Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on this bill although we are not supporting this bill to select committee. It'll pass probably anyway I'd have to say but it will be very interesting when it gets to select committee because I think what will be a key task of the select committee is to actually look into what policy work went in behind this bill. How did they arrive at this particular policy that underpinned this bill and what process did they go through to look at various options around because there were lots of potential options here. The four-month prior to a by-election lockout has not been carried through to a normal election. What was the rationale for that because I think that if the rationale is that it could be used potentially to stack a particular seat then why wouldn't that carry also as true through a general election?It'll be quite interesting but I suspect like many other of the bills that come before this House the policy work will be found on the back of an envelope somewhere. That'll be about the extent of the work that went into it.What we're talking about here is that the census plays a very key role in this and I have to agree with and share the frustration of some of the members on the other side of the House in particular about that. But look James Shaw—the truth be known—made such a hash of the last census. I know that in my electorate we were one of the larger electorates that had—particularly in Marlborough—such a very low turnout for the census. They never made the effort to do it properly and that's just what happens when the Greens run anything. We had people—particularly in the Sounds—that don't have access easily to get into town to get on the census and get their records recorded and that meant a significant disadvantage for that electorate. It has a significant impact because of the health funding and all those sorts of things based on that census data but also electorate sizes and I think that that's something on which they did a great disservice for us.But it does carry over to this particular bill as well. How do we know—as has been suggested before by the Māori Party speaker Rawiri Whaitiri—that they should be able to just change after any election based on those registered voters within an electorate but what about the people on the general roll as well? Are we actually going to change electorate boundaries? Some of those electorates grow or decline quite significantly. If we're going to change one section—the Māori seats—why wouldn't we be looking at the general roll as well? I think that that would have to be the same. If we're talking about fairness fairness goes for everyone—isn't what it means? Fair being equal colour-blind ethnic-blind gender-blind just being fair to everyone. Maureen Pugh: Age-blind.STUART SMITH: Age-blind. What we also learnt from the Green speaker Golriz Ghahraman was that she's actually in favour of abolishing the Māori seats completely. This is clearly news to me that the Green Party are supporting the abolition of Māori seats.Jan Logie: What?STUART SMITH: Well she quite clearly said that it was scientific: what the Electoral Commission says about electoral rules should be followed religiously. Well the Electoral Commission said that when MMP came in the Māori seats should be abolished so clearly the Green Party supports the abolition of the Māori seats. So I look forward to debating through the election next year with the Green candidate about the abolition of Māori seats because I suspect most people aren't aware of that.Jan Logie: Neither are we.STUART SMITH: Well perhaps you should have been listening.I also wonder about self-declaration. I do remember reading in the legislation that came through the House about the unemployment insurance where in the schedule in that bill it's quite clearly stated that one of the things that the ACC should be recording and looking for was ethnicity and self-declared ethnicity so we now have in legislation self-declared ethnicity. So does that apply for people going on to the Māori roll? Can you self-declare as a Māori and go on to the electoral roll?Now I've had a quick look at the law and it doesn't appear that way but now we've got legislation that contradicts that. That could actually be the case that people could do that so we could have a scenario here where people could declare that they were Māori and go on to the Māori roll to stack a by-election for example. Quite clearly this legislation allows that. Given the clause that allows except when a local election is being held" when you can actually change across there is a way to stack let's say a local government by-election for whatever reason. It could easily be done so that's what really underlines my point about the policy work being on the back of an envelope. They haven't actually thought about this. They haven't gone through it properly.I think it really comes now to the difficult things which is something that I think all New Zealanders increasingly are being concerned about which is the moves by the Labour Government to play around with electoral laws as long as they don't have to have the supermajority to try and chip away at democracy by not having to go through the supermajority process that they would have to do. So this is one example. Another example is of course three waters with all of the 50 percent control of that going to Māori. There is also of course the local government review or the future of our local government which talks quite a lot about giving 50 percent of control to Māori ratepayers. There may be a debate that we could have about this but it should be a supermajority. Actually it should go to a referendum so all New Zealanders have a say on what is going to dramatically change our electoral laws; in fact it's going to make them Third World as far as I can see. I think it is absolutely outrageous that they are trying to chip away at our democracy in the way that they are. It's like the boiling frog: you don't realise that it's just being chipped away and before you know it it's gone. Then of course we've got nepotism rife on the other side of the House. I mean nepotism came from the practice of popes and bishops appointing so-called nephews into roles and that's exactly what we're getting here. Well this goes to the electoral laws that are being quite gerrymandered in my view and I think they should put these things to a supermajority or they should have the courage to put it to the people of New Zealand. They don't have the courage to do that. Chris Penk: That's the other option.STUART SMITH: Yes absolutely. So we have plenty of opportunity for electoral laws to be looked at. We have a review of that going through select committee at the moment. This bill is unnecessary. It's poorly thought out. It is actually quite outrageous and I condemn it to the House."