Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well look in the House tonight we've canvassed most of the problems that this bill's trying to solve.ACT supports this bill. We think it's good idea to give people who want to stand for elected office the ability to campaign without having to put particularly their family under stress or give them any sense of anxiety that they've had to publish the address of their family home on a piece of campaign advertising material like a billboard or a DLE flyer or a piece of mail for example.But I just want to draw attention to the comments from the last speaker the member Golriz Ghahraman who suggested that the protection afforded by this piece of legislation—which means that people standing as candidates don't need to share their home address—should be afforded to candidates in the general election.Now some of those people who've been members of Parliament for longer than I and stood as candidates for longer than I might have thought actually that problem was already solved and that political parties are required—and their candidates are required—to identify the authorising statement being from their party and that's most likely party head office or for some a candidate's electoral office. So I just wanted to put any concern that people standing in the general election might have as a result of that member Golriz Ghahraman's comments which were factually incorrect.Now let's get back to the bill. The ACT Party supports the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill because it gives people standing for local government the opportunity to campaign without the concern that their home address might be published. But of course it's not just whether your address is published or not that's going to concern candidates in the upcoming local government elections. There are far more pressing issues than about whether someone can see your address on a piece of paper.How about New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA) through the Government's Vote Transport has reduced the amount of money that it's allocating to local roads? Maybe candidates want to campaign on that. Maybe they'll have an opinion on that and maybe people in their local communities will say That's terrible. How would a Government that professes to care so much reduce the budgets for local roads?"Like they have for Porirua City Council for example with their mayor Anita Baker—who was on the record just a couple of weeks ago saying "Crikey you look at NZTA." You could have basically given her a heart attack when she found out they'd spent $337000 opening Transmission Gully and reduced the spend on Porirua's local roads by 7 percent the same year. But that's this kind caring Labour Government for you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! It's time for the member to come back to the bill.SIMON COURT: Thank you Madam Speaker. So if I was a candidate standing in the local elections this year I would be seeking to find out what were the concerns of my community and then reflect on those and offer policy solutions that solve real problems. Because that's how you get people to support you.It turns out that a lot of people will support public policy and candidates that offer to solve real problems like how to fix three waters. Well you spend more money on pipes; you spend more money on fixing three waters. How to reduce congestion? You build more roads and you add capacity. Who knew? How to foster central and local business districts? Don't take out their parking and put planter boxes where cars need to park. So those are all things for people standing in the local government elections to think about when they're putting their hand up to be candidates.But I just want to reflect on this sense that we live in an era of heightened anxiety; of people concerned about expressing their political views and when they do they might get it a bit wrong and maybe their leader will tell them to take down the tweet or remove the post—or maybe someone else will comment on it and tell them where to jump or that they really feel so strongly about a position that a candidate's taken that they threaten harm and so on.Well look when it comes to threats—when it comes to incitement—there are already rules around that. That's one of the great things about living in New Zealand; that we have a police force who will respond to the threats against people real crimes to the best of their ability given the constraints this Government's put upon them.But back to the bill the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill. The ACT Party supports it because we think it will be very helpful for people who want to stand as candidates in local government elections coming up soon—in just a few months' time—that they want to have the confidence that when they put their name down and when they put up their hoardings and when they put a flyer in the letterbox their home address isn't on it.So the ACT Party supports that and we'll be voting for this bill when it comes time. Thank you Madam Speaker."