Clendon David: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Clendon David: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15191] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a short call in the Committee stage of the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. I begin by complimenting the speaker who just sat down Simon Bridges on his loyalty to his colleague and indeed to his party. I believe that only loyalty could drive him to make a speech in support of what is deeply flawed poorly conceived and poorly targeted legislation that will not achieve any positive end. To the contrary it will have only negative outcomes. 
It is quite timely that we are debating the bill this week. In fact it was debated by a number of people last evening at the launch of a website. I was privileged to attend a Robson Hanan Trust function under the heading “Rethinking Crime and Punishment” at which a website was launched. In that room were numerous people representing a number of church-based community-based and other organisations who have positive and real solutions to the problems of prison and incarceration in this country. 
There are very real solutions out there. We know how they could be applied and how we could save an enormous amount of money and a great deal of social discontent. A great deal of human suffering could be avoided by applying some of the very practical very real and very achievable solutions proposed by people outside of the House and within some of the networks of penal reformers. 
The bill has very little to recommend it. Admittedly I have not been in this House a very long time but the report from officials on this bill has the strongest language I have ever seen endeavouring to dissuade a select committee from supporting a bill. The report talks about prisoner disqualification cases having been argued in the highest appellate courts of comparable international jurisdictions. It waves red flags to say that this bill if it is passed not only will be challenged in our own Supreme Court in New Zealand but also will inevitably be taken to international courts where it will be challenged in its turn. 
This week we have seen news from the United Kingdom that after 5 nearly 6 years of resisting the UK Government has finally bowed to a European court decision from 2005 that the blanket ban imposed by the UK Government was illegal and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. Under article 46 of that convention the UK is obliged to abide by this final judgment. The direct and inevitable consequence of the UK Government’s failure to abide by that ruling of the court is that to date 1340 inmates or former inmates are lining up to claim compensation from the UK Government for what was effectively an illegal removal of their right to vote while they were in prison. 
Clearly we are in a different jurisdiction and we would not be subject to those rules. But if this legislation goes through we can take it as a given that there will be appeals to international courts. It may be nothing that can require us to respond—perhaps we will not ever face compensation charges—but think what it will do for New Zealand’s reputation internationally as a country that pays attention to human rights and that acknowledges that prisoners are humans despite being in prison and are still deserving of human rights. 
The previous speaker challenged us to come up with some ideas and some examples of why people in prison should retain their right to vote and I am very happy to offer a few examples. I ask why we ought to deliberately further alienate people who are already removed albeit often for quite short periods from society from social interaction and from making some useful contribution. Taking away the right to vote from all prisoners says to them that voting is a limited right and that perhaps it is something they ought not to give any particular weight to when they re-emerge from prison. 
I ask whether it is not more intelligent and more sensible to do everything we can to keep people engaged with the wider society as a step towards their more secure and better integration when they inevitably return to that wider society. We are not talking about the high-end people who commit horrific murders who commit extreme crimes that none of us could possibly contemplate. We are talking about people who are in prison for relatively short periods of time for relatively minor property offences who will also lose the right to vote.