Penk ChrisLOCAL ELECTORAL MATTERS BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 14 March.CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Continuing this third reading debate on the Local Electoral Matters Bill on this side of the House—just to reiterate for those who might value the reminder of where we had got to previously when the House was sitting—on the National Party side of the House we do support the bill. We note that the Justice Committee has examined it and made some recommendations and its recommendation that the bill be passed is subject I suppose to those being taken into account and finding their way into the proposed legislation. Those changes are indeed in front of us so I will look at those briefly but also I'd like to make note of the fact for the record that National has reserved its position to the extent of highlighting some reservations about the possibility that the legislation might be employed and just to sound a note of caution about some of the innovations that are inherent in the processes that are being brought forward so as better to protect the security and integrity of the voting process.First though I'd like to focus on what seems to me a very positive aspect of the bill which is the allowing of partial trials of new voting methods and alongside that the innovation to allow local authorities which almost inevitably would be councils but I suppose too potentially without having sat on the select committee at this point—Chlöe Swarbrick: DHBs.CHRIS PENK: —district health boards and other local bodies—and I'm being given some assistance across the House for which I'm grateful as always—Chlöe Swarbrick: Local government's awesome!CHRIS PENK: —but not that grateful so I'll continue on.The ability for date of birth information to be provided from the database of electors by such local authorities as defined in such collaborative fashion a moment ago and also just to clarify what use that can be put to—so to allow in other words researchers to be supplied with that date of birth information and age group information. You might well ask what the point of that is what the problem is that would be solved by doing so. Well the problem would be that of under-participation in our democracy by voters in local government elections in general but in particular those of particular voting groups by age and more specifically still those in the younger age brackets. So whereas there's a general principle of information privacy and security that information should be used or provided on a need-to-know basis I think we can safely say that there is a need to know in the wider context not just of voting in a particular election but to understand the extent to which young people are engaged in our democracy. That is an important thing in itself if we are to take seriously the idea that democracy is the rule of the people and people" includes those who are old enough to vote but young enough that historically and traditionally they have not done so in great numbers.To touch on the National Party view as promised in relation to some of the additional tools which we've called useful in the select committee report in that section where we've expressed that view we've highlighted the evidence that has been provided around the desirability of having paper ballots that are filled out on paper notwithstanding that they can be transmitted by electronic means for example—I suppose by email but certainly over the internet—the key point being that to ensure maximum protection essentially of the citizens' right to be able to vote in a way that will be recorded accurately the vote should be cast on paper and to avoid the possibility of problems whether innocent but nonetheless significant or of course in a way that might reflect a practice that we could refer to as hacking or similar. Of course we note the recent experience of the census which in fact is still ongoing. We've referred to it sort of almost in the past tense in that section of the report but it remains a problem for us. While that's a slightly different matter from electronic voting nevertheless there are potentially parallels which we are anxious to avoid.On that note I'll bring to a close my contribution in this the third reading and look forward to hearing the other contributions and no doubt the passage of the bill very shortly."