Smith Nick: General Debate 
Smith Nick: General Debate 
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Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 It was only a few weeks ago that the Minister of Local Government proclaimed that the upcoming local body elections would be historic great and successful. Then he wanted to claim responsibility; today he is blaming everybody else but himself. The scale of the debacle is extraordinary. Tens of thousands of single transferable vote (STV) votes have not been counted. Eighteen district health boards and seven councils are affected. The Minister admitted on radio this morning that it was worse than a shambles and said that the integrity of the vote will always now be in question. 
The Minister must accept responsibility. Let me set out why. This Government passed a law against opposition from this side of the House. It put in place the law that provided for the confusing system of STV and it also required every district health board to have that system. The Minister has gone even further. He has personally promoted STV all around New Zealand. The Minister said in the House this afternoon that he has no responsibility at all. Well the smoking gun is in the record from Datamail. Datamail says that Chris Carter’s own department has worked with it for the past 2 years in developing the software and the system. His department approved the Datamail system that has failed so badly. Members should remember that it is a State-owned enterprise that has stuffed up here. For the Minister to blame councils when his own department indicated that both Datamail and Electionz.com are approved agencies really is an extraordinary exercise in passing the buck. 
It is also noteworthy that only a few weeks ago he was claiming credit for the STV system and for the campaign that was to back up that system yet today Datamail has said that at the core of the problem was the poor information campaign—for which the Minister claimed the credit at the Local Government New Zealand conference speech only a few weeks ago. The Minister is keen to highlight the fact that STV has worked fine in a few areas that did not use the company. That is garbage! There were 14000 votes in the Auckland district health board area. Of that number nearly 15 percent has had to be thrown out because of this confusing system. In Northland 4000 votes are unable to be counted because they are invalid. That is extraordinary and undemocratic. For the Minister of Local Government to claim that that is a success is something extraordinary. The part that is so bizarre is that only a few weeks ago the Minister said that the running of local body elections was a partnership between central and local government. 
Hon Bill English 
: Who were the partners? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I assume it is between the councils and the Minister. 
Hon Bill English 
: It’s a divorce today. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Is it a divorce? We know the Government is pretty keen on some strange things like that. I am saying to the Government that the Minister cannot say it is a partnership one week and then the next week say that it is all the councils’ responsibility. It is interesting: as the Minister of Conservation there are all sorts of pictures of him in the paper as if he personally saved the kakapo but the moment anything goes wrong that Minister is nowhere to be seen. There is an old ministerial convention in this House and that is that Ministers are responsible for their departments. The fingerprints of the Department of Internal Affairs are all over this debacle and Chris Carter is responsible for that. But what is even more serious is that he is responsible for the PC legislation that introduced the confusing and conflicting electoral system that has resulted in this debacle. I say to the Government member who is about to get to his feet that the Government should take responsibility.