Mark RonHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It gives me pleasure to rise and take a short call on behalf of New Zealand First and the Government on the Local Electoral Matters Bill. I just want to note the report back from the select committee. I will acknowledge that the select committee put a great deal of thought into the consideration of the bill. I notice the National Party minority view is in there as stated. I also note with some interest that there has been a little bit of criticism of the Government when it has come to the matters of electronic or digital voting—one of the options one of the matters that is covered in this bill and a lot of reference I understand to the census that's just recently been conducted as though people are drawing parallels with the two options. It does strike me as a little bizarre that we should hear those criticisms at this point at this reading of this bill because the fact of the matter is this Government—when it came to the census and all of the provisions that have been put in place and all the decisions that have been made they had been made by the previous Cabinet. We simply carried on with the work within the very short—Hon Mark Mitchell: You guys had to run it. You couldn't run it.Hon RON MARK: There goes Mr Mitchell over there yappering" away—the most ineffective Minister of Defence this country's ever seen other than Mark Burton. So he can chip in and if he wants to bring it on I'll say it to Mr Mitchell "If you want to bring it on Mr Mitchell I have a lot of information for you to share with the country." and we might just do that.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And now back to the bill.Hon RON MARK: So Mr Mitchell let's be clear.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Now back to the bill.Hon RON MARK: Thank you. We are coming back to the bill and to their questions on digital voting. Mr Mitchell the previous Cabinet made decisions. Within the short window of time that was left this Government just continued with that work. Now a lot of reservations have been have been raised around the whole question of digitalisation and it's pleasing to see that all parties discuss those matters. I mean those of us who do live in the provinces know that out at Pongaroa Porangahau it's very hard actually to do anything digital because the last Government's rural broadband roll-out was so pathetically inept—[Interruption]—and if that member Mr Bishop doesn't believe me come with me up to Gladstone which is some 11 minutes from the main street of Carterton and try and use your cellphone. So digital voting for the good folk—the good country folk—of Gladstone is going to be a hell of a challenge as we found out it was for people to complete their census online thanks to the ineptitude of the last Government when it came to rolling out rural broadband. So I've just got to say that this bill quite ably gives the option to those councils. We know where Mr Bishop lives. Everything's connected. He lives downtown in amongst suburbia where the high speed broadband has been rolled out by John Key and his Cabinet Ministers for him. So digital voting might well suit Lower Hutt City it might well suit Wellington City but it is over to Carterton District which has voters who live at Flat Point out at Tora—OK—to choose themselves as to whether digital voting is appropriate workable worthwhile. So it is good to see that the learned people on the select committee discussed these matters and clearly a majority agreed that if local government is going to go down a path of utilising digital voting then that's for them to decide and the legislation gives them that flexibility to do so.I myself am not convinced. I think one of the biggest issues one faces in voting in local government elections is the big thick booklet that deals with everything—not just about the mayor not just about the councillors not just about the community boards but also about the district health boards the trusts and gosh we all know there's a plethora.Chris Bishop: Are you voting for it or against it?Hon RON MARK: I think the thing Mr Bishop is giving people the choice: giving them the choice empowering them to apply a local solution and recognising that localism has its place as opposed to autocratic decree which is what that member's party more often talks about although it touts itself to be liberal. It touts itself as being liberal but in actual fact it's all about autocratic decree and we see that in the way in which they whip the young ones into line over that side of the House and get the ones like Mr Bidois to parrot away to support the young Mr Bishop—the young misguided Mr Bishop. We've seen that in such things as the way in which they've championed other pieces of legislation. Access to information about Māori descent—I do note that's obviously a clause an area where Mr Bridges is going to have a lot of interest. He's just recently discovered that he's of Māori descent although his comments on Radio New Zealand the other morning did not go down well so I wonder if he's still going to be of Māori descent come tomorrow or next week because that language really was unbecoming him but there's access for information there for Mr Bridges being of Māori descent and he'll be able to take the benefit of that whether or not yesterday he was a Māori and today he's not—I'm not quite sure. It's a very short bill befitting of shorter speeches. It probably does reflect—although there is a minority report from the National Party expressing some concerns in there—the majority view of the House. I think I'm happy that it does give local government the ability to themselves make decisions around electronic voting and on that basis I'm happy to support the bill. Thank you very much—Mr Bishop."