Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise in support of this bill and I do agree with the principles of this bill and the discussion that it seeks to encourage but that's not entirely the foundation of my support and indeed my party's support. Instead the support of this bill as my colleagues before me have explained so well is because the changes proposed in this bill are so minute so unnecessary and so uncontroversial that there's no principled way that we couldn't support this bill. The most significant changes proposed in this bill are in Part 1 of the bill which seeks to better enable trials of internet voting and in this context the word significant" has a very loose meaning. It's the 21st century and electoral systems around the world are having to adapt to the changing times changing technology and discussion around that are already happening are they not?Now if this bill was introducing a new system that allowed local bodies to trial online voting it would be quite a significant change—but no. The systems are already in place to let local government trial online alternative methods. The major change that this bill is proposing is to allow these changes to take place in a local ward rather than a whole district. Is that it? Six months into this new Government and all they offer in terms of change to local government is changing from a whole district to a ward. Like so many other bills that have been introduced by this Government it makes such minor legislative changes that it's a shame we've got to dedicate so much of Parliament's time to not debating more pressing issues. But it is a discussion that we are having here late this afternoon so I just want to make a few points in regards to the shift towards online voting and what this bill looks to encourage.As I said before it is a sign of the times that we having this discussion and in principle we here on the side of the House are not opposed to the shift. However there have been recent international examples of online voting that have not had great results. So we must keep in mind that the integrity of our voting system should be always to the fore and priority for us. There may be some unintended consequences or vulnerabilities that come with online voting and we have to be very careful around that. It's not clear that online voting will substantially increase voter turnout and engagement so we have to have that absolute confidence that it will both increase participation and will be secure and so therefore we need to proceed with caution.The fundamental question—and I'll just elaborate some of the points that the previous speaker Ron Mark has made actually in regard to participation in local government. Some of the reasons for that participation rate being so low are not just around the idea or the concept that postal votes are onerous. That's putting things far too simplistically. There are wider issues at play. The previous speaker is right there's a few of us sitting right here in the House—a few of us standing right here in the House—who have come from a local government background and we'd know only too acutely the issues of complex voting systems. So when you get that ballot there are multiple voting systems at play: first past the post and single transferable vote all in the one spot. Ron Mark is also correct in regards to that very big fat election booklet. You do need several pairs of eyeglasses to get through that. As much as everyone's bio notes are fantastic and very personalised they're also very long. That very thick booklet is immediately a turnoff.We also have trust levels in terms of apathy towards local government and voting. I come from an Auckland Council background. By Auckland Council's own admission and own polling ways in which governance has been undertaken have undermined the trust levels of the public. It's not just about onerous postal voting; there are other wider issues at play. So what we're doing here on this side of the House is supporting this through to select committee so that we can further and in a more detailed way scrutinise the concept of—well actually we'll only be scrutinising the concept of it opening up to wards not just whole districts. But online voting itself needs a lot of scrutiny so that we get things right the integrity of the system remains and we can be secure in adapting changes going forward. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. We look forward to this going to scrutiny at the select committee process."