my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel and the remarks made by my other colleague the Hon Jim Anderton. I will not repeat any of them in the interest of time but instead will make two other points. 
The first is a random act of praise to the Minister of Justice. His style is to be commended and should be acknowledged and I hope it continues. It is important to try to get these things right— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: He’s a good role model for others. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: He is a good role model for others yes. 
The second thing is to offer a quick history lesson. It goes back a wee bit further than the history lesson offered by the Hon Jim Anderton though I must say that I was sent off to the cops on any number of occasions too—especially in the 2008 and 2005 periods. But I will go back further than that and say that the second leg of the double for this Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill is to fold in the people who put together the rolls. We will have to do that carefully. The last time the rolls were tampered with—I suppose that is the way to put it—was in about 1977 and in 1978 the rolls were a mess. They were administered at that time by the Ministry of Justice. They had been taken off New Zealand Post or the Post and Telegraph Department or whatever the name of the outfit was back then. Then in the subsequent periods of our history especially the 1984-93 period we went through the big old “let’s deregulate let’s sell let’s corporatise etc.” period and New Zealand Post had to win the contract back against whomever else came along—I do not even know who it was. 
Surely by now those days have gone and surely by now we have worked out that New Zealand Post has a proven ability to put the rolls together. It seems to be an outfit that will not go anywhere. I hope the Government will not privatise it—not partly not at all—and I hope it is within the bounds of possibility that the Government will realise that removing the rolls from New Zealand Post especially with all of its data architecture and all of its experience would be deleterious. That is not to say that some change in the administration of electoral enrolments is not a good thing. This legislation is I suppose an architectural tidy-up. But I implore the Minister if he has not already—he was only a schoolboy at the time and could not possibly remember—to ask— 
Hon Simon Power 
: What year was that? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: 1977. 
Hon Simon Power 
: You were quite right; I was 7. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: That is right. But it has happened in my lifetime certainly and it was a shambles. I was a campaign manager in Dunedin North for the Hon Stan Roger when he was standing for Parliament and we did not have rolls that were reliable. They were unreliable. They were both overblown and under-recorded. They were especially overblown. There were a whole lot of people on the roll who did not exist—thousands and thousands of them. That was because a change was made between the 1975 and 1978 elections. It looks like we are going to make another change between I think the 2011 and the 2014 elections. Can we please make sure that history is studied before that change is made.