SpeechPAULO GARCIA (National): I rise to speak to the second Electoral—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm really sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for the dinner break. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.PAULO GARCIA: I am happy to be able to speak in reference to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill seeks to remedy inconsistencies that have arisen in the passing of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act 2020 passed late last week under urgency. The Act was passed by a majority vote—with National voting against on third reading—despite an inconsistency in its provisions. The provisions about the enrolment of sentenced prisoners which were introduced by the amendments to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill resulted from the Green Party's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 518 which proposed two amendments: one extended reinstating the right to vote to all prisoners regardless of the crime they've committed or the duration of the sentence that they are serving and the second was to take away the Electoral Commission's power to stop disqualified voters from enrolling. The first proposed amendment—Hon Andrew Little: Why did National support that?PAULO GARCIA: I will address that in a few moments. The first proposed amendment which would see all prisoners given the right to vote failed to gain enough support. However the second proposed amendment which removes the Electoral Commission's power to stop disqualified voters from enrolling passed making the bill inconsistent and thus unworkable requiring this current legislation to be passed. Darroch Ball: Why did National vote for that?PAULO GARCIA: I'm coming up to that point. As urgency has been called again to pass this second bill we are now going through all the steps in the legislative process again in an abbreviated manner in order to pass this bill. This bill seeks to correct the inconsistencies in the Act by repealing the changes that were made to the Act by SOP 518 so the law is internally coherent and consistent with the intended policy of the Act which is essentially to reinstate a prisoner's right to vote when the prisoner is serving a sentence of less than three years. In particular clause 5 of this bill amending section 86A of the Electoral Act now only requires Corrections to assist prisoners received into prison to enrol to vote if they are sentenced to less than three years' imprisonment and therefore are considered qualified to vote and to confirm whether they would like for their details to be passed on to the Electoral Commission. Clause 6 inserts a new section a section 86AB which reinserts the requirement for corrections officers to assist prisoners sentenced to three years or more to be enrolled upon their release and to confirm whether they would like their enrolment details to be sent to the Electoral Commission as well. For clarity it's just good to review the process for passing legislation in the New Zealand Parliament. A bill is first introduced in the House and progresses into its first reading. After first reading on another sitting day the bill is referred to the appropriate select committee for consideration. Kieran McAnulty: We know the process.PAULO GARCIA: Yes but others do not. The bill is then scheduled for a second reading followed by consideration by the committee of the whole House. The third reading then follows. That debate will then be held and once completed voting will be commenced. The entire process takes approximately six months. The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill was at the point of consideration by the committee of the whole House when the Green Party SOP 518 was taken up and voted on. The resulting inconsistency would soon become evident. Addressing one of the points of the members on the other side my National colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith did attempt to have the bill referred back to select committee but this offer was rejected. There was opportunity and time for the bill to have been corrected at that point. So when there are speeches that tend to show that there was no opportunity for correction after the SOP had been voted on and passed they are incorrect. There was opportunity. The opportunity was presented; the opportunity was rejected. Members opposite have raised three points that I take this opportunity to address. They said that National toyed with the process by voting down the first part of the SOP the proposed amendment by the Green Party and voting in favour of the second which passed. As I am neither a skilled or a fiery interjector myself I wish to apportion a small portion of my time to speak on this point: firstly to say that there has been little opportunity for National to win votes in this House as we're outnumbered by the coalition Government and so ascribing blame for the second amendment to have passed to National is totally and quite simply pointing the finger for that resulting inconsistency in the wrong direction. Secondly as previously mentioned National through my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith did attempt to have the bill referred back to the Justice Committee to correct the errors and the Government simply refused to do so. Darroch Ball: Come on you've got two minutes left.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have no time left.PAULO GARCIA: If they did we could all be here in urgency on another bill that would have some impact on possibly helping business or improving the economic situation of New Zealand which we are all deeply mired in. The other point that has been raised is that many submissions have been received in support of the Act—because no submissions have been received on this bill so I assume that the submissions that the other members have spoken about are submitted on the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act. I just would like to express my surprise at the importance and value the members opposite have given to the number of submissions that they have received in support of the Act when within the last seven months two bills received a huge number of submissions—38000 for one bill over 25000 for another bill—and those bills passed without those submissions being given as much importance as the submissions are being given at this time.National opposed the Act and opposes the amendments simply because National does not support the reinstatement of voting rights to sentenced prisoners. Thank you Madam Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki.