Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
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Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I rise to support the referral of the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) to the Justice and Electoral Committee where obviously we will subject it to some scrutiny. Labour is generally supportive of the bill we have before us given that it will give effect to the new Electoral Commission as the second part of what has been a two-stage reform of electoral administration. We do appreciate the way in which the Minister of Justice has been relatively consultative on these matters and I look forward to the additional appointments to the Electoral Commission. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I shall enjoy taking the entire 9 minutes on addressing the support that Labour has for the first reading of the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2). I also say to the Government that we will be scrutinising this legislation very carefully at the select committee as we always do with electoral law reform in respect of any changes that may have constitutional ramifications. We will certainly work through this bill as we did with its predecessor bill the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill which enacted the original stage one of this two-stage process. 
Just before the dinner adjournment I was addressing the question of appointments to the Electoral Commission. As members will be aware we have appointed two members to the new commission in order to get it up and running to take effect from 1 October this year. It has taken effect and it is already in play. There is a third appointment to be made and I took the opportunity at the end of the last session to inquire of the Minister as to how progress was going on the third appointment. I am hoping that that will not be too far away now. 
The new commission is in place but this legislation will not take practical effect until after the next general election. It is designed to bring the third of the three independent entities that are being merged in this process into the new Electoral Commission. The third role is that of the Chief Registrar of Electors. The reason that this provision was delayed and not included in the original legislation is that in order to properly run a general election which we have next year—we have not only a general election but also a referendum running alongside it—it is really important to allow considerable lead-in time for the transferring of that role. There simply has not been time in this calendar year to transfer the Chief Registrar of Electors’ responsibility for the electoral role to the new Electoral Commission in time for the 2011 general election. The transfer of responsibility will happen on 1 October 2012 which I suspect will be just over a year after the next general election. There are those who think the next general election will be just under a year from now but there is probably only one person in this House who knows precisely what that date may be. He probably has not worked that out yet himself because he will have to lick his finger put it in the air see how the polls are going and see which way the wind is blowing before he makes that call. I think it makes good sense to hold over the transfer of the Chief Registrar of Electors’ responsibility so that a considerable amount of lead-in time is allowed. 
The second thing that this bill does is allow for some amendments that arose from the inquiry into the 2008 general election which was conducted by the Justice and Electoral Committee. It is good to see recommendations from our select committee review process being implemented. I have sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee at some stage in a previous part of my 20 years in Parliament. We did one of those inquiries and made a number of recommendations but unfortunately they were not picked up by the Government of the day. When they are picked up I think it proves that parliamentarians can play a very useful role in looking in a non-partisan way dispassionately at the processes that may give rise to opportunities to strengthen the law. In this case it makes really good sense to use the Department of Labour’s immigration information to check as a preliminary step whether an applicant for enrolment is qualified to be enrolled. That is a good use of the process of select committee inquiries in bringing about a simple change in the law that will streamline the whole process and add integrity to the role. 
The third thing that this legislation does is begin to set up an e-environment for our elections and I think that will excite those who are interested in such matters. It starts with stage one which is online re-enrolment and updating. This bill if it is passed in its current form will enable voters who are already on the electoral role to re-enrol or to communicate any changes about their enrolment details via the Internet. The Minister of Justice pointed out in his comments in the introductory address that the igovt log-on service is the basis for that re-enrolment. It is stage one of a two-stage process that will ultimately give electors the option of full online enrolment. I support the concept. I think it is important that we become relevant to the new age as it were of electronic media. If we are to encourage a generation that really knows only electronic media as the means of communication we need to come up to speed with the way they now do business with each other and communicate with each other. If we want to engage young people in the electoral process then we have to find a way of enabling them to at least register their enrolment online in a way that is secure. 
As I said the first step is covered by the igovt log-on service which is being developed by the Department of Internal Affairs. In respect of the second stage there has to be a much higher level of security around giving somebody the ability to enrol fully online from start to finish. The igovt log-on service is not sufficiently strong or robust to give the degree of security we need. The reason we need that security is that our electoral rolls must have integrity. Nothing is more important than people being able to exercise their right to vote. It is actually a legal requirement to be on the roll—unless one is a victim of Paul Quinn’s bill. Essentially one has to be on the electoral roll because it is a legal requirement to be on the electoral roll. It is the basis for one’s right to exercise one’s duty to vote. So I think the Government is going down the right track of seeking to secure a much much more robust system for verification. The explanatory note outlines that the Department of Internal Affairs is developing the igovt identity verification service the IVS which requires users to verify their identity online in real time. It will probably not be: “Give us your email address and we’ll send you a little code that you can put in.”; it will obviously be a much more strengthened process than that. 
I am certainly looking forward to the submissions that will come in on this bill. I know that there is a lot of interest in seeing an expansion of electronic media use in terms of our electoral system. I think it helps to make it much more relevant to young people. For that reason I hope that when the bill is reported back we can see some progress in that regard.