Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Chair. In the spirit of the conversational exchange—which I think the current rules now promote—let me respond. I might just respond to Mr Macindoe's points. I understand the passion and enthusiasm that he brings to the submissions that he makes except to say that while Parliament itself and the House did not operate during lockdown select committees continued to meet and to do their business; it wasn't a holiday for MPs. Every MP as far as I know the stories I've heard continued to work supported and engaged with their constituents and supported and engaged on important topical issues including this one. I do point out that the select committee received 2578 written submissions on this bill 78 percent of which supported the bill and I think we should bear that in mind.To Mr Brown's points and I know he repeated the issues about process and urgency and what have you but to turn to clause 5 and the new section 80(1)(d) he asks how many would it apply to. Well according to officials between 1800 and 1900 prisoners currently. And I think to put that into context there are roughly 9600 people in prison; 36 percent of them have the right to vote because they're remand prisoners—they've always had the right to vote they'll continue to have the right to vote and under National they did—and this will add between 1800 and 1900. And just to allay the fears that members of the National Party might have: if they are so concerned about 1900 other people getting the vote they are in worse shape in the polls than we have hitherto thought they were. So I wouldn't get too concerned about that.In terms of the other two questions that Mr Brown raised the first of which was the examples of the offences it would apply to and how many on average convictions does it take to end up in prison it is simply not possible to give a single answer to those questions. Because in the end sentencing is the job of judges and they look at the offence they look at the track record they look at the circumstances of the offending they look at how the particular offender has responded—have they pleaded guilty early have they taken responsibility for their actions has there been some sort of response in terms of the victim? All of those factors get taken into account. There are some offences that are eligible for a prison sentence but do not incur a prison sentence on the first conviction—there might be multiple convictions before it does; so that doesn't help.In the end what this comes down to as the National Party agreed in 1993 when they reinstated the right of prisoners with a sentence of less than three years the right to vote—they considered that somebody sentenced to less than three years is generally at the lower end of offending they are going to come out and the National Party then supported the principle as this Government does now that even if you are in prison at the time of one election but sentenced to less than three years you are going to be released back into the community and the democratic principles suggest that you should have the right to have a say on who's leading the country that you're going to be released free into. This is not an open slather every prisoner gets to vote; it is knowing that some prisoners would be out before the next election and they must have a right to have a say on who's going to lead their country.To the argument about victims that this is anti-victim well then the members opposite will have to argue that actually once sentenced to prison you should permanently lose your right to vote even if you're released on parole or you've finished your sentence. That's the logical extension of that argument and that is why the High Court the Court of Appeal the Supreme Court and the Waitangi Tribunal have all rejected the National Party argument and I might add this too: if they are so convinced that taking away the right of prisoners sentenced to a sentence of less than three years is somehow going to have some massive rehabilitative and ameliorative effect why is it since 2010 that the prison population went—under their Government—from 7500 to nearly 11000? This didn't make a difference.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Before I call the Hon Mark Mitchell can I apologise to both previous speakers; I pushed the button at one minute forgetting I wasn't to do that in committee stage. My apologies to members and thank you for ignoring it.