Clendon David: Electoral Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13428. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): Kia ora koutou. I am pleased to take a short call on this Electoral Amendment Bill. I would echo the comments already made by other speakers about the importance of this process and the value of it—that each 3 years we investigate our electoral processes we evaluate them and we look for ways we might make them better. That is an entirely appropriate process and one that perhaps helps to reassure people about the integrity of our electoral system acknowledging that things do change over time and generally it is a good process. It is particularly important in the context of the decline in participation in voting that we have seen over the last several elections. At one time New Zealand despite not having any law that compels people to vote nevertheless had higher turnouts than many countries where there was a compulsion—where it was legally required that people voted. We have slipped a long way from that expectation about turnout and I think that is something we cannot simply put down to voter apathy. I think we have to think much more about the level of cynicism and the reason why people may have become disillusioned with the political process and seek to address those in a much more real and a much more honest and open way.Historically some of the people least likely to participate in general elections are young people and I think that the provisions in this bill to accommodate the electronic enrolment online enrolment will go some small way towards balancing that. The so-called digital natives are accustomed to doing most things online and enabling people to enrol for the first time or some subsequent time entirely online I think is a good thing. For quite some time people have been able to amend their enrolment details online. We see no reason why you would not extend that and I think that is one of the most positive steps in the bill.We still have another conversation to have perhaps about the desirability or indeed the possibility of online voting. That could be a more complex and arguably a morecontroversial step. But for the moment enabling enrolment to happen online is a good and positive thing and we do commend that aspect of the bill.The provisions around the disclosure of loans are we think also positive. Parties do take out loans to fund their campaigns and typically they repay them. Of course having the loophole existing that enabled a party to accept a loan and then have that loan written off but not recorded against its income for the election is we think undesirable. In a perfect world it would not happen and parties would declare honestly the money that they had received in by whatever means but of course recent history tells us that that level of integrity is not always in evidence. So we do see that those provisions in the bill are certainly worthwhile. Some of the detail may arguably be amended through the select committee process but the general principle of closing that very obvious and very unfortunate loophole is something that again we do support and think is a good thing to do.One of the recommendations of the Justice and Electoral Committee inquiry into the election proposed that the Electoral Commission should liaise with the Ministry of Education about incorporating ongoing and comprehensive civics education into the New Zealand school curriculum. Although I recognise that that is somewhat outside the ambit of this bill I would just like to put on record that we would wholeheartedly support that. We think that it is very strange that our young people can go through an entire education from age 5 to 16 17 or 18 and never be sat down and given some good basic information and education about how our electoral system works how our Parliament works and how our basic democratic systems and processes work. It seems a significant gap in our education system. I am aware of such things as the Kids Voting programme which popped up some years ago. It was a very positive programme that was well received. It exposed probably in excess of 100000 young people at schools to participating in a voting process and they learnt a fair bit along the way. But we see a time when we will think it should be taken as a given that we embed that education into our standard educational curriculum. Again it might go some way to empowering and enabling people to see the value and the importance of participating in our electoral processes every 3 years.The bill makes some minor changes to the business of Māori enrolment and the Māori electoral roll. We think that it is unfortunate that this bill does not go further. We do agree—it has long been Green Party policy—that Māori should not have to wait for a 5-yearly census cycle to move from one roll to the other—from the general roll to the Māori roll or the other way round. It is an opportunity missed perhaps that this bill does not engage with that. There is mention that the terms of reference did not enable it. I do think however that a stronger recommendation could have come through and I do think that it would have been an opportunity to enable people of Māori descent to have at least the option of moving one way or the other on the roll in conjunction with each 3-yearly electoral cycle. It seems perverse that it is only at every second election that in reality Māori have that option to go one way or the other. I think that the arguments proposed in the inquiry document were suggestions that it might create unequal electoral systems with some voters exerting more sway if you like. The proposition that changes in electoral boundaries could leave very high or very low numbers is I think very much overstated. I really do not believe that you would get sufficient movement in a roll in any given year in any given electoral cycle to have any significant impact on numbers within the elections. I do not see any way that it would skew the outcome. Even if somebody tactically set out to endeavour to do that I suspect that there would be either sufficient opposition or simply inertia to prevent any compromising of the integrity of that change. I do think that allowing Māori the right to move one way or theother each 3-yearly cycle would be something we would need to contemplate and aim to do at some future point hopefully not too far into the future.I would also say that in terms of what is lacking in this bill again there is a missed opportunity. It would have been nice to see included in this a repealing a reversal of the truly appalling change to the electoral law that was instigated by the gentleman now departed from this place—dare I say it the somewhat unlamented Mr Paul Quinn with his electoral disqualification of sentenced prisoners amendment. This would have been an excellent opportunity to put aside that entirely meaningless punitive and unhelpful piece of legislation that even its principal could not defend. No individual speaking on its behalf could give a substantive reason why we would deny every single sentenced prisoner the right to vote. It was a ridiculous piece of legislation. This would have been a very good opportunity to repeal it and to take that embarrassment off our books and it is unfortunate that that has not been included in this bill. The Attorney-General at the time that that bill went through the House noted that it would introduce irrational inconsistencies in the law. He found it unjustifiably inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Unfortunately we were saddled with it. I think this would have been a good opportunity to put it aside to remove it. That opportunity has been missed.On a brighter note there is some considerable value in this bill. Our very genuine disappointment I would have to say perhaps refers back to MrLittle’s comments earlier about how little time has been allowed to get the changes put in place. There is a lack of attention to the recommendations about accessibility that were very strongly and well made by the inquiry but that sadly have not been picked up by the drafters of this bill. We understand or we infer perhaps that there is not necessarily any objection to these accessibility provisions being picked up but that the issues of timing perhaps or even cost—I do not know—have meant that they are not included in this bill. My colleague will speak more to that later but for the moment the Greens are supportive of what this piece of legislation sets out to do. We will seek to make it even better during the select committee process but we do look forward to it going through the House. Kia ora.