Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): You learn something every day in this place. I did not know what cognate" meant until I heard this debate and I thought I had better look it up in the dictionary. It simply means "related interconnected or associated". I think most of the people listening might prefer it if we called them related bills and said that is why we are discussing them together. Maybe I am more ignorant than most of the members here but I suspect most of us did not know what that word meant.Denis O'Rourke: Speak for yourself.Hon DAVID PARKER: I was speaking for myself.I turn firstly to the Electoral Amendment Bill. Democracy which we all celebrate in this House is incredibly important and I think we should all be worried that there is a decreasing participation in democracy around the Western World including in New Zealand. And if there is something that disappoints me about this bill it is that it actually really does not go very far to try to address that by making it easier for people to enrol and vote. My colleague Clare Curran has already said that at the last election 27000 votes were disallowed many of those because people were not enrolled properly.We know that one of the reasons why enrolment is dropping is a lower interest in democracy. I think that is happening around the world. An additional reason in New Zealand that the rolls are imperfect is related to the decreasing rate of homeownership. When people do not live in their own home and they are moving from rental to rental to rental—Tracey Martin: Or a car.Hon DAVID PARKER: —or cars—it is more likely that they will not be enrolled to vote and therefore not be able to participate.Denis O'Rourke: We need tarpaulin TV.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well yes. It is really sad is it not that a number of the people who are not enrolled to vote do not even have a house. But the decreasing rate of homeownership which is now lower than it has been for over 60 years is one of the reasons why enrolments are dropping.In the face of that reality—that we have got a decreasing rate of democratic participation—you would think that a Government would be doing its utmost to make it easy to enrol. I have said for a number of years now that I think that everyone who has got an IRD number should be able to vote. A lot of overseas countries base their electoral roll on IRD numbers. It would take a very minor change to the system to actually require a disclosure as to whether you were a citizen or resident entitled to vote and you could save all of this money that we waste on the current roll by actually basing it on the IRD roll. Everyone virtually everyone who is of voting age has an IRD number. You need an IRD number if you are on a benefit. You need an IRD number if you are in work. There are virtually no New Zealanders who do not have an IRD number.There is some complexity in ensuring that you do not have people who are not entitled to vote and are entitled to an IRD number. I suspect if you look at those numbers the numbers would be so small that the more effective thing might be to ignore that as irrelevant at the margin. But even if it was a problem you could devise a system as they do overseas to have some recognition on your IRD number as to whether you are entitled to vote or not.You can very easily push against voting fraud also by putting a year of birth associated with the IRD number as they do in a lot of Scandinavian jurisdictions—or some Scandinavian jurisdictions—and then you have actually got a check for someone who is coming in to vote. If they are presenting themselves in respect of an IRD number that is transparently not the same as the age that they are meant to be you have got another check against voter fraud. That would be a very very easy way to save money because at the moment we have got these two records being kept—one at the Inland Revenue Department and one through the electoral system—and it would also improve voter turnout.Why does National not then do this? Well there is a cycle to these things through time. We know that fewer of the people who are lower-income in society vote National than vote Labour. More of the people who are higher-income in New Zealand vote National than Labour. We all know this. It is true. It does not mean to say that there are no low-income people who do not vote National or no high-income people who do not vote Labour. But the truth of it is that in general a higher proportion of lower-income people who are more likely to be disenfranchised by current rules would vote Labour and that is actually one of the underlying reasons why National does not move on these issues.We saw it also it following the—was it the last election Clare Curran or the one prior when they did away with voting cards? One of the ways in which you can encourage people to vote if English for them is a second language or if it is their first time voting or they are not sure how to vote is to send them a voting card in the mail which makes it easier for them. It was a piece of paper about the size of a credit card. It gave their name and their address and it sort of said that you could take the card to the voting booth. You did not have to take it along but it made it easier for people to exercise their right of franchise to vote. And National did away with it.Hon Members: No we didn't.Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes you did.Chris Bishop: It's still there.Hon DAVID PARKER: Is it?Denis O'Rourke: Still got it.Hon DAVID PARKER: Oh I apologise. National tried to get rid of them. I am sorry. Oh well I thank you for not letting me spend the next 4 minutes on that. I thank you for that act of generosity and I take that particular accusation back.Another initiative that has not been advanced was enrolments on the day. Clare Curran alluded to this. Why in today's world of computer technology can we not enrol on the day? Really I mean—it really beggars belief. If you present effectively some form of ID why can you not vote on the day and be enrolled on the day? I do not understand why there are barriers being put in place of that.In respect of the counting of advance votes in advance of election day I agree with that. It is a good idea. But I am told that at the moment the electoral officers around the land are trying to prevent scrutineers being present while that is done. That would stop scrutineers as they have done throughout the years effectively being able to mark off who has voted. For many many years in New Zealand it has been legitimate for whatever political party to keep an eye on who has voted. It is one of the checks and balances against voter fraud because it is another check against people voting twice and political parties have got an interest in proper processes around voting and we help keep it clean. But it is a little bit inconvenient to the electoral officers to at times have representatives of political parties there counting votes and looking over their shoulder and they would rather that that was not happening. So I am told that at the moment—and this is current for the likes of the Mt Albert by-election and being proposed in respect of the general election this year—the registrar of electors or whoever is the person who oversees elections on the day is proposing to stop political parties' representatives being present at and participating in the counting of advance votes.In respect of the broadcasting changes can I thank the Government for those changes. I agree with other speakers that they are very very sensible. The way of the media has changed. We know that. It is I think proper that a relatively small amount by Government standards is applied to publication of different parties' policies in advance of an election through broadcast media. Those broadcast channels are changing. They are not through traditional TV and radio to the same extent. Individual content in a somewhat broadcast manner through social media is becoming more frequent and we saw that writ large in the American election. It is not all good what is happening through some of these social media platforms but that is the way things are moving. So I think it is appropriate that there is a change to those rules to allow the funding to be used as political parties think best.Political parties have got an interest in reaching as many people as effectively as they can so the interests of political parties actually align with the public interest which is the dissemination of information to voters. I think that more flexibility being given to political parties rather than it all being directed to be spent on opening addresses and closing addresses is very sensible and I think the public policy ideal that lies behind that funding is best matched by loosening up the rules and enabling political parties to do it better than they currently can. With those comments I am pleased to record that the Labour Party is voting in favour of both of these bills."