Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Madam Chair. Turning to Part 2 of this Referendums Framework Bill I've got a couple of specific questions for the Minister on the technical aspects of the way that the referendum would be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the bill obviously. So turning first to clause 9 When referendum is to take place" I note that the bill uses the phrase "polling day" and the context is "A referendum of electors must be held on polling day for the general election." I wonder if the Minister can assure us that that's the appropriate phrase in the context of a general election that will include of course not only what's traditionally been regarded as polling day or voting day or even election day but now of course the context is that we have a significant advance voting period—significant not only in terms of time but certainly the expectation and indeed the recent practice is that up to half or maybe even more than half of the votes that are cast in the general election would be by way of advance vote. That's a practice that the Electoral Commission is actively encouraging. I make no comment on that for current purposes except to note that it is seemingly inevitable that we will have in the 2020 election in the general election a large number of votes cast on what could be described as something other than polling day. Now it might be that there's a technical understanding of that phrase and that may be cross-referred to in another Act of Parliament but I don't see that and I don't see the interpretation section having anything to say on that either. If I've missed something then no doubt the Minister with his officials to assist will advise me no doubt. So that's the first question. The second is in clause 11 which is regarding the voting system. And we hear there that a referendum must be conducted in accordance with the first-past-the-post method. That's fine as far as it goes and probably to be expected. We don't need anything so complicated as a preferential system or indeed the proportionality and different moving parts that we have in the general election proper. But I do note it at subclause (2)(b)—we're talking about the "highest number of votes" being the definition of a successful option. I think grammatically speaking we'd probably say the "higher number of votes"—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excellent—excellent contribution.CHRIS PENK: —if there are only two options. And I'm grateful Madam Chair that you approve of this point. You'll no doubt join me in wanting the Minister to comment on that because of course if there are only two options then one is the higher and one is the lower but if there are more than two then we're into the realm of highest and lowest. Of course it's possible that we don't have a higher or lower or even a highest or lowest but in fact an equal. So how do we determine which is the first among equals? You can't even have recourse to the easy option of calling for a majority of the valid votes cast to represent a successful option. So we would have a situation I suppose where we'd need to differentiate in the unlikely event of a split vote an exactly even number of votes as we saw recently in various local government elections decided by a coin toss. So that would be perhaps unfortunate depending on which side of the 50/50 lucky dip one fell I suppose in terms of one's preference but it would seem a bit of a shame that our legislation doesn't provide at least some clarity about how such a matter would be resolved in that unlikely event. Turning now to clause 14—we're talking now about the referendum voting paper—and along similar lines I note that we're talking about a situation where there is to be more than one referendum held at the general election. Then it says "all referendums may be included in a single voting paper." Well if we only have two and two is more than one—so that's a possibility—we should have "both" referendums not "all". So perhaps "both or all" would be the better way to phrase that but I suspect in any case the meaning's pretty clear. Knowing the Speaker's love of grammar it's probably not proper for me to seek that he be recalled to enjoy and partake in this conversation and in any case I think the chair of the committee is enjoying himself thoroughly on these grammatical points as well so we won't speculate any further in that regard. I'm probably getting some comments from my whip as well as others imploring me to move on.So a serious question then regarding clause 14(2) "The order of the referendums … [is to] be determined by a member of the Electoral Commission drawing lots in the presence of a High Court Judge." Well that sounds pretty robust and actually quite admirable in the sense that we're looking for a process that would be quite transparent and fair. But I wonder why in this case it wouldn't be a matter that the Cabinet would be able to decide consistent with some of the other measures in the bill. So any comment the Minister can give in that regard as well would also be appreciated."