Chauvel Charles: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
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CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to support the second reading of the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2). As the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture pointed out the Justice and Electoral Committee spent some time on this legislation. We reported it back unanimously. We think we have improved the bill with our recommendations and I hope the House will support those recommendations. 
I will say just a couple of words about what the bill does. Essentially this legislation is the implementation of stage two of a two-stage reform of the administration of the electoral machinery in New Zealand. Members will recall the set-up of the newly constituted Electoral Commission. We have debated that matter a number of times in this House already this year most recently I think last month when the House recommended to the Governor-General that we finally bring the commission up to strength appoint a deputy chairperson for the commission and bring its membership to three. That resolution was passed with the unanimous support of the House and I understand that the Governor-General has now acted on that advice. 
The other important thing I think it is worth stressing about this legislation is that it introduces some important abilities for the commission to use new technologies—in particular online enrolment which will make a big difference particularly as far as young people’s involvement in the electoral process is concerned. 
There are a couple of other machinery changes in the bill that I will mention in my speech but basically members on this side of the House hope this new Electoral Commission will be a more effective regulator of elections. With its integrated nature it will be able to provide better access to electoral services and will encourage a more efficient and strategic approach to electoral administration. 
At all times we have been supportive of the Government’s two-stage approach to reform. There was the need to pass legislation last year to honour the convention that legislation that would govern a general election would not be passed in an election year itself. Doing this reform in two stages has basically allowed that convention to be satisfied. Late last year the legislation touching on electoral finance and administration for the general election was passed. It came into effect very quickly afterwards on 1 January this year. I think it is fair to say that it will take a while for the actors to get their heads around all the ramifications of that legislation but it certainly indicates the common-sense nature of the convention that this House does not legislate for elections in the year that those elections fall due. 
Those first parts of the reform dealt with the establishment of the new Electoral Commission subsuming into it the old commission and the former position of Chief Electoral Officer. This bill brings the Chief Registrar of Electors into the commission. The original proposal was that that should occur I think in October next year. The select committee thought—with justification I think—that that date could be brought forward to July next year and that is the recommended change. We have heard from the Minister that that change has the Government’s support which is pleasing. 
I think it is appropriate to not let this opportunity pass without doing something that has been done in other speeches on other electoral reforms during this Parliament and that is to pay tribute to the integrity of the statutory officers who have been responsible in the past in New Zealand for the conduct of elections in the three agencies we are now combining into one. There is every reason to hope that the trust we have reposed with great justification in those officers will continue to be justified in the new integrated commission. 
The other thing that is important to say about this bill is that every 3 years the Justice and Electoral Committee conducts a review of the way in which the administration of a general election took place. Some of the provisions we are debating today result from the standard review that was conducted into the 2008 general election and I will speak a little bit about those changes in a moment. 
I mentioned earlier that this legislation allows for the use of new technologies. Most interestingly and most excitingly it allows for online enrolment. Given that the new technologies the internet and what have you have been available for a number of years now one would think that we might already have taken advantage of this new technology. I see Minister Williamson smiling across the aisle; he thinks the internet is already redundant and is about to be replaced by something else. I am sure we will be enlightened as to his vision at some point. But the point here is that we all know how important it is to get younger people and people who are less engaged with the mainstream to take an interest in electoral enrolment because if they go on the roll first thing and vote the first time they are eligible they are much more likely statistically to keep voting in the future. If we can get access to populations that are much more likely to take an interest in the process because they are being engaged through new technologies social media and what have you they are much more likely to keep— 
Sandra Goudie 
: What have you? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: —a high level of interest in election enrolments. I can see that Mrs Goudie is almost as excited as I am by these prospects which is quite a frightening thought when we boil it down—Ms Adams as well. The good thing about the legislation is that it will allow for these new technologies to be used. It will allow for online enrolment but also it puts some real safeguards in place so that some of the obvious abuses that could come from permitting a non - paper-based enrolment scheme are minimised. 
The bill has other provisions that go towards the maintenance of the integrity of our system—something we should be very very proud of in this country. Those provisions allow for the enrolment centre—or the commission as it will now be—to be sure that a person is properly on the roll. In respect of people who are new to New Zealand who seek to come on to the roll at the moment the information of the Department of Labour can be used only to check the immigration status of somebody who is already enrolled; it cannot be checked while an application is being processed. That ability is provided for under this legislation. The bill provides for a new system that is much more efficient. 
As I mentioned earlier the select committee recommended that we bring forward the deadline for the role of the Chief Registrar of Electors to be transferred to the new Electoral Commission. There is also a clause allowing the registrar to seek the consent of declared Maori electors to supply the Tuhono Trust with electors’ email addresses and contact phone numbers. That is clearly on a consent basis and it will allow that trust to administer its affairs more efficiently. New section 124(5) inserted by clause 14 provides for the use of electronic copies instead of paper copies and the scanned copy of the enrolment record can be used for the same purposes as the original paper copy. There are one or two consequential amendments relating to the Chief Registrar of Electors the Electoral Commission and the schedule. 
This bill is good legislation. It is good that we are keeping our electoral laws updated that we are being mindful of the possibilities afforded by new technologies that we are minimising the possibility of fraud and other abuse and that this is all being done in a timely way with appropriate regard for the conventions. With those few words I commend the bill to the House.