Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Speaker. Much like my colleague Brett Hudson I wasn't coming down to the House tonight to take a call on this bill but since listening to my colleagues Chris Penk Nick Smith and Brett Hudson make their calls tonight I felt that it was important that I stand up and make a contribution. And the reason that I am so intent on doing that is because not a single member from the other side of the House tonight has stood up to take a call. Now we've heard from the other side of the House over the last few months how very important this bill is; how very very important it is that we give prisoners the right to vote and they've said it on many forums. They've said it many times. We've heard it from many members of Labour of New Zealand First and of the Greens. We've heard it from all of them. But tonight Madam Speaker utter silence. Not a single one of them is brave enough to get up and take a call.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!ERICA STANFORD: We've heard from—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Careful.ERICA STANFORD: Sorry Madam Speaker. I apologise. Not a single one of them has stood up to take a call. We heard from Minister Genter—Julie Anne Genter—across the floor when she was interjecting when the Hon Tim Macindoe was making his speech over and over again but she hasn't stood up to take a call. We heard from Kieran McAnulty many a time during the speeches tonight—Matt King: Too often.ERICA STANFORD: —too often as Matt King says—but he hasn't stood up to take a call and we have to wonder why that is when they have been so vocal prior to tonight and yet tonight we hear nothing but silence.This is extraordinary. The fact that we are here tonight to potentially have a piece of legislation go forward in a truncated process which normally as Nick Smith pointed out would take six months—a good process would take six months—truncating that down to two months. Now we understand—I mean when we were in Government that was required on a number of occasions. And just for the record as Maureen Pugh pointed out on those occasions the Labour Opposition at the time went apoplectic at those times. Have I said it right?Maureen Pugh: That's the right word.ERICA STANFORD: Excellent. And you can imagine that if the tables were turned tonight they would be the same. But the point is this is not just any bill. This is voting rights. This is our electoral system. This is voters' rights. And surely of any legislation of any bill this bill should have the full scrutiny of select committee. We should allow the people of this country the full six months to have their say because this is not an inconsequential bill. This is a bill of great importance. As I said in Opposition Labour and the Greens were so very ferocious in their opposition to any bill that had a truncated process and yet tonight they sit with their heads bowed saying nothing and not taking a single call. I would invite any of them sitting on that side of the House tonight to stand up and give us a good reason and justify your reasoning as to why we can't have a six-month process why we're truncating this to two months. And indeed if you're so very angry about the fact that we understand that you want to do this to get it through well before the election so that you can make up those few extra votes—if you're so incensed about that as you have been in your interjections then stand up take a call and tell everybody why we're so wrong. Your silence indicates that actually we are very right that we've hit the nail on the head and that in fact members on the other side want to get this through so that they can scrape through all of those votes from the prisoners as we expected that they wanted to do. Earlier this year we put through bills with truncated processes and I remember that a few of them went through my Environment Committee. I remember getting up and taking calls and saying that actually these bills need a full process; it's really important that we hear from the public on these bills. But tonight more so than any other speech that I've made in the 2½ years that I've been an MP I would call this bill the most important of any of those bills to have a full process.We cannot underestimate the importance when it comes to the rights of people to vote to have a full process. This is something that the public are extremely interested in and as members mentioned earlier there is so much going on right now and people's minds are in other places—they are not going to have the time to submit on this or to think this through. I think that that is very important and a six-month time frame would give us time to do that. It was mentioned earlier by my colleague Nick Smith—and I'd like to elaborate on this—that jury trials have been put off for the next couple of months and I expect that that may happen for even longer into the future. But what I can say is that it is quite extraordinary that the other side of the House expects the select committee to sit whenever over two months and as often as is required to get through this bill when other such things have been put off. I'm just sitting here absolutely astounded that the other side of the House would push this through in such a short time frame and are expecting a select committee to sit whenever it is required for this bill to go through. As I said earlier I can't understand why the other side of the House aren't taking a call. I would suggest any one of them—Mr Clayton Mitchell Deborah Russell who's yawning; maybe a speech would wake her up—get up stand up and prove what we are saying. You've been calling across the House at us. Prove us wrong just by taking a single call. I would invite any one of them to get up and explain to us why we can't have a six-month process when it comes to such a very very important bill. I and everyone on this side of the House will not be supporting this bill. Thank you.