Smith Nick: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Smith Nick: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:620;Page:16087] 
4.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: Does he stand by his speech to the local government conference 2004 that “This will be a historic election” and “The work that has gone into planning for the introduction of STV is a great example of the successful partnership that exists at present between central and local government.”? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 Yes I do. Single transferable voting (STV) itself is not the problem. The problem is the processing of the vote count by two contractors. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Could the Minister advise the House of the specific “historic” great or “successful” aspect of the local elections; was it the record low turnout was it the lateness of the reporting of the results was it the record high number of invalid votes was it the mess for thousands of voters— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is four questions already. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: —or was it the massive counting debacle that has resulted in tens of thousands of votes not being counted in official results? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is five questions. The Minister may comment on two. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I think the comment that would best answer all five is that the implementation the funding and the organisation and contracting of local elections is the business of local councils. 
David Parker 
: Were there successful vote counting outcomes by other companies in the 2004 elections? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Yes there were. The preliminary results from the largest STV election in the country that for the Auckland District Health Board were available by 10 p.m. on election day. We need to ensure that those sorts of high standards apply across the whole country. 
Jim Peters 
: When the Minister stated in December 2002 that: “The Government has provided options for communities to increase electoral participation and equitable representation.” was he referring to 2004 or to a future Government in 2007; if so which particular options was he thinking about? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Could the member please repeat the question? 
Jim Peters 
: When the Minister stated in December 2002 with regard to the Local Government Bill of 2002 at that stage that: “The Government has provided options for communities to increase electoral participation and equitable representation.” was he referring to 2004 or to a future Government in 2007 or what options did he have in mind? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: My comments were in reference to the Local Government Bill of 2002 which provided communities with the ability to choose their voting system. I remind the House again that the 10 councils that chose to use the STV system all chose it for themselves. 
Rod Donald 
: Can the Minister confirm that all nine STV elections conducted by Taranaki councils and by Independent Election Services went smoothly and in particular that the results of the Auckland District Health Board election that he referred to where over 127000 votes were processed were announced on Saturday night— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: 13000! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will now leave the Chamber. I have warned—and I gave it a second or two ago when another member did it—that the member cannot do that. He knows that is out of order. He is to leave the Chamber. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have just asked a member to leave the Chamber in the middle of a question that is set down in his name. I suggest that that is extremely unfair. Ministers regularly abuse the Standing Orders and indeed your repeated rulings to them about the conciseness required in answers to questions yet on many occasions Ministers such as Mr Mallard have been allowed to remain in the House because they had to answer a question at some time in the future. I think that it is most unfair that Dr Smith has been asked to leave prior to the end of his question. We appreciate that you have made your ruling and we accept your ruling but we ask you to consider whether it may be appropriate for him to return to the Chamber to ask the final supplementary question that he would ordinarily be entitled to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will give that point to the member. It was his original question. I will allow him to ask his supplementary questions and then he is to leave. 
Rod Donald 
: Can the Minister confirm that all nine STV elections conducted by the Taranaki councils and by Independent Election Services went smoothly and in particular as the Minister mentioned that the Auckland District Health Board election which had the largest vote—of over 127000 votes—was processed and announced by 10 p.m. and that Kaipara was announced by 7.30 p.m. and Thames by 8.30 p.m.; and does he agree that the unacceptable delays with other results are due to problems with Electionz.com and Datamail rather than with the STV electoral system itself? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I can confirm the details the member has given and I do agree that it is a processing problem not a problem with STV. 
Heather Roy 
: Is the Minister not embarrassed that his local body elections using STV have produced such a shambolic result and been outperformed by Afghanistan which has just had its first election in 5000 years? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I can confirm that I am extraordinarily annoyed that this has taken place. I am very disappointed for the candidates for the communities that are still waiting to see who their mayors and councillors will be and for the district health boards that are still waiting to find out who their members will be. This is an intolerable situation that must not happen again. 
Larry Baldock 
: Has the Minister considered requesting the services of the United Nations electoral supervisory body once it has completed its task in Afghanistan in order to sort out the electoral botch-up that is affecting numerous local government elections here in New Zealand; if not what assurances can he give that local government democracy will not be run like the elections in the state of Florida in the future? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister may answer the first part of the question. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: No. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Can the Minister confirm that his local government officials have been working with Datamail for the last 2 years to develop the software and system for counting votes and that his department approved the outsourcing to Datamail as stated in the  
National Business Review  
on 24 September this year; and given this detailed involvement of his department why does he not accept responsibility? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: My department does not engage itself in making contracts for the counting of votes. That is done by councils. Those negotiations took place between territorial authorities and the companies that they contracted out to. That is none of my business. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting those answers does the Minister accept personally any responsibility at all for the bungle in this year’s local body elections; if so could he briefly outline where he believes he has failed? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: My responsibility as Minister of Local Government is to provide the statutory framework under which these elections take place. My business is not to engage in contracts; that is the business of local government. What I am doing is trying to provide a solution to this problem. I have asked my officials today to work with Local Government New Zealand to see if this company is not able to fulfil its contracts what alternatives we have to ensure that the vote is counted as soon as possible. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What did the Minister mean when he said on National Radio this morning “the integrity of the vote is always going to be in doubt now”? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The member failed to give the rest of what I said in that interview which was: “unless we make absolutely sure that this vote is counted properly and promptly”. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave to table the statement of 24 September from the Datamail general manager that the Department of Internal Affairs’ local government section had worked to develop the— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I further seek leave of the House to table the transcript in which the Minister said that the vote would always now be in doubt. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that transcript. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I seek leave to table a statement I have just put out from my office asking my officials to look at new options for how the vote count could be done. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table a document from the Auckland District Health Board which used STV voting showing that over 12000 votes were thrown out because of the complexity of the STV voting system. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. 
Document not tabled.