Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on this bill. There's been a lot of debate and obviously very polarising views on the issue.The first thing I just want to talk about is this extraordinary event that we've just witnessed before with the Hon Clare Curran wishing to table a letter written to the select committee. Whilst I know of many members—or all members of the House will know that until something comes out of the select committee it is confidential to the committee. Therefore it's a very strong parliamentary issue around releasing that information before it has been released by the committee.I just think it is a very dangerous precedent for a member to be doing such a thing. I'm not quite sure why the Hon Clare Curran decided to do that but that's a very very important precedent that I think has been set by the member and no doubt with the view of trying to reinforce the view that she made in her speech which was that the Minister the Hon Andrew Little had consulted with the National Party on these wide-ranging reforms. Time will tell whether in fact that letter does support that position but all I can say is that from our perspective and from National's perspective it is clear that there has been no adequate consultation or even acceptable level of consultation on what is absolutely a fundamental issue of democracy. And of course everyone in this House wants to see that democracy is maintained but also wants to make sure that in doing so—in the process around how people cast their votes on election day and how those votes are counted it is absolutely essential that that system is protected and nurtured so that we do end up with the right outcome.Of course this bill has these three elements. It's got the issue around voting rights—and I will return to that shortly—but also about where voting can take place and that again is quite a significant issue. I think I just want to really say the first thing is that this issue around voting and enabling people to enrol on the day of the election and to cast their vote in an election is a perverse outcome because in recent times the Electoral Commission which does a good job has been driving people towards voting early—enrolling early voting early. We know that with enrolling statistics people are actually less inclined to enrol as they might have done in previous years and the stats are showing an increase—about 7.4 percent at the last election—that did not enrol. And what we've also seen is that with the advance voting that has led to a significant increase in votes being handled much earlier than election day thereby dealing with the issue of congestion but also giving the rights to people to cast their vote when they wanted to at the time that it was convenient to them because often for many the election day is not a convenient time particularly with many people working these days.So this issue about allowing people to vote and enrol on the same day on election day I think is an incredibly significant step. I think the first thing around that is that that is something that should be talked about at length and agreed by Parliament; not by the Government consulting amongst itself but with all parties—all parties of this Parliament—so that we have a basis not just for this election in 2020 but successive elections so that we all have comfort with the process that has been proposed.But the other thing I think—and I'm just referring here to the regulatory impact statement which I found a fascinating document because here is an analytical review of these proposals. I think the issue—and it states here that the electors can still apply to enrol until midnight the night before an election and there has been a noticeable acceleration in enrolments during the advance voting period. In 2017 the Electoral Commission processed 200000 enrolment transactions during the advance voting period and 94000 of these were made in the last three days. And this is what's happening: we're seeing more people voting earlier but allowing people to vote right up to the last moment and turn up without having enrolled is something that will drive election day considerably in terms of making it much more congested. The regulatory impact statement looked at four aspects in terms of assessing whether in fact this is a good thing or not. One was reduced participation barriers and I think we all can get the concept that if you did allow this it would improve participation. It talked to administration feasibility consistency and cost administration. The first thing it notes around allowing election day enrolment is that it states that Allowing election day enrolment conflicts with the current messaging to the public that people should enrol early." So that as I said before has been a hallmark of recent elections—trying to get people to enrol early. It also increases the likelihood of a number of special votes being issued and we know the issue round this. One stat is that they estimate that it will take 10 times as long to go through the process of enrolling someone and also then allowing them to vote than would otherwise be the case. And that of course is on election day when it's the busiest time. It would also slow the issuing of voting papers and casting of votes on election day. And I think those are pretty significant issues.In terms of the implementation and here I quote "The operational process changes needed to enable election day enrolment are substantial"—this is in the regulatory impact statement—"with important implications for voting place services". And from what I understand the Justice Committee is working its way through the review of the 2017 election—and it happens after every election and of course it would be looking into these issues—and this is the committee that's been tasked to making sure that democracy does continue to work as well as possible and somehow these proposals have jumped over the top of them. The other aspect they note: "The Commission estimates that election day enrolment could add as many as 100000 election day enrolment transactions" and it goes on to say that that would require 2800 additional staff and an additional cost of $13.4 million. And so this is not an insignificant issue. This is a substantial administrative issue around making sure that the veracity of those who are voting is protected and we have the outcome we want. I think what's missing in the debate for me is that we haven't had a clear enunciation of why this is necessary. What is the democracy issue that we're trying to deal with that would drive this change? And even if there was one—which I haven't heard enunciated properly but even if there was one—I would be waiting for the Justice Committee who's heard submissions on it who are in consideration or deliberation on this matter at the moment and who have had the time since September last year to review all this and come to a firm view on what is the best going forward. And that is what happens after every election. They are the ones best charged with looking at this issue. So we've got a process that has come in over top of that select committee process and imposed this bill in the House without waiting for the select committee to finish its job. I think if you're talking about democracy that in itself is a very clear demonstration of how not to do things. It is only literally a couple of months away before that select committee will be reporting back to the House. We should be waiting for that outcome. That's what New Zealanders require of MPs—to make sure that we do protect democracy—and this is cutting across it because it does not have the unanimous support of this House and that is a very disappointing situation."