Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. As we've heard from my colleague Simon Watts the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill will be supported by the National Party at this first reading. But as we know the proof is in the pudding and the devil's in the detail and so we want to make sure that this bill gets off to select committee and has a bit of interrogation at that point. As we can see from the timetable of this particular bill there is going to be a very short report back on this bill. The Hon Meka Whaitiri when she was speaking to this bill and introducing it has explained that it needs to be in place in time for the local body elections coming up in October which means that it needs to meet the cut-off time for nominations. That means the advertising for candidates must also comply. We do understand the need for this particular bill but we also understand that there are a lot of pieces of legislation that are pushed through this House in a very shortened time frame that do end up biting us at the other end once they have tried to be implemented. So that's why it's always incumbent on us to make sure that those who have an interest in legislation going through this House have adequate time to refer to it and to provide their expertise based on their experience and their roles out there in the community. But we have heard that this bill is quite simple in its intention and that is to take away the requirement that a candidate's residential address is attached to any advertising. We do understand that a residential address would then implicate those others who may live at that house and that may attract some negative attention to those residents. There is a convention in this House even that families are not involved in any of the politics that goes on in this place. And so too we want to protect those in those residential addresses who could be family who could be flatmates from any kind of negative pushback. But I'd just like to note that in my experience in local government it is not the advertising on the campaign material that will insulate you into the future from any criticism from the public; in fact it's probably a magnet to criticism from the public. So it may be that it is the beginning of the hardening process that you have to go through when you take up a public position—that you are able to withstand some of that criticism. But as I said you don't wish that to then reflect back on your families or other residents in that residential address that may be provided. The Hon Meka Whaitiri mentioned that alternatives to the residential address could be the residential address or a business address; it does not exclude residential addresses if candidates wish to use that. In fact I used my residential address many times because I live in such a remote area that no one was ever going to come and hassle me at my place—and all power to them if they wanted to take the drive! But alternatives include an email address a post office box number phone number or a link to an internet site. I think that's the secret behind this bill; the intention is that there is a way to contact the candidate not necessarily go visit them at their home. I think this slight change this amendment to the Local Government Act section 113 will actually achieve that. So as long as candidates are able to realistically be contacted and provide an opportunity for members of the public to critique their views on things to explore what they intend to do in their role I think it's probably a good thing. We do want people to take part in our democracy and part of that must be done in a very safe way. It's tough enough now attracting people to become involved in local democracy and we want to make that as smooth a pathway as absolutely possible. For many candidates they don't have the privilege of having the backing of a large party organisation behind them and so they won't have an alternate address—physical address—that they can apply to any advertising material. So with an individual who is running independently for election in those situations then you know we are providing in this slight amendment to the Local Government Act an alternate way that they can complete their candidacy and participate in the democracy. I think New Zealand can be very proud of the accessibility that we have to local democracy in this country. It's very easy to participate and it's open to everyone but we do want to maintain security for them so they are not intimidated away from wanting to take part in that. We do have concern about the fact that it is now a last-minute introduction into this House having been discussed for several weeks already. It was only introduced into this House on 7 June. So we do have concerns that it could have been addressed a bit earlier. But here we are today and we do hope that it will make people feel as though the opportunity to stand for their local council local boards etc. will be an easier pathway for them as a result of this bill being introduced and becoming law. So with that I commend the bill to the House.