Jones Dail: Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
Jones Dail: Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17254] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I thank the Minister in the chair Rick Barker for making Supplementary Order Paper 310 available to New Zealand First about 6 weeks ago or even more and for the discussions that have taken place since that time on the issue. There was a change to that Supplementary Order Paper and I appreciate the discussions that took place on that as well. 
There has already been public debate on the issue of course and that is referred to in the report back of the Justice and Electoral Committee. The last sentence of the commentary on the bill with regard to the proposal we are now considering states: “We note this proposal corresponds with a recommendation in our Inquiry into the 2002 General Election report; namely that: ‘Amendments to electoral legislation for the 2005 General Election include national guidelines on hoardings.’” That was a public review. It was held by the Justice and Electoral Committee. It went on interminably and everyone had his or her say. That committee reported back unanimously to the House—and I am referring to a recommendation in the 2002 general election report—that it wanted national guidelines on hoardings. That is what the Minister has done. New Zealand First would have been the first to object to any cheating that might have taken place. I think that claim from the previous National Party speaker was totally uncalled for. This discussion took place absolutely openly. 
I think all of us know that when we have general elections different councils have different rules. If one is in say the Helensville electorate one has only the Rodney District Council the Waitakere City Council and the North Shore City Council to cope with—only three councils. But invariably one has three different rules. Signs may be up to 3 feet high or must be below 3 metres or must be below 2 metres. There are rules about the places to put signs. There are all sorts of rules from different councils. It is very confusing. All one is trying to do is hold a general election—the most important thing that the country could ever want—and one is stuck with all these administrative regulations that pour out from councils which seem to have people whose job is to makes one’s life as difficult as possible. 
All that the National Party spokesperson Dr Smith is doing is supporting these councils having all these regulations. New Zealand First wants to see a reduction in regulations. This Minister is really being hammered to reduce the number of regulations. Here is a bill that makes things simpler for general elections and the National Party is opposing it and saying it wants things to remain as they are or be even more difficult. I would have thought that the Nelson National Party executive would be absolutely delighted to have this legislation because it would have to have only one sign. 
This measure cannot be done secretly because it has to go back to the political parties for them to discuss as the Minister has indicated—half the parties in the House or 75 percent of the members of the House. The National Party these days is not big enough to stop it on its own—of course maybe that is what is upsetting the member and from the way things are going it will not get any better! That means that no political party other than the Labour Party could object to it on its own. Other parties would have to get together and lodge an objection. New Zealand First is quite happy to work along those guidelines. Here in the Committee today for example only one party is objecting to this legislation and that is the National Party. All the other parties want to see simplification of how one runs an election and that is all that this particular Supplementary Order Paper does. 
I was quite happy with the first suggestion and just as happy with the second suggestion which was not quite as good. But it has all been out in the open. There has been no hiding of anything. Some bureaucrat somewhere perhaps in Nelson has got in touch with the local member Dr Smith and he has said that he will support that local bureaucrat in Nelson. Well I just say that Parliament should make the decisions as to how we run parliamentary elections. There have been two reports from the Justice and Electoral Committee supporting this view. Both were unanimous. I am sure that Mr Worth will ably look at this matter in the Regulations Review Committee should it come up. I am also a member of the Regulations Review Committee and we can— 
Richard Worth 
: A hard-working committee. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is a hard-working committee that looks at every regulation that is passed in this country and does more per minute in terms of scrutinising the law than any other committee in the country. It is a very hard-working diligent and highly qualified select committee—if we all say so ourselves—ably led by Mr Worth.