Chhour KarenKAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a privilege to be able to stand here today and speak on the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill. First of all I'd like to thank the Minister Kiri Allan for just allowing us to be part of the discussion. Even though we know you already had the amount of support you needed for the Supplementary Order Papers to go through you still allowed us to be part of that discussion so that we as a party could make a decision and come on board with where you're at. So we really appreciate that and that's how we get good law and that's how we get a whole House that is on board with laws like this—by having those discussions and working together and we're very grateful for that. So I just thought I'd like to start off with that.The ACT Party were supportive of the intent of this bill from the beginning. We did vote against it in the first place because we just couldn't vote for it in the way it was first presented. But with the alternative options that have come since then we will be supporting this bill.I have personal experience with not being able to switch rolls and so that's why I'm kind of proud to be standing here today speaking on this and making a change to something that has affected me personally. And I liked the fact that the Minister was talking about education about what each roll would mean for a person if they were to switch from one to the other.When I originally enrolled to vote as a young one I had no understanding of what each roll meant. So I thought because I'm a Māori I need to tick Māori". I didn't understand that that meant I was going on a completely different roll to the general roll—had absolutely no idea; nobody had told me that. I mean I may have still made that decision with a bit of education but I made that decision completely on the basis that I thought "Māori ticks Māori". And so I wanted to come off the Māori roll because I had been moved from up north and I was living in Auckland and that was the place I was connected to at the time and I wanted to vote for my local person and was unable to because I was on the Māori roll. And then years passed and I thought to myself at the time "I'll have to get off that roll". Years passed—I rang them up and said "Can I please get off of this roll and on to the general roll?" And they said "You're outside of the time frame to be able to do that." I said "Well when is the time frame?" And they said "Sorry you've passed it". So I spent two elections voting on a roll that I didn't want to be on. So I appreciate the changes that have been made here.In the end the only way I did get off the roll and change rolls was by setting myself a Google reminder because I wasn't getting the reminders from the Electoral Commission and the time frame was so short that if you missed it you missed it and too bad. So thank you very much for bringing this bill to the House and allowing this to happen. The education I think is really important so that we understand what each roll means and what it would mean if you do change. So we are really happy about the greater flexibility and the freedom of choice—which is what ACT is all about freedom of choice; so we're very grateful.So I will leave it at that because I think we need to just get on with it and make sure that people have the freedom to be able to choose what's right for them. Thank you."