Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Ōtira tēnā tātou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare nei.I'm pleased to take a call in support of the first reading of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge all members who have spoken to it in the House this evening. Clearly the bill is around returning the voting rights of prisoners who are serving less than a three-year sentence. This is a bill that's returning us back to the state that the country was in between 1993 to 2010 and there's been a few contributions from members that I just want to briefly touch on in reference to supporting this bill. There have been some discussions around the constitutional rights of prisoners—whether they're entitled to vote or not—and I just want to draw to the House's attention that when the former National Government changed voters' rights in 2013 the Attorney-General at that time the Hon Chris Finlayson did present to this Parliament noting that disqualification was inconsistent with the electoral rights affirmed by section 12 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It was further upheld by the High Court in the case Taylor v Attorney-General that disqualification was also inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and issued a declaration of it being inconsistent. This again was appealed and upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court and some members in this House have touched on the further report of the Waitangi Tribunal that found the disqualification is a serious breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. So this bill is an electoral bill aligning itself to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and that's why this side and particularly myself are standing in support of it.In terms of the numbers I just again touch briefly on the numbers of Māori in prison—over 50 percent of the male population and over 50 percent of the women population in this country are of Māori descent—given that we are only 15 percent of the population. So one area that I am particularly keen on and this bill is addressing is to increase Māori participation and to acknowledge that we have a justice system that has too many of our people locked up.But this bill is in a range of reforms in which this Government particularly is trying to restore democracy in this country particularly looking at prisoners serving like I said earlier the three years or less in their sentence. In the bill and in the address that the Minister of Justice gave an area I'm particularly keen on as it comes to our select committee that I'm proudly the chair of is the one around the engagement of the Department of Corrections with prisoners about to be released. The Minister alluded to a more hands-on approach by officials in Corrections to ensure that as prisoners are transitioning from their under-three-year term they are fully informed around enrolling so that they can actually participate in the up and coming election and I find it amazing that members of this House find that problematic.All I want to say is that the whole purpose of the select committee is to properly scrutinise this bill based on what the public will say in their submissions. And I do encourage people who may be listening to this debate that they do submit. It's not something new that the Justice Committee has been considering because we considered prisoners' voting rights when we did the local body elections and general election 2017 inquiry that we reported to the House. So there are some common themes that this bill has picked up from the earlier piece of work from the Justice Committee. But I'm like many members looking forward to this particular bill coming on our agenda and again opening up submissions to the general public so we can hear not only the concerns that some members of this House have raised but just in general what the public think around retuning prisoner voting rights for those that are serving less than three years. On that note I commend this bill to the House.