Little AndrewThird ReadingHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move That the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I'm very thankful to the efforts of the House to give consideration to this bill in all its stages but particularly in the committee stage. I have to say I thought the committee stage for the second bill was a little more instructive than the first actually. I thought there were some good questions posed and I think the right questions were posed. We all know the background to this bill we all know why it is here and if we're honest with ourselves we can all share a little bit of responsibility for what happened but that is everybody in this House: the Green Party for putting up a Supplementary Order Paper that they sort of lost a bit of control of and perhaps the members on this side of the House might have acted a little more quickly to prevent that from happening but members opposite must take some responsibility. You do not turn up to the House on a matter as important as our electoral laws play ducks and drakes and vote like some sort of crazed maniac because that is not the way we should pay respect to either this House or our electoral laws. This bill does what the previous bill did. That previous bill of course was subject to the full scrutiny of the select committee and was the subject of more than 2500 submissions the subject of the 78 percent of those submissions supporting it. That is that in this case now we are ensuring that in relation to prisoners sentenced to more than three years they are not obliged to receive advice that they can enrol because of course they are disqualified from enrolling and there will be no obligation on prison managers to collect information from disqualified prisoners. Their obligation will sit in relation to qualified prisoners—that is to say those sentenced to a sentence of less than three years. Of course the other thing this bill does is to restore the power of the Electoral Commission to remove from the electoral roll those who are disqualified from voting. That all makes sense. That was a sensible arrangement in the No. 1 bill and then because of a crazy pattern of voting exercised last week that was undermined and changed and removed. We said at the time that we would correct it this week and because this is a Government that fulfils its promises we have done exactly that. Underlying that of course is a very important principle because this bill supports the No. 1 bill that happened last week. It rounds that out and it completes the law change that we had proposed for the Electoral Commission in relation to prisoners serving sentences of less than three years and we did that for very good reason because the 2010 law that this law reverses had been the subject of intense scrutiny by our courts—the High Court the Court of Appeal the Supreme Court—and it was also the subject of a very lengthy investigation and inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal. In each case they found the 2010 law to be unprincipled unfair unjustified and ultimately inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and contrary to the Crown's obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. That's how important this is and that's why it was disappointing. Regardless of how we all feel about it now and we've all had our fun and all played the games it was unfortunate that last week some members thought that issue could be trivialised or should be trivialised in the way that it was. I'm not going to name party names or anything but it does not reflect well on the House when that happens. I'd just invite members opposite now that we've got to this point to accept even though they've disagreed with the fundamental policy—they must do because their party voted for the 2010 law change. But that law change has been subject to considerable scrutiny and this Government would not be doing its job—and indeed if they were still in Government they would not be doing their job—in the face of that overwhelming judicial consideration and inquiry consideration by the Waitangi Tribunal if it did not at least consider reversing the law change that it promoted in 2010. Well that has happened. We've discharged our obligations as responsible parliamentarians we've discharged our obligations as a responsible Government we have respected the relationship of comity between the judiciary and this House and we have come up with this law change and it has been supported and whatever kinds of games might have been played in the committee stage last week the reality now is we have a substantial law change a coherent law change and a principled law change that many New Zealanders respect. Just responding to some of the things that came up in the course of the debate I know members opposite are very good at talking about Well what about the victims in this?" Let's understand what victims need in a criminal justice system. What they need to know is that when they are caused harm we have a police force—the front line of our criminal justice system—that is equipped and there and staffed to do the job of detecting those who cause harm. We made that change—this Government has made that change. What they also want to know is that they are supported through the system. A system that is alien to anybody is explained and they are supported through it and we have very strong commitments to follow through on that. But in the end this bill meets I think a very principled objective which is restoring a democratic right to people. For those who are going to be released into the community between one election and the next it gives them the right to have that say on who is going to lead that community. For those who are fearful that it will lead to prisoners standing for Parliament that is precluded by other parts of the Electoral Act. You cannot stand for Parliament if you are a serving prisoner. The irony is of course that if you're a remand prisoner you actually do retain rights. You retain the right to vote and that's nearly 40 percent of the prison population. In any event this bill deals with that very principled position. For those serving less than three years who will be out between one election and the next then they must have right to have a say. That is a celebration of democracy that is a celebration of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the provision in that Act that upholds the right to vote and it is a celebration of our New Zealandness as we have come to terms with a more just system and a better system for all. That's what this bill does. I commend this bill to the House."