Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15184] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I would like to invite the member Paul Quinn to take the opportunity of what is I think his first time in the chair to answer some questions because that is really his role as the member in charge of the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. 
The first question I have—because I could not get the answer to this question at any stage during this entire debate and I do not think my colleagues could get the answer to this question from the select committee hearings they had either—is how many people voted in the 2008 election while they were in prison. I want to know how many prisoners actually voted in the 2008 election. The reason I want to know the answer to that question is this: when one designs legislation one obviously has a mischief that one is seeking to remedy. Everyone knows that one of the basic rules of interpretation is that judges will always go back and ask what the mischief was that the legislation was designed to remedy. In looking at the mischief that this was designed to remedy we look at the provisions of the bill. The provisions state very clearly that the legislation prevents people from going on to the electoral roll—in fact they are disqualified from being on the electoral roll—if they are serving a sentence of imprisonment. They cannot register as an elector and that is the technique that has been used. It is probably obviously because a specific number of people have taken up their duty to vote in a general election while they have been in prison and I want to know how many did that. How many did that in the 2008 election? I could ask for previous years’ elections figures but I am asking the member in charge of this bill to tell us how many prisoners—how many people in prison—on the day of the last general election actually recorded a vote. That is my first question. 
Then I would like the member to address—once he has addressed the question of how many prisoners voted—some of the anomalies that have arisen as a result of how his bill will apply. I ask the Committee to remember that it is the disqualification of the person from registering as an elector that prevents them from voting on the day. It does not say that one cannot actually vote; it just says that one cannot register as an elector. Someone has to come off the electoral roll. That is quite an interesting thing to do for somebody who is in prison for say a 4-year period. It means that they will be disqualified from registering as an elector so they will have to come off the electoral roll when they go into prison. But what if they come out of prison before the general election is held? If they come out of prison before the general election is held they will have to reregister in order to be able to start voting again from that point on. Of course they will be legally allowed to vote from that point because they will be legally required to register as an elector. I think what the member in charge of this bill has not really responded to in any of the debates so far is that it is a legal requirement to be on the roll yet he is saying to somebody that because that person has committed a crime he or she is no longer legally required to be on the roll. It seems rather ironic to me. Anyway the member can perhaps deal with that. 
We will have one person released the day before the election and one person released on the Monday. They have exactly the same sentence for the same crime but one gets released the day before the general election and one gets released two days after—as general elections are always held on a Saturday—so what happens then? Why is one person treated in a way where they can get on the electoral roll that day? As they leave the prison gates they will go straight down to the post office and get on the electoral roll; I am sure they will will they not? That will be their real incentive for good behaviour to get their right back to vote! They will dash down to the local post office and they will get on to the electoral roll as quickly as they can so that they can vote the next day. But the person who is released on the Monday will sadly miss out. Why will we have such an anomalous situation? That is my second question. 
My third question goes to the difference between someone who gets a prison sentence and someone who gets home detention for exactly the same offence. There will be different criteria applied to each one. I want the member to tell the Committee whether he has thought this through for people who cannot get home detention not because of the nature of their crime but because of the nature of the home that they would be applying for home detention to. I know a couple of guys in Christchurch young men both convicted of exactly the same offence in different circumstances but essentially they got the same sentence. They both applied for home detention. One did not get home detention; the other one did. I know that members have said it was because one lived in Fendalton and one was Maori and lived in Aranui but there is more to that story than meets the eye. The parents of the Fendalton young man were very ashamed of what he had done. They were backing their son to rehabilitate himself. They wanted to keep him out of prison at any cost not only for his future career but also so he would not mix with people who perhaps would lead him on the wrong path. They admitted that he had already gone down that way but they were prepared to provide him with genuine support discipline and love. They were going to ensure that he would stay on the straight and narrow from there on in. The Aranui kid did not have that and that is why he did not get home detention. I do not think our society will do fair justice to people in his situation until we are prepared to offer him an alternative to prison—the same that the young man from Fendalton got. I do not disagree at all with the young man from Fendalton getting home detention; I think it was the right thing to do. But I think the State owed an obligation to offer something similar even though it could not offer this at home to the young Maori lad from Aranui as well. That is the third question. 
The fourth question is why the member has chosen the mechanism of prohibiting people in prison from being on the electoral roll. How will they get on the roll in time if they are released the day before an election? I question him about the concept of a civic duty to vote when we are treating voting here as if it is a privilege. We actually require people to be on the electoral roll as I said before; we do not legally require people to vote in the way that people are required to vote in Australia. But every time we get up and speak at public meetings we always say it is a duty—a civic duty—to be engaged in the political process. So how do we send that message to anyone when we are treating voting as a privilege? 
I imagine that one day someone might ask Paul Quinn what he did when he had a term in Parliament and how he left his mark in those 3 years he was here. He would say: “I stopped people from voting.” and the reply would come back: “But don’t we have a civic duty to vote?”. He would say: “Yes but they were criminals who were in jail.” The person would say: “Oh really serious criminals like that guy Graeme Burton or William Bell?” and he would say: “No no they already couldn’t vote. My bill stopped people convicted of much less serious offences from voting.” When the person asks: “Like what?” he would answer: “Like a bit of tax fraud or something minor.” When he gets told that people get home detention for those sorts of things these days he would say: “Well the people on home detention were never covered—you had to have been in prison on the day of the election.” The person speaking to the member would say: “Wow what an achievement that was! I am sure that that made a real difference.” Paul Quinn would say: “Well it was a deterrent and the reality is that we should not let people vote who commit crimes.” The question would come back: “So how many people do you think the bill stopped from offending?”. Paul Quinn would say: “Well look people would say to themselves: ‘If I commit this crime I’ll end up in jail. OK that’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’ But then they might say: ‘Hang on I might be in jail on the day of the election. I don’t know whether that’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’ ” I ask whether members think that will happen. No I do not think that will happen. 
I have a whole stack of other questions in relation to the decision that the member in charge of the bill made to send the bill to the Law and Order Committee and to have Department of Corrections officials advising on this bill rather than Ministry of Justice officials.