Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Isn't it an extraordinary day when the Chief Justice of New Zealand announces that because of the coronavirus pandemic all jury trials are to be suspended for the next two months but there is such an urgency to give prisoners the vote that the Justice Committee is going to be instructed to go hell for leather and to meet as often as possible for the next eight weeks to ram this prisoner voting bill through Parliament? Doesn't that strike you as incredibly unusual and a distortion of the reasonable priorities for the Government?The bill requires that it be reported back by 4 June; that's a bit more than two months. The Standing Orders require that bills go to select committee for six months. Why is it that the Government wants to reduce the time to a third of that normally required? There's only one simple reason: they want to screw the scrum to make it easier for them to win the 2020 election.If there was a fraction of principle in this issue—this Minister of Justice has been in that portfolio for over two and a half years; he gave speeches in 2016 and 2017 about this issue. If it was such an important issue why did the Government not introduce a bill sometime in the last two and a half years and hardly in the middle of the biggest health crisis that this country has faced?But it's not just that we're going to pull back the time of report the speech that we heard from the Labour chair of the Justice Committee said hand on heart This is all about giving the public a say." Well let's be clear: how many New Zealanders over the next two months are going to be focusing their minds on whether prisoners should be allowed to vote?Maureen Pugh: Not many.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: "Not many" says my very capable colleague from West Coast - Tasman Maureen Pugh. Every New Zealander is rightly focused on keeping them and their family safe and keeping them and their family in business. The Government is cynically exploiting the coronavirus issue to sneak through the back door in a mad rush the laws that it thinks will suit its own narrow advantage.I also have to challenge the House. How can we be saying to New Zealanders—how can the courts be saying that it's not safe enough to have jury trials but it's safe enough for this motion to require that the Justice Committee can meet day in day out to focus on getting this bill through that's all about just getting a narrow political advantage for the governing parties? Doesn't it smack of the sort of petty small-minded lawmaking at a time when this country needs to be focused on the big issues?The date that the Government is requiring this bill to be reported effectively will shut down any reasonable opportunity for New Zealanders to be able to submit on the bill. On normal bills that come before select committees the House is required to be able to give good time for any amendments to be considered—that means it will only be a matter of a couple of or maybe three weeks that the public will get an opportunity to have a say. Do I think New Zealanders want to have a say on saying that we will be one of the few Western countries in the world that doesn't include the exclusion of the freedom to vote as part of those that are lost when people are sentenced to prison? Of course New Zealanders will want to have a say and of course this Government is about limiting that opportunity to have any realistic say with this bill.The final point I want to make is that in the very first submission that the Justice Committee heard from the Electoral Commission they said this to us "Any changes being made for the general election in 2020 need to be settled at least six months prior to the election." That is in fact how the very Minister of Justice justified rushing through the previous electoral bill providing for same-day enrolment and voting. The Prime Minister has set the election day as 19 September; six months prior to that would mean that this bill needs to be on the law books by the month of April. So why is the Government ignoring the advice of the Electoral Commission around settled electoral law?The last point I want to make is about precedent. We're a country without a constitution. We don't have a second House of Parliament. The long-established convention has been that Governments need to show extra restraint about changes in the electoral law. In fact I've presented a view that says that the entire Electoral Act should be entrenched requiring a super majority for change because we don't have those other constitutional checks. At least previous Governments have observed the process around such bills and ensuring cross-party consultation and ensuring a full select committee process. This Government with this motion is setting very poor precedent and they're saying that it's now fair game to change electoral laws on a narrow majority and in a mad hurry closing off public submissions and on a fast track process.There are members of this House that view for instance that the Māori seats should be abolished; would it be OK for a Government to just rush through a bill? What would Labour members Green members and New Zealand First members be saying were they on this side of the House and a different Government proposed rushed changes to the electoral law in an area where they did not agree?Maureen Pugh: Apoplectic.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This is—my colleague says they'd go "apoplectic" I think was the word used by Maureen Pugh and every member opposite knows of course that's what they would do.The precedent that this Government is setting time and time again on electoral law is simply this: "We're the Government we've got the numbers; if we can jig the rules jig the law and give ourselves an electoral advantage we will grab that opportunity." and that includes rushing through law only eight months away from a general election that they think will give them some slight electoral advantage. I say to members opposite you're better than this. The Parliament deserves better than this. Our democracy deserves better than this. If there are any laws which should have a full select committee process it is those that are changing fundamental rights the likes of the exercise of franchise—those that should and those that should not be able to vote.My last concern is that there is important detail in this bill that does need scrutinising. I pointed out for instance that it gives the right for ex-prisoners to go on the unpublished or secret roll more easily than the general public. Now that's an issue that I'm sure people from a point of view of principle would want to have the opportunity to make submissions on and is absolutely an issue of which the select committee should have the opportunity for a full select committee process.My challenge for Labour members is this: what is the justification for fast-tracking an electoral bill to give prisoners the vote. This is not an issue that arose yesterday; this is an issue that's been around for more than a decade. It was an issue that was mentioned in all of the parties opposite's policies at the last election. There is absolutely no justification for this bill being rushed through for the select committee's time frames being constrained for the Justice Committee over the next two months being required to sit all over the times at a time when we're dealing with the coronavirus issue. This is once again governing parties putting their narrow political interests ahead of the public interest and that is one of the reasons why the voters later this year will reject them at the next general election."