Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker. That was a shocker of a speech by Jenny Marcroft a member of the New Zealand First Party who's had to swallow a very very very big dead rat tonight. She stood up in the House and had the audacity to tell New Zealanders that this Government takes a proper manner and doesn't play silly games when it comes to legislating. Well why are we passing this bill through urgency? We wouldn't have these sorts of amendments being passed without the Government scrambling to try and find ways to fix it up if we weren't here in the middle of urgency. So there's no proper manner in the decisions by members on the other side of the House. What we've seen happen tonight with this prisoner voting or the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill is symbolic of the sham of a process that it has had right from day one. I just want to remind members on the other side and people viewing from home that the process is an absolute sham that this Government has pursued. They've had 2½ years to bring this piece of legislation to Parliament 2½ years to consult with New Zealanders and 2½ years to actually make sure it's well-thought-through. But no. The first reading was done during extended sitting hours of the House. The select committee process was rushed during lockdown. While New Zealanders were fighting for their lives and uniting to fight COVID-19 the Government was uniting to give prisoners the right to vote trying to give the people in lockdown the right to have their right to vote. That's what they were prioritising and then on top of that they were letting all those people serving community service sentences time off on their community service sentences as well. The second reading was done during extended sitting hours of this House and here we are at the third reading. The final debate on this legislation and here we are in urgency passing a piece of legislation in here around prisoner voting. Why are we doing this in such a rushed manner? Why are we doing this through urgency? Because the Government believes it needs these votes of 1900 sentenced offenders on 19 September and it will stop at nothing to pass this piece of legislation through the House. Tonight we've seen what happens when you rush legislation through Parliament without having due consideration and without following the procedures of the House which would have allowed the Government to get its act together properly. We've seen a Supplementary Order Paper from the Green Party essentially white out half of the Supplementary Order Paper from the Minister and he didn't even know it was happening. He just looked like a possum in the headlights scrambling his pieces of paper. We've had members of Parliament running into the Chamber trying to fit things back together. We've now been given a lecture on due process by the Government and I just say to the New Zealand First members opposite that I hope you're going to do another deal if you're going to vote for this. There must be some other deal that you've struck in the last five minutes—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm not doing any deals with anyone Mr Brown. SIMEON BROWN: New Zealand First members—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Please don't find the Mark Mitchell habit contagious. SIMEON BROWN: Oh thank you. Well look you know COVID-19's very contagious and I don't want to catch everything. But I would say to New Zealand First members opposite that I expect you've done a deal just outside to secure your votes to get this legislation through because that's how—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Mr Brown would you mind having a seat. I haven't done a deal and I'm not intending to do a deal but I'm tempted. Please don't bring me into the debate. Thank you. SIMEON BROWN: Thank you Madam Speaker. The National Party is opposed to this piece of legislation which gives prisoners who are sentenced up to three years in prison the right to vote. This piece of legislation does not put victims at the heart of criminal justice; this piece of legislation puts criminals at the heart. People who have committed offences people who have broken the law and people who have done crimes against other people are the ones who will be getting the privileges which currently they do not get under this piece of legislation. We heard during the select committee process that an offender who is sentenced to prison on average will have committed 24 offences—24 offences. People convicted of sentences of up to three years aren't convicted of petty crime. We're talking about people who have committed serious assaults people who have committed robberies and people who have committed family violence and sexual offences. These are not light-hearted petty crimes which have been committed; these are serious crimes and on this side of the House we believe that there are consequences for one's actions and that when someone commits crimes worthy of being sentenced to prison some of their rights are taken away. In New Zealand when you go to prison you lose some of your rights and one of those rights is your right to be able to vote. As we have been debating during the committee of the whole House we have a piece of legislation here which gives prisoners the right to vote if they've been sentenced to less than three years. They've also got the right it would seem to stand for Parliament. They've got a right to be able to stand to be a representative in this House and I think that would be something which New Zealanders would find even more shocking. We have questions around how these prisoners who are going to now have this right to vote are going to be able to exercise their democratic right to seek information and to impart information in relation to their right to vote to be able to hear from candidates to hear from members of Parliament to be able to watch the electoral debates and to be able to engage in the democracy because when they're in prison they have their freedoms curtailed. They don't have the same freedom to information that we have. They don't have the ability to simply tune in to a Facebook Live and they don't have the ability to ask a question of a candidate in their electorate. They don't have the ability to turn up to a public meeting to be able to put across their view and ask a question. People in our prisons have had rights taken away—rights which would actually limit their ability to be able to fully engage in our democracy. But I do want to finish by bringing this back to the point around victims of crime. Last year according to statistics produced by the New Zealand Police there was a 9.6 percent increase in victimisations in New Zealand—a 9.6 percent increase in victimisations. That is a sad and sorry statistic. As we know behind each one of those numbers is a person a family and a community who have been affected by crime in our country and this piece of legislation doesn't say to those victims of crime that we're there to support you. It doesn't say to those victims of crime that we're going to stand up for you and what has happened to you. It says that instead of addressing crime and instead of addressing the causes of crime and instead of ensuring that there are strong deterrents in place and that there is a corrective part of the sentence or the response to that crime what we're going to do is we're going to give more rights to those people who committed the crimes. That's the priority in this piece of legislation. That's the priority by members on the other side and I say this particularly to the members of the New Zealand First Party. Their entire next three months will be spent travelling up and down the country talking about how tough they're going to be on crime because that's what they like to campaign on—how tough they're going to be on crime. Well I just want to remind everybody watching and New Zealanders who think that the New Zealand First Party is a tough-on-crime party that they are not. They are voting tonight to give prisoners the right to vote and to give them—Hon Member: A party with heart—a party with heartSIMEON BROWN: They've got no heart over there on that side. They're voting against victims and they're voting for criminals. I'm proud to be on the side of Parliament where we stand on the side of victims and that's where the real heart is in this issue: standing up for victims of crime and standing up for those who have been affected by crime. So I'm proud to oppose this bill. A shambolic process by this Government—Hon Dr Nick Smith: A shambolic law. SIMEON BROWN: —a shambolic piece of legislation that—and thank you Dr Nick Smith. It's a very shambolic piece of legislation and I am proud to oppose it.