Smith Murray: Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
Smith Murray: Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17258] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to devote my time on this occasion to talking about Supplementary Order Paper 310 which contains the new provisions of clause 7A. Those provisions were not directly before the select committee and therefore submitters did not have an opportunity to comment on them at that stage. Notwithstanding the fact that those provisions were not in the original bill they have been signalled in respect of the report of the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Inquiry into the 2002 General Election and in particular the Government’s response to that. I note in that response that the Government said it would discuss this with local authority organisations in particular the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers before recommending any amendments to the Electoral Act. I know that some correspondence took place and that the select committee was aware of that but that it was also aware that not much progress had been made. Then as we got close to reporting back to the House the local government organisations indicated that they were too preoccupied with the local body elections to have done much about it. 
We therefore support the Government’s move to make some provision in the bill for the standardisation of election hoardings. I know that it is an intrusion into local government affairs and into the powers of Transit in terms of the use of highways and jurisdiction over highways and to some it could be seen to be a degree of self-interest. But we are dealing with elections that are on a national basis and whilst it may have been appropriate for different electorates to have different rules during a first-past-the-post regime—because in that case the contests were from electorate to electorate—in the MMP environment where the list vote is a national vote I think it is important that there is some consistency in the use of signage during the election period. Otherwise we could get into a situation where one party was disadvantaged in electorates that it had a strong hold on through different rules in terms of signage. 
Therefore I think it is appropriate that there is some standardisation in this respect for the limited period of time that comes before elections. In particular the select committee recommended in its report that the Government address the issues of signage in three respects: size content and display period. With regard to size this Supplementary Order Paper provides for a limit of 3 square metres and that fits with the standard size 2400 x 1200 or 2.88 square metres that most billboards have adopted. I know from my experience as secretary of a political party that that is a normal size with corflute boards and will therefore accommodate that as a maximum size with the ability obviously to go smaller. 
Secondly the display period is limited to a period of 2 months prior to the election. That is not to override any other regulations that local authorities may have that may extend that period but at least in terms of this Supplementary Order Paper and the consistency of signage and allowance for signage it is restricted to a 2-month period so that the intrusion into normal local authority affairs is not too severe as far as time is concerned. 
The contentious issue really was the content. United Future did have some serious reservations about the idea of the Government by Order in Council determining the design layout shape and colour of signs. One can imagine that a Government might decide that all billboards should be in red or in blue just in order to manipulate the system. However there are very large protections in the Supplementary Order Paper that satisfy us that that abuse will not happen. The first is the fact that the provision for an Order in Council must be limited to matters that would look to the safety of road users. So effectively the Supplementary Order Paper can restrict limitations only to the extent that it might endanger the safety of road users. That is of course a fairly broad statement and it could be interpreted restrictively in ways that did count against a political party and therefore United Future was pleased to see and encouraged the other restriction and that is that parliamentary leaders of at least 50 percent of the parties in Parliament representing 75 percent of members must agree.