Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you Mr Speaker. So I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak at the second reading of the Election Access Fund Bill. I was just looking over the contribution I made at the first reading and I wanted to just remind the House that New Zealand First at the first reading did articulate that we had some concerns that we felt. I'm pleased to see actually that the Governance and Administration Committee and the work of the Governance and Administration Committee have acknowledged those concerns—we obviously weren't the only people who had them—and have worked their way through them. They were around the responsibility of political parties to make sure that they supported their candidates. I reminded the House at that time that New Zealand First had been one of the first to have a blind candidate and of the extra protections and extra support that New Zealand First had put in for that candidate to be able to participate on a fair and equal basis.I'm going to say something now and I hope that all the members of the House recognise that this is a serious topic. So I hope that this will be taken in the way that it is meant. We currently have a member of the New Zealand First caucus who is technically legally blind. So we make sure that that person has the support that they need to do their job because legally blind" is not necessarily 100 percent blind but it means that there are extra supports that need to be put into place for that person to do their job. The fact that I can see the surprised looks on people's faces means that we've done a very good job in supporting that person inside our caucus to make sure that they can be their best on a daily basis.We took on that responsibility. We also felt that this Parliament needed to take on that responsibility and at the time of the first reading Mojo Mathers was in the gallery. I read a snippet from an article from 15 February 2012 because I remember being in the caucus when Mojo Mathers first came into Parliament and there was quite a lot of raruraru around what she needed to be her best inside of this environment and who was going to pay for that. New Zealand First as a caucus said that we would put in—we were happy to give up a percentage of our staffing budget so that Ms Mathers could get the $30000 or whatever it was needed for her to be her best. All that needed to happen was this work environment needed to be altered slightly so that she would have the supports she needed to represent those who had placed her here. This is a House of Representatives. I often tell people that if you can't look around this House and see yourself here in one of us then it's not doing its job.I'm going to make a point though too that this House—if somebody was in a wheelchair and we have had I remember two members. I'm pretty sure it was the Hon Carmel Sepuloni and the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway made that point on a particular day that you know we might have to have a think about how we can remove some of the seats in here should that be necessary for somebody then to be able to bring their wheelchair in and participate in the same way rather than having to sit in an aisle. I see that the select committee took that on board and they have recommended the removal of the ability for political parties to use the fund and for non-profit entities to apply to the fund.We weren't sitting on the select committee but I've had a quick look through the explanatory statements at the beginning of the bill. I think it's very wise also about having the review both the Electoral Commission's review and the opportunity to have the review by a Minister so that we can see if the fund is working in the way that it is supposed to be working. This is about access; this is not about advantage. This is about levelling the playing field. This is about making sure that we recognise that all members of New Zealand society have the opportunity to stand and be heard and to put forward their views and their policies and their belief structures to the New Zealand public and have the opportunity to be voted here. That's the basis upon which we all stand at every election and the basis upon which our democracy is formed.I do also pick up on the fact that the payments will not be for election expenses or donations—hot topic at the moment—but that it will be for those things that are needed whether that be sign language whether that be for example for the amount of reading that might be needed. There is a possibility that one might need a reading pen. It's a $200 solution but it may be that the candidate in that moment does not have the capacity to fund those sorts of things. So it will be interesting to see if the bill goes all the way through past third reading and finds itself in law who accesses the fund and for what purposes. I would be interested after a three-year period to see how that is being used.So at the end of the day I think the majority of New Zealand First concerns have been addressed by the select committee. We are going to be interested at the committee of the whole House. We still believe that political parties really do need to stand up and maybe just maybe they should be doing what New Zealand First has done for some time which is take that responsibility in making sure that that extra support is there but at this stage New Zealand First is happy to support the bill. Kia ora."