Davidson Marama; Rurawhe AdrianMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): I'm really proud to stand and rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. I think the best thing for all of us is to completely ignore the previous speaker's entire speech that was just laid on the floor. Most of it was an incredible narrative of mistruths and absolute lack of understanding of why this is a good thing to do for the safety of communities and to ensure that we are a Government that upholds the rule of law. A healthy democracy is one that understands that we all need to be engaged as much as possible that every single community and group and individual needs to be encouraged and invited to engage in our democratic processes and that de-humanising people through removing in an undue process their democratic rights to vote does not lead to a healthy democracy.We understand that when people have committed a crime they will lose certain rights. The Ministers on this bill have already referred to those rights such as losing freedom of speech freedom of movement freedom of association freedom of assembly and so on and so forth. The worst thing that we can do is to continue to distance marginalise and further create exclusion especially in our prison populations. That is the most dangerous most unsafe thing that we can do for communities and for our democracy. We here in this House are tasked with ensuring that we build and create a strong democracy one that includes and engages and goes out of our way to make sure we are reaching in to those who feel currently excluded and currently marginalised from our citizen responsibilities to democratically engage. There has been quite a lot of kōrero in this House today about what the good pathways are to keep communities safe. I did want to pick up on that. I wanted to pick up—I mean I'm going to go into the rule of law but I firstly wanted to pick up on the experience of criminal experts judges whom I've spoken directly with community workers and people who have breached the law themselves as well as victims involved with programmes like restorative justice—restorative justice being a way that victims can seek stronger accountability. Restorative justice is a stronger accountability pathway where victims have the option of being able to call the perpetrators who caused them harm to better account than just throwing criminals behind bars and walls does. We understand that there is long-undisputed evidence that the current punitive approach does not help people does not even restore justice—not even necessarily for victims and victims throughout restorative and rehabilitative justice processes and discussions have been very clear about this. If we are taking on board a pathway that understands what the best approach is to ensure that we are rehabilitating properly that we are reducing reoffending then upholding the rule of law to allow prisoners to continue to vote is a part of that pathway. In my short time I will quickly mention—oh actually let's just go to upholding the rule of law because we have heard several speeches from the Opposition today that harp on and on about being law-abiding good citizens and yet they are undermining the rule of law. They are sitting here and standing in this House trying to focus on being law-abiding citizens but by their very acts they are undermining the rule of law. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act the Supreme Court and the very founding Waitangi Tribunal findings document also agreed that removing these voting rights undermined and went against the very rule of law. The so-called citizen-abiding party is feeling strong in its continued message to undermine the rule of law and the essence of engagement and democracy. That's all they can cling on to and we can all see why there is such a weak hypocritical argument for them to be—Hon David Bennett: You can't use that word.MARAMA DAVIDSON: If hypocritical is not a good word to use in this House then I take that back but then it is such a weak argument that turns themselves on the head of what they are trying to uphold. I did think that I should spend a couple of sentences highlighting Mr Mitchell I think it was who stood there without a second thought with his patronising debate of what Māori should be doing. That was astounding. Let's listen to what his lack of insight and experience of the entire colonisation journey has to say about what Māori should be doing to ensure that our people are living good healthy lives. Let's completely ignore the work that our grassroots kaupapa Māori - led organisations have been doing for decades with some of the most challenging conditions and barriers put in front of them and the work that they have been leading despite the systemic failures that have been happening. Let's just ignore that is what Mr Mitchell is saying. Let's ignore the leadership that has been coming from the grassroots community that has been working without systemic support without understanding how tough it is to have to work with whānau in these conditions and let's pretend we know best what Māori should be doing to ensure all of our people are living good lives. That was an astounding debate to put on this floor and I stand strongly to refute every single word and attitude that puts those debates on this floor in this House. When we distance and further diminish and further dehumanise people in prisons we are not just distancing them; we are distancing their whānau who are living in our communities today. We are sending a strong message not just to that person in prison but to that whole whānau that their life too is worthy of being dehumanised is worthy of not having access to engage in democracy. So this is why the Greens are very proud to support this bill. This is also why I wanted—I'm looking at you nervously because I'm wondering if my time's coming up but I'm just going to try to get this last thing out—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member. This debate on this bill is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Wednesday)