SpeechJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity to bring a little bit of decorum to the House after the relative shambles of the last few minutes over that side of the House there. I think the ACT Party and the Green Party should just sort of hold hands and maybe just get on a little bit every now and then. But anyway that's up to them. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call at the first reading of the Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge the member for bringing this bill to the House and as other members have said acknowledge the passion of Golriz Ghahraman in this area.Now you've heard previously from speakers on this side of the House that we will not be supporting this bill and those reasons have been fairly clearly outlined primarily based around the fact that we are already doing work in this area. When I was growing up at dinner time my mother and father would often say to me Your eyes are bigger than your stomach" which would mean that I've got a little bit too much food on my plate and I think I can eat more then than I can. If I could just give a little bit of advice to the member I feel like in this bill she's probably trying to bite off a little bit too much in one bill. Seven really large chunky areas in one member's bill is possibly a little bit of an overreach. Maybe if the member had chosen one of these areas who knows what may or may not have happened. But seven fairly large areas around this bill: enabling the voters of Māori descent to change roll at any time; extending the voting age to 16; removing the requirement for New Zealand citizens living overseas to have visited New Zealand within the last three months to maintain the voting rights; giving all people in prison the right to vote; implementing the Electoral Commission's 2012 MMP review recommendations; strengthening transparency and safeguards on donations to parties and candidates; and extending the reserved provisions to include all provisions that reduce eligibility to register as an elector or to vote at an election. Seven really large chunky areas of electoral law that the member has tried to bring to this House. Obviously it's quite clear from the speeches that this bill will not progress. Now I did mention before that this Government is undertaking some work in this area the independent review of electoral laws and it will pick up on some of these points. I'd just like to offer my personal reflections on some of these points. Extending the voting age to 16 is an interesting topic. It's one that is regularly canvassed by people particularly on the election trail. I'm sure members of this House have been asked this question at many candidate meetings. My personal view is I'm actually open to this idea. However I do believe that if we are going to change the voting age to 16 then the first vote should be at high school. There should be civics education there should actually potentially be a voting ballot box at the high school. Research shows that if someone votes for the first time that they're eligible then there's a high likelihood that they will continue to vote. If someone doesn't vote the first time if they miss the first time then they often don't come back to voting until they're maybe in their thirties forties maybe when they buy a house maybe have children. So look I think it is something that is worth exploring. There was another interesting one that sparked my interest that was around the length of the parliamentary term. Obviously it's three years at the moment. Some people would argue it should be longer than three years. In the UK it's five. The United States is four for example. I think there's an interesting nuance here in New Zealand that we don't have an Upper House. So three years yes it is relatively short and generally it is challenging for Governments because if you come into Government you spend the first year setting up second year doing things and third year straight into the campaigning. But the reality is without there being an Upper House in New Zealand we don't have quite the checks and balances that other jurisdictions have. The three-year term effectively becomes a balance for this. So I'm not sure whether extending to four without some form of Upper House is appropriate. Yeah but just a little reflection on that one; thoughts for those in the House tonight. The Electoral Commission's recommendations on MMP: changes to the party vote threshold. Now this is set at 5 percent and I see I'm running out of time—I could seek leave for a little bit more time but I won't try that. So I'll just summarise: some interesting points here but unfortunately for the member this side of the House won't be supporting."