SpeechANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you very much Madam Speaker for the opportunity to speak tonight on the third reading of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). But of course it feels a bit more like the fifth or sixth time I've risen to speak on this piece of legislation and that is of course because we've passed very similar legislation in this Parliament in recent weeks. I do want to begin by commenting on the committee of the whole House process that has just concluded a short time ago because I was a little bit surprised that the Green Party did not move an amendment or put forward another Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) similar to the one that's mentioned in the bill which is SOP 518 on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. When we last debated similar legislation to this last week that's exactly what the Greens did. They moved an amendment that would have extended the right to vote to all prisoners rather than just those who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of less than three years. But there wasn't one tonight so that principled position that the Greens hold which I can understand entirely that led them to put up that amendment in the first place is for now for some reason no longer in existence. So what we have instead is a bill that will confirm that only prisoners who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three years or less will be able to vote which the Greens have claimed is against their principles—and yet here they are in Parliament tonight voting the other way not to extend voting to all prisoners but to instead revoke or repeal the amendment that was put forward and supported by this Parliament last week in the name of Golriz Ghahraman. This bill in its explanatory note purports to remove inconsistencies in the Electoral Act as a result of that legislation that we passed last week but instead all it does is confirm them. It says that prisoners who are sentenced to 35 months in prison will be able to vote in elections but that those who are sentenced to 37 months—perhaps for the same crime—will not be able to vote. That is an inconsistency that Chlöe Swarbrick railed against in this Parliament just a few days ago but this week the Greens are voting to confirm that position. There are other inconsistencies in this bill which I'd like to touch on. The Minister of Justice has given a number of contributions in this debate in first second and third readings and a couple during the committee of the whole House stage and in his explanation for why he supports this bill and why he's brought this bill to the House he's said that his position is that prisoners should be able to vote for the Government and for the Parliament that will represent them when they are released. Again I can understand that position. It's a relatively coherent position. But this bill and the changes that are made in it and the additional changes that we made last week don't do that. They don't for example cater for a prisoner who was sentenced to 10 years who might be due for release next year. That person will not be able to vote in the upcoming election. Nor will they be able to vote in council elections or in district health board elections—for as long as they exist I suppose given the other measures that are being proposed by the Government at the moment. So this bill doesn't cater for those people. It prevents them from voting for the Government for the Parliament and for councils and DHBs that will represent them upon release. So it doesn't fit with Mr Little's stated goal for this bill at all. That brings me back to where I started which is a point on process and the process that we've gone through in coming to this bill and to this Parliament and to this vote tonight. The reason we have this bill to begin with as my colleagues have laid out earlier in the debate is around a failure of process and a failure of process by this Government. It's a failure to align the three parties of Government to have a consistent position. We saw that in full show last week when the Greens moved an SOP. And now in this bill they haven't learnt their lesson because this bill as well is a failure of process. What they're doing is they're doubling down on that poor process. The original bill that was brought forward to Parliament the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill was voted on at first reading and went off and had a select committee process—such as it was through the COVID-19 lockdown period. It was then brought back to Parliament last week and we voted on the committee stage and third reading under urgency. That wasn't an ideal process and that was shown up with the fact that of course there was a mistake in the bill which we're now tidying up with this legislation. Not content with that poor process the Government as I've said are doubling down with this legislation: going through all stages—not just the later stages; going through all stages—without a select committee process and unfortunately with that with a truncated process full stop.So we're not able to consider this bill in the same detail. We haven't had input from the public. We haven't had input from victims of crime. We haven't had input from our prisoner advocates and indeed even prisoners themselves. There's been none of that input into this bill at all. And of course the Greens weren't able to put forward an SOP which aligns with their principles. It would have been useful I think if we'd had a select committee process. They could have tabled that SOP alongside the bill to provide additional context to the select committee on what could be voted for—again aligning with Green Party principles. Yet we haven't had the opportunity to do that because of the truncated process. Equally bad is that this bill is being rushed through all stages in one day. We've had no opportunity for public input at all and now with a heavily truncated process we're pushing this bill through Parliament with less scrutiny than I think electoral law should allow for. Certainly when it comes to electoral law Andrew Little has said it's the fundamental part of our democracy and yet we're ramming through all stages in this House a bill that violates that. That's a shame because as Andrew Little pointed out when he was in Opposition electoral law changes shouldn't be rushed through in a process like this. It shouldn't be going through urgency. It certainly shouldn't be going through urgency in all stages in one day. The Greens themselves have actually said that as well. They consistently in Opposition railed against the use of urgency and said it should be avoided at all costs and yet here we are. Now that Mr Little and the Greens are both in Government those ideals seem to have gone out the window and we see them rushing through electoral law changes—probably amongst the last dozen or so bills that were passed by this Parliament being rushed through before the election. It wasn't like there weren't opportunities to fix the bill last week. Of course Nick Smith our colleague moved during I think the third reading to refer the bill back to select committee.Stuart Smith: Did they do that?ANDREW FALLOON: They absolutely didn't do that unfortunately. So there was a perfect opportunity to refer that bill back to select committee which would have completely removed the need for this legislation to be rushed through all stages in one day. It could have been referred back to select committee and the public input invited and we could have had a far better process to ensure that those inconsistencies that are identified in this bill don't come to pass. So I was very disappointed by that. We also had of course Mr Little during many speeches seeming to blame the National Party. He seemed to blame all this situation on the National Party and hasn't taken any of the blame for himself. The closest we got to that actually was a New Zealand First MP essentially blaming the Greens for it. Well actually there's a huge amount of blame to be put on the Government particularly Andrew Little for presiding over a shambolic process as my colleague Simeon Brown has pointed out. So the process on this bill has been poor. The bill provides more inconsistencies unfortunately than it remedies. The Minister has taken every opportunity that he has had to blame the National Party never accepting any blame for himself and unfortunately launching a disgraceful attack on another member of this House over mental health. We won't be supporting the bill.