SpeechJAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I've been listening to much of the debate on this bill. It seems one side says more New Zealanders will be enfranchised by this bill and the other side says the process is bad. Many of the questions that have been raised in speeches are legitimately ones that a select committee could inquire into. I have to say my experience in this House has been that when one side criticises only the process it pretty much means there is no depth of argument against what is being proposed. It's actually a very weak set of arguments to simply go The process is bad". Can we just boil it down for the House? Let's boil it down. Effectively this bill will mean more New Zealanders have the opportunity to vote. Is anyone actually brave enough to stand up in the House and say "We shouldn't have a bill which would allow more people to be able to vote."? The reality is some people were unable to vote last election and they should have been able to vote. Yes the process could have been better but that's not a good reason for opposing a bill or standing up in the House and spending speech after speech opposing a piece of legislation. Those issues that have been raised around process and around details should be looked at at the select committee.One of the issues that has been debated as well was the fact that there is still an inquiry going on under way. The inquiry going on under way—the Minister referred to it in question time and says it's taking too long. I've seen there's been other arguments about who's in charge of the inquiry and why has it taken so long. The reality is it's almost been two years since the last election was held and we still don't have a report back in this Parliament about possible changes. The select committee does need to hurry up. The select committee does need to come back. In fact if the select committee had've come back earlier then we probably wouldn't have these process debates around who did something without consulting the other.The other issue that was raised in other speeches—I know Golriz Ghahraman raised it and I think some of the National members raised it too—was the issue around what the committee's looking at alongside the types of issues in the inquiry that are also contained in this bill and that's the elements around foreign interference. We actually should have a piece of legislation right now that deals with those matters. The select committee needs to increase the speed at which it considers its inquiry into foreign interference because we must have legislation around those issues as well. I think actually the select committee should be empowered to consider issues alongside this bill at the same time that may be considered in the realm of foreign interference. It's not acceptable that we may end up in a position later this term where the House has a report from the select committee and it does not have enough time to act on it. It would be an appalling set of circumstances if the Justice Committee was to report back on the election inquiry that contained recommendations around foreign interference and everyone go "Oh we don't have enough time to consider those matters."I think this House should give the Justice Committee by way of this process and this bill the ability and the power to consider issues alongside the other elements in this bill that relate to foreign interference specifically around election donations. This bill does talk about supporting the effective conduct of future elections. It does talk about the security of our elections. Those are important issues but security and conduct of elections is not solely around who can vote and how they can vote; it's also around how political parties deal with those types of issues. So later on I intend to seek the leave of the House to be able to move an instruction to the Justice Committee. It is not possible for a member to move an instruction without seeking leave—only the Minister can move an instruction to a select committee—but I think it's fundamentally important that the Justice Committee is given the opportunity to consider those issues around election donations alongside these wider issues around elections. So at the appropriate time I will seek leave to be able to move an instruction. That instruction that I will move if given leave will read "I move that it be an instruction to the Justice Committee that it consider and if it thinks fit recommend amendments relating to election donations."It's fundamentally important that if we are to have proper consideration and time available for the Justice Committee to do a thorough job around changes in the sphere of foreign interference and in the sphere of closing down election donations they have an early opportunity to do it. There is a parliamentary majority in this House to change election donation laws. Parties in this House have said they want to ban foreign donations. So by allowing an instruction to be moved the Justice Committee will be able to do that work and I'll attempt to do so."