Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare. Otirā e ngā mema katoa o Te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa.I'm proud to belong to a coalition Government that first and foremost acknowledges the trauma of victims of crime. We've taken real action in terms of extra police. We've talked about modernising our court facilities up and down the country and we've also put in place legislation that tries to avoid re-victimising victims of sexual crimes. It'll be interesting to see which side that party votes when that particular legislation comes to this House.I'm pleased to support the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. Essentially it has rehabilitation at the heart of this bill. I want to acknowledge all those submitters that came before the Justice Committee. There have been statements in this House that the process was rushed within select committee and that we didn't give due consideration. I would say 2500 written submissions—just over 30 from organisations; so a majority of them were individuals. I would say 18½ hours of select committee hearing is not taking this piece of legislation lightly. So I do want to acknowledge those that came and presented their views in front of the select committee.In the second reading of this bill I actually wanted to acknowledge the number of young people—the young people—that appeared before the select committee and talked about the human rights challenges in this country and for us as a nation to preserve human rights when submitting on this particular bill. Of course they also drew reference to the recent Waitangi Tribunal report. The report was called He Aha I Pērā Ai? The Māori Prisoners' Voting Report where the tribunal found that the current disqualification of sentenced prisoners was a serious breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and disproportionately affected Māori. We've heard that the prior legislation on prisoner voting rights that was changed under the last administration in 2010 actually increased Māori's disproportionate participation in voting in this country by a whopping 11 percent. Prior to that it was something like 2 percent. So as a Māori electoral MP I'm pleased that this bill goes some way to addressing the disproportionate impact it has on Māori prisoners and the ability to vote.I'm really pleased with the time that we gave to scrutinising this particular bill to ensure that it comes to the House with those views. Although the committee could not agree that's more a reflection on other members of the committee. I've got to say I listened intently to the submitters. I also listened to members of our select committee from the National Party. Apart from regurgitating the victim mentality by giving prisoners voting rights there wasn't anything more substantive that members could actually articulate in the scrutiny of this bill. It seriously came down to: if we give prisoners the vote we are re-victimising victims. There was absolutely no correlation whatsoever. We had young people come to the select committee. I think the young gentleman's name was Mr Harris who talked about working in the UK and working with prisoners.I want to also acknowledge prisoners themselves who came before our select committee and I want to especially acknowledge Eugene Ryder who's a well-known individual through Wellington but through the nation. His view is that voting would actually help prisoners rehabilitate back into the community back into their whānau as they take on the responsibility to exercise their right to have a say on who should govern this country. I want to acknowledge people like Eugene in their submission on this bill. It is like I said a real sweet simple and sensible piece of legislation that is fair and that is based on retaining the human rights of prisoners that are sentenced and also ensuring that we are addressing the disproportionate impact on Māori prisoners. The Minister has outlaid the purpose of this bill. This side of this House we completely support it and I recommend it to the House.