O'Rourke Denis: Electoral Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Electoral Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 13 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15941. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First initially supported this bill the Electoral Amendment Bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee but we can do so no longer. It is not because of what the bill says but because of what the bill leaves out. It does do some good things. The Justice and Electoral Committee in its inquiry recommended several amendments to the Electoral Act and this bill will implement some of them—but only some of them. There are three very good areas of change that are promoted by the bill. Firstly it provides as an option full online enrolment using electronic identity verification. Secondly it provides for the greater use of EasyVote cards which will simplify and speed up the issuing of ballot papers and reduce special votes. Thirdly the integrity of elections will be enhanced through amendments to rationalise and make transparent the provisions that regulate the disclosure of election donations and loans and the filing of election expenses.But I do especially want to mention clauses 44 46 and 47 which clarify the position to ensure the aggregation of contributions to donations for the $1500 threshold and the $15000 threshold for contributions to donations in clause 48. That is good law and will be supported by New Zealand First. It is unfortunate that we will not be able to vote for the bill for that reason. Concerning loans to political parties we are especially glad also to see the provisions in new sections 213 214A and 214C inserted by clause 50. Those sections provide that a party may enter into a loan only with the authorisation of the party secretary and that only the party secretary may enter into a loan on behalf of the party for election purposes. A person who enters into an agreement or an arrangement of some kind for the purpose of circumventing those sections will be guilty of an illegal practice. Section 214C imposes an obligation on a party secretary to file with the Electoral Commission each year a return of a loan entered into during the year for an amount exceeding $15000 those entered into in any previous year with an unpaid balance exceeding $15000 and those entered into for the year for an amount that when it is aggregated with other loans yields an amount in excess of $15000. Those are very important provisions and New Zealand First agrees with them. Again it is a shame that we cannot vote for the bill for other reasons.There are two areas of serious omissions with the bill. The first one as the commission itself is aware concerns election broadcasting rules which did cause problems during the 2011 election. The Electoral Commission noted that the statutory tests of what constitutes an election programme in the Broadcasting Act and an election advertisement in the Electoral Act have significant differences which causes difficulties when the commission is called upon to consider complaints about broadcasting. Both tests require an assessment of whether the programme or advertisement appears to encourage voters to vote or not to vote for a party or candidate but they differ in the exemptions made. In the Broadcasting Act it is stated that nothing in the prohibition on paid election programmes “restricts the broadcasting in relation to an election of news or of comments or of current affairs programmes.” although the exemption similarly inthe Electoral Act is not restricted to news or current affairs but applies to “editorial content of—(i) a periodical: (ii) a radio or television programme: (iii) a publication on a news media Internet site:”. So there are two different exemptions altogether.Submissions suggested removing the separate electoral broadcasting provisions from the Broadcasting Act and confining the provision to the one in the Electoral Act and New Zealand First agrees with those submissions. The Justice and Electoral Committee actually recommended aligning the statutory tests of what is an election programme in the Broadcasting Act and what is an election advertisement in the Electoral Act but nothing appears in this bill. It is an urgent matter and it should have been dealt with in the bill. In addition the Broadcasting Act’s prohibitions regarding election programmes should not be limited to the election period and should apply consistently both to political parties and to broadcasters. The commission acknowledged that it would be more consistent to apply the same rules within and outside of an election period and that is really just common sense.The other glaring omission regarding this bill is concerning our MMP system. There needs to be an end to the coat-tailing provision in the Electoral Act and that should have been attended to as well at this time. We have seen many reasons for that over recent times. It is something that recent polling shows that the vast majority of people in this country want to see an end of. It is time that simply winning an electorate seat should not result in coat-tailing for whatever low percentage of the party vote is currently enabling a party without 5 percent of the list vote to bring more members into Parliament. That is just silly. That is unacceptable. There should be only one threshold for list seats and that is 5 percent or more of the list vote irrespective of whether a party gets an electorate seat. That is what people want. That should have been addressed. But we know of course why it is not being addressed and that is because the National Party needs the likes of Banks and Dunne—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!DENIS O’ROURKE: Mr Banks and Mr Dunne.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE: Thank you. —and any additional seats they may be able to bring in. National wants to try to get as many additional MPs through that particular gerrymander as it can. This Government is prepared to gerrymander the system and to do whatever else is necessary to get enough seats in this way. It is not good enough. It is a cynical manipulation of the system and National obviously has no genuine respect for democracy in New Zealand by failing to make the changes in these ways changes that the people of New Zealand now so clearly want and need.I want to finish by making a reference to Supplementary Order Paper 412 in the name of Mojo Mathers. New Zealand First has some concerns about it. The Supplementary Order Paper seeks regulations for disabled votes to be able to vote by means of devices that enable them to vote without assistance. We are not sure why that is currently a problem and whether this provision would fix it. We expect that people will still want and need assistance. We think that essentially it is a management issue and not one that needs to be addressed in legislation. The commission of course should ensure privacy so that disabled people with assistance if they require it can vote privately and have adequate provisions in that way. But we do not really know what “vote by means of devices” means and we have concern about costs. If it means facilities are needed at all booths and for all forms of disability then we are concerned that it will cost a very large amount of money and is not really required. We would like to hear the Green Party discuss that and tell us why it is required but as it is we would find it difficult to support that Supplementary Order Paper.It is a shame as I have said that New Zealand First is unable to support this bill any longer—not because of what it does do because it does do some good things but because of those two glaring problems. One is the failure to address the difficulty with the Broadcasting Act as I have described and the second is the disgraceful failure to ensure that the coat-tailing provision in the Electoral Act under our MMP system is not abolished as it should be.