Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise today to speak about a subject close to my heart which is democracy—close to all our hearts hopefully in this House of Representatives—and to draw the House's attention to the recommendations of the independent review of our electoral system that were released yesterday—finally. We've been waiting for this review all the way back when Labour and the Green Party first negotiated our cooperation agreement where we highlighted democracy as an area of cooperation.I introduced my member's bill the Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill last term and it seemed like it wasn't a priority to either of the big parties. But as we heard more and more about the concerns that New Zealanders have of groups who were excluded from voting—like young people like those in custody—as we heard more from members of the public who were concerned about the way that elections are funded and political party donations are governed and as we heard more and more about the ways that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is breached or undermined through our electoral system this is an area that did become thankfully an area of priority.We've seen some good changes. We've seen transparency around electoral donations improved vastly. We've seen most prisoners' rights to vote restored. We've seen the Māori electoral option changed so that people can in fact switch rolls much more easily. Those were all Green policies.But now after being told over and over again by both sides of the House that we need another independent review we have those recommendations. So my call to this House in particular to the Government but to all parties in this House of Representatives—because we do have a convention that electoral reforms whether they're required by legislation or not are done with some degree of consensus across this House—is that we all come to the party so to speak and we take party politics out of electoral and democracy reform and look at the independent recommendations.A lot of them are recommendations that have come to us before like the restoration of the right of those in prison to vote. That has come to us from the Supreme Court it's come to us from the Waitangi Tribunal and we've heard it from our Human Rights Commission.Then we have the right of 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. Again we've heard from the Supreme Court that we're breaching their fundamental right pursuant to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and that 16- and 17-year-olds specifically have a right to be free from discrimination in having their New Zealand Bill of Rights Act rights fulfilled. That obligation falls upon us. That's the way human rights work.So we are in breach and we have heard now from an independent review that our democracy would be strengthened if all of these groups whose rights we are breaching were in fact included. Our decisions would be stronger. Our democracy would have more trust in it from members of the public.We know that young people take an interest in politics. They may indeed be marginalised from formal voting and even at 18 when they become eligible to vote young voters are among the lowest numbers in terms of our constituents. But we know that they care about issues like the climate crisis they care about their mental health care access about public transport about education; they are more likely to be dealing with hardship now than anyone. We know that if young people are made eligible to vote while they're all together at school and if their right to vote is facilitated through civics education and they all register to vote that as first-time voters who vote in that first election when they become eligible they will become lifelong voters. That's good for all of us.The other thing that I will briefly touch upon because we've done so much with electoral funding reform is that finally we have a recommendation that says that not only should we make it possible for everyone in New Zealand who has a right to vote to vote but also it says that finally we need to put a top on our donations; we need there to be a limit—a $30000 limit per election per registered voter. Get big money out of our elections and get more people to vote. That would make democracy stronger.