SpeechAGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a call on this Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. The Minister of Justice Andrew Little wants us to accept another short-on-logic indefensible law change.I just want to pick up on the comments of Kelvin Davis who spoke earlier saying he thinks we've got the balance right. I say: the balance right for who? Has the Minister and has Kelvin Davis sought to get something back from the victims of these criminals in terms of the balance—do they think the balance is right in this piece of legislation?This Government does not believe that people are capable of committing crimes. It believes that people who commit crimes didn't really mean to commit crimes that it was a mistake and that to label them criminals is to shame them. This Government's proposal is that we change the name of criminals to men in our care or clients because to label them as criminals is to stigmatise them. It would be not a surprise to anyone if this Government was to then turn to the victims of crime and chastise them for stigmatising men in our care by laying criminal complaints against them. This is the newspeak nightmare George Orwell foretold in his famous book Nineteen Eighty-Four. The term men in our care" is Orwellian and with this newspeak this double-speak this move to destigmatise crime they are now asking the public to accept giving these men in our care the right to vote whilst they are in care facilities which we in National and New Zealanders call prisons. If my tone sounds mocking it's because this proposal to allow prisoners the right to vote deserves nothing but contempt. It deserves contempt because law-abiding New Zealanders New Zealanders who play by the rules who don't commit crime find themselves the victims of crime from the very people this Government now labels clients in an effort to not hurt feelings. Feelings is what this Government is about. And facts don't care about this Government's feelings. The fact is that a person or a client or in real-speak a criminal who earns that prison sentence has committed a serious crime. A person doesn't go to prison for petty misdemeanours. They go to prison for committing serious crimes against law-abiding New Zealanders. They include serious drug dealing family violence street violence robberies fraud sexual violence child sex abuse. And here we have the Minister of Justice the Hon Andrew Little worried that these criminals can't vote whilst in prison—sorry; whilst in the Minister's care. Well the day these criminals dealt hard drugs to school kids the day they bashed their wives the day they punched over some guy in the street the day they decided to sexually assault a woman the day they put their hands on a child inappropriately is the day they gave up their right to vote. Make no mistake—the right to vote is an undeniable mainstay of our democracy of our freedom. It is a solemn right that is conferred to every law-abiding citizen of age. And why? Because law-abiding citizens good New Zealanders will choose people who will pass good laws to enable them to live productive safe lives for themselves and for their families—lives free from violence street violence robbery sexual violence and child sex abuse. But I'm not surprised by the efforts of this Government to destigmatise crime or that they would want to give the vote to criminals in prison. This is a Government that is determined to undermine our voting process. To propose that men and women who have committed serious crimes crimes that have resulted in their rightful removal from society in order to serve out their sentences be allowed to choose people to represent them in Parliament is a slap in the face to the victims that these men in care these clients—these criminals—have offended against. Our victims of crime good people New Zealanders who have had their lives horribly impacted by people who are serving time in prison want justice. They expect their offenders to be punished. Punishment is a word that this Government is at pains to avoid as though punishment is a bad thing. Well tell that to the victims of your clients' crimes. I challenge the out-of-touch Minister to go to those victims and to present in front of those victims the advocacy groups and explain to them why their offenders should retain the right to vote. Just as those that criticised the good law we enacted while in Government to suspend the right to vote as a prison sentence was served will also not front—no critics of our good law will pontificate from their places of sanctuary their crime-free places about the rights of prisoners while they studiously ignore any consideration of the rights of victims to have their offenders appropriately punished. And there stands the stark contrast between us on this side and the crime apologists in Labour the Greens and New Zealand First. What's all the more shocking is that a party that claims to be New Zealand First is now also the party of criminals first.We are adamant that crime shouldn't pay and that's what also distinguishes us from this Government. They believe a criminal should vote that we should find every means not to punish them with imprisonment and that if we just feel more then everyone will change their ways. This Government believes that crime should pay that there should be no stigma to it that if only victims were more understanding of why the assault that happened to them happened—about why they were bashed or robbed—and if they could only understand why the clients that committed these crimes should not be in prison or should be allowed to vote. We believe New Zealanders should be able to live productive crime-free lives. New Zealanders should have faith in our justice system and when predators seek to harm they are put out of society's way for a period of time until they learn that crime doesn't pay and that you forfeit your right to vote whilst you are in prison. Thank you."