O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Oh Madam Speaker look one of the ironies of tonight's debates: I am not a flip-flopper at all; it's one of the probably annoying elements to the Labour Party that I'm relatively consistent. But one of the things I also have noted tonight in the contributions is that the Labour Party Greens and New Zealand First seem very keen to give if you will many voices to prisoners but not exercise any voice themselves taking remarkably and appallingly short calls. As I say they themselves on the Government benches are not prepared to speak to this bill in defence or otherwise but are more than happy for those who commit criminal offences to have an enormous voice—and in fact one of the most important voices of all—which is the vote.We're here at the second reading—always a remarkable instance to be first and foremost doing a second reading literally minutes after the first reading and not a second after a select committee. And for those at home who are going What on earth is he talking about?"—which in itself may be a common experience—and asking "What does he mean?" what I mean is that we've had no select committee process. And I understand that fine colleagues on this side who have chosen to use more of the English vernacular than the other—mainly they've got past the words "the" and "commend"—have pointed out that there's been no committee. I'm not going to drag that out too much but again that's a fairly major affront. I acknowledge this is a small change and the reasons for it I think we will quickly look over but fundamentally there is a paradox—there is a paradox—at play. We are giving the right to vote to prisoners. And look there's good reason for that. I mean we disagree on this side of the House as a party but there is if you will a good moral argument for prisoners to have a vote to have a say. Yet the paradox of course tonight is that the New Zealand public are given absolutely no right to have a say on this bill. They've been censored for want of a better word. They've been precluded—Andrew Bayly: Outrageous.SIMON O'CONNOR: It is outrageous. Again the irony is doubly so—if one can double irony but it's been doubly doubly so—that again prisoners are allowed to speak. They're allowed to exercise their voice and to vote but the New Zealand public is not being given any chance.So we've come into a second reading without having in effect gone through the right and due processes which again just highlights the problem we're dealing with here: that we're giving rights to prisoners but removing in effect the rights of the Parliament the rights of the New Zealand public. As I said though and it's tempting to throw a bouquet at the Government it is legitimate to argue that prisoners should have the right to vote. There is an element of saying "Actually those who are incarcerated should vote for the very system which incarcerates them." It's a valid position. It's one that the National Party of course does not share. We are of course her Majesty's loyal Opposition and we're allowed to take that position. Unfortunately we've had a Government or an array of governing parties which are completely confused. And that's why we've ended up at this second reading tonight—under urgency I might add; under urgency. We've already spent effectively two extra days last week considering legislation including the first draft of this and because of effectively—I'd better not use too much colloquialism tonight—DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.SIMON O'CONNOR: But because the Government has stuffed up the processes we've got to waste more of the Parliament's time to get this right. And why we're doing this now at the second reading is a clear disparity in understanding between the governing parties. We have the purists which are the Greens—I'm not sure I really want to use the words "purist" and "Greens" together. I'm not sure whether that's a contradiction in itself. The purists in the Greens say that every prisoner has the right to vote from the serial offender the rapist the murderer the mass murderer right through to the person who steals a candy bar. They're purist. New Zealand First—I don't know where they are; they're all over the place. It's funny that they're actually not putting New Zealanders first in this instance. And then Labour which is taking again a more moderate position but saying "If you're serving over three years …"We're in this situation consequently because the parties themselves could not agree in principle and the parties themselves could not actually organise themselves sufficiently to progress the bill last week in a way that made coherent form. And I suppose my major issue then in this second reading contribution is how on earth can we have confidence in a Government to protect the democratic rights of New Zealanders when they cannot even get right the fundamental pieces of law to enable in this case criminals to vote? It's a very odd situation and I think unfortunately it just highlights not only the disparity of views on the other side and particularly between three parties but it just highlights the absolute fundamental problems of a democratic system that they're applying—and democracy is good by the way; just to make that clear but the application of democratic processes are being completely mixed up to achieve an end which is very controversial very controversial. As I say a person can take quite rightly the moral position that people should vote for the system which incarcerates them. However I have no doubt—not that I have seen the Labour Party polling. You can all relax; it hasn't been leaked to me—yet. They'll know that this is incredibly unpopular in the New Zealand public; that people—[Interruption] Someone laughs mainly because they don't actually know what the public opinion is—very unpopular; very very unpopular.And so here we are on a Tuesday night—7.30 a quarter to eight at night—pushing this through at speed at absolute speed. And it's an affront particularly at the second reading that the other side the governmental side will not take proper calls to defend it. And it takes me back to that aspect of principle: if they actually hold to the principle of voters' rights—and again I am happy to take a more moderate position here to say it's a valid position. I don't agree with it. Or rather the National Party doesn't agree with it. Why would they not stand up and defend it rigorously? I've always said and maybe it's the philosopher in me but if you're confident in your argument you can stand confidently and argue the case. And we're not having it here. And what makes it even worse for me is again we haven't had a select committee where normally seven eight or nine MPs can robustly discuss elements.So it brings me to my final point which will probably be a great relief to the other side—and that's probably a heads-up for the person on that other side who's about to take a two to three second call—and that is fundamentally what other mistakes are going to have happened? Well maybe we'll sort them out in the committee of the whole House stage and I know this is a relatively simple bill but we've already had a problem. We've already had a problem that's got us to tonight. It was rushed through not well thought through. Well the Government again is rushing this little bit of legislation through. What I ask rhetorically will the Government get wrong tonight? Are myself and other colleagues going to have to return in coming days in a couple of weeks after the recess to fix that next mess? But the fundamental mess we're going to have is applying elements of democracy to people if you will who have lost that right and I suspect voters at the election will not forget.But I'll leave a little bit of that to a third reading speech after of course we have robustly discussed this in the committee stage which I know Kieran McAnulty is going to be absolutely thrilled about. I have no doubt he'll be moving motions very quickly—the only contribution—but we look forward to discussing it further. But as I say I am looking forward to the next two- to three- second contribution from the Government."