Goudie Sandra: General Debate 
Goudie Sandra: General Debate 
[Volume:620;Page:16111] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 We have just seen one of the greatest stuff-ups compromising thousands of voters in their one opportunity to exercise their democratic rights in the latest local body and district health board elections and what does Minister Chris Carter say? He says: “It wasn’t me.” The Hon Chris Carter like some of his colleagues is well over the speed limit in running away from this issue. Of course the faster he runs the bigger the mess! But the enormity of this problem is too great to run away from or to try to dump on anyone else as the Minister seems intent on doing. So the mess just keeps getting bigger. 
The time frame has now been extended from what was meant to be a reporting back today to possibly 3 weeks but essentially the Minister does not know how long it will take before there is a result for the thousands of voters and the hundreds of candidates who are waiting. If the Minister had his say he would probably say that it will not happen today but it will happen. But effectively he does not know when. So there has been a press release saying that it will be maybe in a week’s time. Now it looks like that could be 2 or maybe 3 weeks but essentially no one really knows. In the Minister’s rush to avoid the mess he said in answer to a question on the single transferable vote (STV): “The 10 councils that have chosen to adopt the single transferable vote system did so through their own choice.” That is what the Minister said. 
I have to tell folks that that is not true. It was not through their own choice. Although some of the 10 councils did choose to use STV others were forced to use the STV system because of referenda that were successful in getting support to do that. But essentially the Minister did not answer the question correctly. He answered the question incorrectly. His answer was untrue. So the Minister Chris Carter clearly needs to reacquaint himself with the legislative processes put in place by his Government and that he as Minister is responsible for implementing. He needs to get his facts right and to answer the questions correctly. 
That is the same person with oversight and responsibility for a major democratic voting process so no wonder it crashed and burnt! This is another fit of political correctness that has tripped up this Minister big time. His lack of oversight has seen thousands of voters and the validity of their vote thrown into contention. It is the Minister’s lack of oversight that has seen hundreds of candidates left at the side of the road not knowing whether they are going to be left in the dust or picked up or whether they have been elected. The results will mean that they also do not know how long they will have to wait for a result. That was quite clearly borne out today by my learned colleagues during question time. 
The Minister Chris Carter is responsible for ensuring that the process we use in exercising our democratic right by way of a vote is sound and that there are no glitches especially from the STV system where there is already a lack of transparency and which has also been driven by a Government agency. New Zealand Post was using subsidiary Datamail and Datamail called the process “intelligent capture”. If one looks at some of the press releases one sees where it used that term. Datamail has no experience with the STV voting system and was using it for the first time. The Minister of Local Government Chris Carter has the responsibility for the oversight of that process in conjunction with the Minister of Internal Affairs. But what happened? It turned into an absolute fiasco because they just did not exercise their responsibility effectively. I wonder whether they also call it intelligent capture because it has turned into a debacle. The Minister Chris Carter should resign if he cannot get this right. The election was crucial. It was about local bodies and district health boards. He should resign in view of the fact that this has turned into a mess. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I call Mark Peck. 
Jill Pettis 
: Thank God for small mercies!