Cosgrove Clayton: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:15962] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I have to say that that speech will be a hard act to follow. I judged the calibre of that speech via the eminent National folk who have come to the Chamber to support Mr Quinn. We can look at Aaron Gilmore a genius in his own lifetime! It is a pity his CV did not match. [ 
Interruption 
] Hang on! He has come out of his cave. We can look at Mr Quinn who was described in that eminent report in  
Trans Tasman 
 as follows: “Media-loathing misfit. Rude and arrogant.” That is a bit rough I think. “National should start wondering whether this list MP is a waste of space.” That is what his mates said about him in the  
Trans Tasman 
 report. Then we have Melissa Lee and the chairman of the parliamentary branch of Toastmasters Cam Calder. 
Somewhere in the Chamber I know is the chair of the Law and Order Committee—she has just arrived—Sandra Goudie. She will go down in history for voting down a resolution in the select committee on this bill the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill that was put forward by Labour colleagues. They thought it would be a good idea when we get a bill on a justice matter or on any other matter that we get the specialist agency responsible for administering it to come and advise us. She voted against that resolution. That is her claim to fame. 
Let us address the bill. The only thing that has changed about this bill since I last spoke about it is that it has been amended to patch up the stupidity of Paul Quinn. He is a man who will live in infamy and go down in history in this House for putting forward a bill to stop prisoners from voting and had it returned to the House thanks to Sandra Goudie and the great National geniuses on the Law and Order Committee in a form that gave people like William Bell and Graeme Burton the worst criminals in our prisons the right to vote. Judith Collins the Minister of Corrections ran a mile; she sprinted from it. The only other thing that has changed in this bill is that two other pages which are basically blank have been added to the other 2½ pages that are before us. 
There is no analysis on this bill. We heard a speech from that member which said nothing. He has an iPad. I am not very au fait with technology—although I am sure you are Mr Assistant Speaker Barker—but it is a fancy piece of technology. Somebody has loaded the notes on it but I think they might have done a Coleman and got the speech wrong. There was not one fact in it. For every example Mr Quinn used such as the drink-driver and the person stealing one would think that as of tonight when this bill is passed it will all change. The person who wants to burgle a house will stop at the front door and think: “Hang on. Paul Quinn whoever he may be has had a bill passed so that if I burgle Mr Smith’s home I will lose my vote. I had better walk away and be a good little boy.” 
The truth about this stupid legislation is that it is no more than a political pamphlet that no submitter supported apart from David Farrar and we know where his politics lie. Even David Farrar agreed like every other submitter did that there was no international or domestic evidence anywhere that taking away a vote from a prisoner would change behaviour stop recidivism deter crime or most important aid in the healing of victims. 
This bill is so bankrupt that even that discredited hypocrite Garth McVicar did not bother to put in a submission on it. He recently attacked our top policeman Howard Broad for having the audacity to even ponder that it may be better to stop crime and stop creating victims rather than simply going down the track that we do now in respect of the Department of Corrections. He was grossly attacked on the day of the Pike River memorial service. Even the Sensible Sentencing Trust crew and Mr McVicar who has no moral authority to represent victims any more after the David Garrett affair did not bother to put in a submission on this bill. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Where is that member going to get a job next year? Standing on a pulpit maybe. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I see the great genius opposite! It will be interesting to see whether Mr Gilmore gets up to speak. He has a million degrees from all over the world I am told including PhDs both honorary and genuine from all over the world— 
Chris Hipkins 
: From the best Weet-Bix packets in the world. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —from the best Weet-Bix packets in the world my colleague says. I invite Mr Gilmore rather than clucking from the sidelines to show some guts get on his feet and make a cogent argument in support of this bill. I say to that member to get on his feet. No he likes to sit there on the sidelines and have a wee squawk. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Under the Standing Orders I request the member to yield so that I can carry on and finish his speech in the time remaining. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: If a member asks to yield it is for the member who is speaking to yield. It is not the Chairperson’s role to do that. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That says it all does it not? I will not yield. He can take his turn like a normal member of Parliament. I ask that member to get up after me make a speech and make an argument but he will not do it. No one in this House— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: You’re too scared. I challenged you and you’re too scared to give up your time. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not having that. You heard that interjection. Saying a person is too scared and calling their character into question is out of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I did not hear the interjection. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am telling you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am on my feet. If the member wants his point of order dealt with he will be quiet. The member says something was said that was offensive. He took offence to it. Did any member say something that was offensive? If they did I ask them to withdraw and apologise. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: I am not sure what the member found offensive but I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: We will carry on with the debate and if the member wants to take a call and make a cogent argument in favour of this bill we will be interested. 
The people of New Zealand want real solutions to real problems. Mr Quinn said that he lives in the real world. It is a bit like Judith Collins with the boy-racer stuff. A year ago almost to the day we heard that we would have cars crushed all over Christendom. It would be carnage in the metallic sense. Not one car has been crushed. As I said in the second reading debate Mr Quinn woke up one day lifted the wet towel from his head and thought he would get a headline in the 
 New Zealand Herald 
. Well he has made history in this House and maybe  
Trans Tasman 
 is right about him. 
This bill has no analysis. It has no evidence attached to it. In the third reading debate he could not even make an argument in favour of it. At the select committee we saw Ministry of Justice officials barred from being anywhere near this bill. Why? Because—as we know with the “three strikes” legislation when Ministry of Justice officials were barred—the select committee and the Government did not want those officials coming in even though they are empowered experienced and skilled specialists in running elections and all matters electoral. Members opposite did not want Ministry of Justice officials to come to the select committee because they knew those officials—people whom Mr Quinn calls I think “woolly thinkers” or something—would say that the bill would make no difference. 
I say to a victim out there that sadly this bill will tug at their heartstrings. I ask any member to give me an example that shows how it will heal a victim or aid in that healing process. I ask any member to give me an example of where this bill will discourage recidivism or aid in changing prisoner behaviour so that people do not offend again and do not create another victim. Despite Garth McVicar’s blustering I would have thought that behaviour change in a prison is a civic duty of this House so that a prisoner goes out of prison having had their behaviour changed thereby not creating a further victim in our society. This bill is a political pamphlet. 
Sandra Goudie who chaired the select committee truncated and shut down every debate she could but she could not shut down the question that we asked every submitter. We asked whether there was any domestic or international evidence that this bill would have any effect in helping victims reducing recidivism changing behaviour or reducing reoffending. To a man and a woman—even including the one person David Farrar who supported the bill; he is a current National Party person—they were genuine enough to say that there was no evidence. 
I put to the committee that if we wanted to get really Draconian and maybe this is the next step for National—I put this to Mr Young because I think Mr Young has a background in religion—we should attack the religious beliefs of people and prevent say believers from exercising their religion in a prison. I suspect that that would be of higher value to them and come at a greater cost to them. This certainly will not. I am not suggesting that we should do that of course. I say for the record that I am not suggesting that at all. 
Grant Robertson 
: That is the next member’s bill! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Maybe that is the next member’s bill. Maybe getting back to bread and water might be the next member’s bill. 
Trevor Mallard was right. This bill shows the ineptness lack of analysis lack of substance and lack of gravitas that comes from the member in charge of the bill. It is another political pamphlet created so that he can run around the country saying that he stopped the prisoners voting—after it was pointed out that he had given all the bad guys the vote per se and the bill was then patched up. 
The victims we will have in the future and the mums and dads and people he talked about earlier tonight will sit there and laugh at this bill. It will have no effect and deep down he knows it. He knows that because he could not even make a cogent argument in support of it apart from rattling off a whole lot of examples and saying that every person who is convicted of being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle will not do it because they will lose their vote. When the bill is passed and gets the Royal assent let us see whether within 24 hours it changes behaviour in our communities. I suspect it will not; I know it will not. The member should really be ashamed of himself for having wasted millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in this process and produced a political pamphlet.