Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Madam Chair thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to acknowledge the Minister in introducing the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which has changed. So for those tuning in not necessarily following the way that the Parliament works when the Government of the day introduces a bill—and the purpose of this bill is to move away from a five-yearly option so when people are either on the Māori roll or the general roll once every five years linked with the census in order to have the populations right people have a chance to switch rolls if they are of Māori descent.So the purpose of this bill is to enable people to switch at any time not just wait for every five years. That makes it certainly easier and if people decide that they want to be on a different roll and vote on the general roll or on the Māori roll then they have the chance to do that. So that was introduced and we had our first reading. And National opposed the bill because we were concerned particularly as the bill as introduced excluded by-elections from a certain amount of time around a by-election that you couldn't switch between rolls. Because people were naturally worried that people who might be on the Māori roll in an area and say there was a by-election in Rotorua—I'm sure that wouldn't happen with Todd McClay but if say there was—if they were able to switch and vote in that by-election then that would undermine confidence in the way the system worked.Now the previous Minister of Justice who introduced this Kris Faafoi in writing to me referred to the concern around tactical roll switching. We just held the view that the logic as it applied to by-elections equally applied to general elections and increasingly of course local body elections where there are a large number of Māori wards. So we asked that the Government consider this.Now during the select committee process which is after the first reading when people from different sides of the House get together we hear submissions and where concerns were raised on all sides—some people wanted even more substantial changes—the Government members didn't listen to our concerns particularly and didn't make any changes. However the Minister did at the subsequent stage in relation to the Supplementary Order Paper and we're grateful for that. Some cynics have said it's just because 75 percent is required and they need our support. I'm sure that that's not just the case actually but I think the Minister was genuine in her concern to have widespread support for what is a significant electoral change—as this is.And this gives us the opportunity to make it easier for people to switch between rolls but also to have that period three months around an election when in an MMP environment there is movement potentially around if you happen to be on one roll but be in a place where one election is very tight and marginal and the other one is a foregone conclusion—then to have one group able to choose between which one they want to vote for right up in the lead-up to the election we thought wasn't appropriate.So with that change which is part of this SOP introduced by the Minister if it passes which it sounds like it's going to the bill will be different from what it looked like when it came into Parliament but it will come out the other end achieving its purpose which is to make it easier for people of Māori descent to engage in politics and be on a roll that suits them best and also will retain widespread support in the House.And I think that's a good way of doing things when we're dealing with electoral law and so I would just finish by just encouraging the Minister and the Labour Party in particular to adopt that approach generally when it comes to electoral law. Because it's tempting when one has a majority to arrange the rules to suit but it's better if it's done across the House.