Little Andrew: Electoral Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13423. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I rise to speak on this bill the Electoral Amendment Bill and I just say what a disappointment it is that barely a year before the next general election—possibly even less—we are now considering the barest and the smallest number of possible changes that could be considered and made to the Electoral Act. I think it shows a level of laziness in the Minister of Justice Judith Collins that I think we have not seen in a Minister of Justice for a long long time.A Minister of Justice who was very concerned about real change to electoral law would have got on to it more smartly and would have ensured that we have an electoral law that not only reflects the issues that arose out of the last election but reflects popular demand for real change in particular to our MMP system. A concerned Minister of Justice would have done so in a time frame that allowed good public debate and good public input at the parliamentary level so that we would be debating substantial changes in response to the growing public demand for change to our system.As it is at the moment what we have got in this bill are the barest of changes made to reflect only some of the concerns that arose out of the review conducted by the Justice and Electoral Committee. There was of course another report prepared by the Electoral Commission which talked about other changes that might also be considered particularly in relation to MMP. So what have we got in this bill? Well we have got the giant leap forward towards electoral enrolment. I mean this is hardly leaping with great strides into a new age of electoral management. This is not a huge leap in terms of technology. It will create some efficiencies for some people and it will be much more convenient to that proportion of the population that is online but of course there will also be some who will want to continue to send in their paper forms and make their changes in a manual sort of way.So we have got electronic enrolment. We have got some technical changes about would you believe logo registrations. That is very important of course because we do not want party logos copying each other. Of course the silver fern has become a popular theme in some party logos and in Labour’s as well. It has become very popular. So we are now getting logo registration sorted out. That is very important when it comes to public demand for electoral law change. We have got a slightly changed penalty regime for general election candidates who either get their election returns in late or not at all. So the level of penalty has not changed but there is some modification to the way it is imposed.There is an interesting new change when it comes to party returns and in particular the requirement that any loans made to political parties whether in an election year or not are now the subject of a return to the Electoral Commission. We understand that in our election law arrangements where there are loans at concessionary rates from friendly people corporations or whatever these sorts of things should be disclosed as amatter of transparency in the conduct of elections. But there is an exemption in the bill for loans made by registered banks to political parties. It is understood that these would be at commercial rates—well the bill presumes that these would be at commercial rates—so there is a question about why any other loan on fully commercial terms would not also be exempt.I have to raise one concern that Labour has which is that although not objecting to the idea in principle of disclosing loans made there is an issue about just the level of detail required including reporting on the balance of any loan entered into from one year to the next. The question is whether that is necessary in terms of transparency for political parties when it comes to our election law arrangements.Then there is a very peculiar provision in this bill and it relates to what happens on election day. It is the law relating to promoting a party or influencing voters on election day. Up until now under section 197 of the existing Electoral Act it has been possible for cars doing election day work for a political party to be adorned with the party colours of that party. So it would be a red ribbon for Labour a green ribbon for the Greens and black and silver for New Zealand First perhaps—I do not know what Brendan Horan’s car will have if indeed he has one—and the National Party will no doubt have blue ribbons—Iain Lees-Galloway: Pink budgie smugglers.ANDREW LITTLE: It might be a pair of budgie smugglers dangling from his car aerial—we do not know but we will see it in the next election—or floating around Tauranga. That is the law at the moment. It seems to work quite satisfactorily. Party activists—and let us face it the Labour Party has a lot of them—as they go about doing their election day activities—Iain Lees-Galloway: Even more now.ANDREW LITTLE: Well they are streaming in by the thousands I am happy to report. They are streaming in by the thousands. The email traffic to every MP and every branch chair of the Labour Party has never been greater as people are lining up ready to participate in the great election rout of 2014. All those activists are keen to wear their party colours. There will be a clean out in New Plymouth. I can feel it now in my bones. All the activists will be turning up. They will want to wear their rosettes on election day as they are used to doing. But this law this bill says that they will not be allowed to and we know why—we know why. When I was party president I drove around the Auckland electorates one election and then I drove around the New Plymouth electorate in 2011. Not a single car was adorned with a blue thing on it. Not even the blue cars had blue things on them. There was not a single car with a blue ribbon a blue rosette or anything on it. But the Labour Party activists of New Plymouth and Taranaki were out in their numbers and there are going to be more of them.But this bill this National Party bill outlaws the wearing of rosettes and party ribbons on election day for those doing legitimate election activity by knocking on doors and doing those sorts of things. Why? Why would National do that? Because National members do not want people to see just how poorly organised and how lacking in support they are. They can get the big cheques from the corporates—it is very easy. You just do a deal with a casino. You do a deal with a telecommunications utility company. You can do all that but you cannot get the party activists out on election day wearing their rosettes.This bill overturns what has been a longstanding provision in our electoral law—that it is perfectly legitimate to wear your party colours on election day. That is very disappointing—very disappointing—and it should not be that way. It should not be that way—and it is only because the army of supporters that Labour has every election day gets out there and is an embarrassment to parties like the National Party.I want to comment on one other thing. [Interruption] Oh yes the growing numbers of jobless in New Plymouth are all lining up to join the Labour Party because they want their jobs back. They want their jobs back in New Plymouth. At Fletcher Construction 37 redundancies were announced just on the weekend. People are lining up to join the Labour Party because they know where their jobs are and that is with a thriving Labour Government doing good things with good businesses for good people.I want to make one comment before I resume my seat because members will be concerned about this. This bill was an opportunity to do something meaningful to meet the long-demanded change that the public of New Zealand have wanted and that is to change the threshold laws of MMP and to change the 5 percent threshold to 4 percent take away the one seat threshold and have a fair MMP system. The Electoral Commission recommended it and what did the lazy Minister of Justice do? She did nothing about it. She waited till the other political parties came to her and then she said that there is no consensus. There was only one party that was refusing to agree and that was her own. Her own party refused to agree to it. Then she said that there is no consensus. It is very disappointing.This was a bill to do something interesting and good for MMP and the New Zealand electoral system and that opportunity has been lost. Nevertheless we will support this bill and examine it closely at the select committee. We will have a look closely at the ribbon arrangements and the loan reporting arrangements and make sure that this is another piece of electoral law that is fit for New Zealand supported by New Zealand and good for the administration of New Zealand elections. And then when Labour gets elected we will change those MMP thresholds.