Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeElectoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16476. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Electoral Amendment BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 4 March.Part 1 Amendments to principal Act (continued)The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): When the Committee last considered this bill we were debating Part 1 and the Hon Maryan Street—[Interruption] Order! If members are leaving would they leave quietly please. The Hon Maryan Street had the call and has just on 4 minutes remaining if she wishes.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):When we left off the debate on this bill the Electoral Amendment Bill—it was interrupted by the close of business last Tuesday night—I wanted to make a couple of points about the Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table in respect of this bill. When the bill first came to the Justice and Electoral Committee it had in it substantial clauses—between clauses 24 and 38—that really put into the law what was until then and is still now an administrative practice. It was an administrative practice that we have come to know as the EasyVote card. The clauses were about the enrolment confirmation card popularly known as the EasyVote card and they allowed for the administration of that to be written into the legislation. Instead of being just an administrative convention or a practice the clauses actually gave a purpose to the EasyVote card—the enrolment confirmation card as it is referred to—in the struck out parts of this legislation.There are three Supplementary Order Papers in front of us at the moment. The one in the name of Holly Walker seeks to reinstate clauses 24 to 28 31 to 34 37 and 38. So Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper 420 simply seeks to reinstate those struck out clauses. Our further consideration of this bill and of the Supplementary Order Papers that have come up have caused us to think it would be a good idea to do what the Minister of Justice originally intended. We would like to know why the Minister is now not supporting a Supplementary Order Paper that basically reinstates her original proposal. I do not know why that is. I cannot imagine that the Minister of Justice Judith Collins is routinely rolled by her caucus on any matter but if that is the case then I would appreciate it if she advised the Committee of that or at least if one of her colleagues got up and explained to the rest of the Committee—particularly those colleagues who are on the Justice and Electoral Committee—why the select committee struck out the things that the Minister originally intended. It was for a range of reasons which elude me now.On reflection we considered that clauses 24 to 36 relating to the enrolment confirmation card should be retained. I would like to see Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper pass. I have a feeling—more than that I have had an indication from the Minister—that that is unlikely to happen. I regret that because the Labour Party now finds itself in the position of wanting to oppose this bill. Having supported it because these kinds of measures ought to be multipartisan and ought to be supported—these kinds of proposals around electoral law ought to be presented and passed in this House in a multiparty way. But if this continues to be excised from the original text and Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper is not approved by this Committee then the Labour Party has now reserved unto itself the right to vote against this legislation. That is a shame. The rest of the bill is OK. The rest of the bill is fine particularly now that the silly bits about rosettes and streamers have been taken out of it because there was no good reason for having those there in the first place.Anything that puts an easy way for people to vote into the law and makes it more certain ought to be encouraged by this Committee. It ought to be encouraged. I cannot think of a reason—unless it is something that serves the National Party’s interests only—why the EasyVote card or the enrolment confirmation card process should not be written into the legislation. It is convenient. There was no evidence given at the select committee in my recollection of any wholesale fraud. There were one or two instances of fraud around the use of EasyVote cards but the system caught them. It worked. Those instances that have happened on behalf of both the Labour Party and the National Party were caught in the process so wholesale fraud cannot be a reason for the deletion of these clauses.If that Supplementary Order Paper of Holly Walker’s goes too far then I suggest that Andrew Little’s Supplementary Order Paper 417 which tries to reinstate only clauses 24 to 27—again the Minister’s original intention but not as far-reaching as all the clauses that Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper covers—should be accepted. If that is not acceptable to the members opposite then please tell us why. Why is it that the enrolment confirmation card cannot be cemented in law? It is an administrative practice it is true and it will continue to be an administrative practice because there is nothing in the original legislation that this bill amends that refers to it. It is an administrative practice but why not cement it in the law and make it a legal right that people have an EasyVote card that they can present to a returning officer or polling clerk who then takes it from them so that it cannot be used again and there is no mistake about who that person is? It covers off issues of disability. It covers off issues of ethnicity of people with English as a second language of names not being able to be understood or interpreted correctly by a polling clerk. It covers off all of those issues and I cannot understand why this should be deleted and not reinstated.If Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper is defeated by this Committee and if Andrew Little’s Supplementary Order Paper is defeated by this Committee I commend my own Supplementary Order Paper 416 to the Committee which simply allows by the amendment of clause 24 for somebody to verbally give or confirm their name or present an enrolment confirmation card. So they can say who they are or give over an EasyVote card. At the moment the bill says they have to do both and that begins to present a barrier. That begins to present a barrier for people with all kinds of disabilities and for people whose names are difficult for polling clerks to understand—that kind of reason. It would make absolute sense for this to became an “or” and not an “and” because the bill as it stands says that electors have got to verbally confirm their name and give such other information as is necessary to find their name on the roll. Those two things and those two things combined can be a disincentive and can disadvantage voters.HOLLY WALKER (Green):I am very pleased that this debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill was carried over until today so I can have a chance to make a substantive contribution and to reinforce the contribution of my colleague Metiria Turei when this debate started last week. I want to thank the Hon Maryan Street for her contribution just now in defence of my Supplementary Order Paper 420 which seeks to reinstate the clauses of the bill that were deleted by the Justice and Electoral Committee relating to the use of the EasyVote card. There are three key things I want to say here. The first is that the Green Party is generally in support of the provisions in this bill and we have undertaken over many years—and including in this process—to work constructively towards sensible modernisation of our electoral law and to do so wherever possible by consensus.I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee which undertook the review of and inquiry into the 2011 general election which gave rise to the process that has become this Electoral Amendment Bill currently before the Committee. That select committee undertook an inquiry into the election. It heard from a range of submitters about all aspects of the 2011 general election and by consensus we worked on that committee to come up with a number of recommendations to put to the Government where we thought there needed to be changes in time for this year’s general election 2014. One of those changes that we recommended after hearing evidence from the Electoral Commission was that the EasyVote card should be allowed to be used as a confirmation that a voter has cast their vote. That was recommended to us by the Electoral Commission. It outlined to us how that would streamline its processes on polling day how that would speed up the process for its staff and how it would make for a smoother and better experience for voters. And the select committee by consensus adopted that recommendation when we were hearing evidence in the inquiry. Therefore the Government responded to those recommendations.Amongst many other things in this bill that we support one of the recommendations was that that be written into law and that is what was in the first draft of this bill which we passed in this House at its first reading. The bill was then referred back to the same select committee to consider the details of the bill itself. Unfortunately I was on parental leave while the select committee considered this bill. If I had been here I think I would have argued very strongly against the select committee’s decision to delete the clauses relating to the EasyVote card. I was not present for those discussions so I cannot speak specifically to the concerns raised but my understanding—and certainly it is reflected in the select committee’s report—is that members were concerned about electoral fraud and that “We consider that the proposed provision for a new process known operationally as EasyVote Express would in effect lower the threshold for casting a vote increasing the potential for fraud and harming the integrity of the voting process.”What I think has happened is that some very well-intentioned members of that select committee have under a misapprehension become concerned that the provisions in the bill that my Supplementary Order Paper reinstates would in effect make fraud more prolific with the EasyVote card and would make it easier to access one or easier to use it. I am not sure exactly where the concern stems from but there seems to be a concern that somehow it would make it easier for people to pretend to be someone they are not when they go to cast their vote and that that might increase the risk of electoral fraud. That is a legitimate concern and it is a concern that I understand and I share. Certainly we should be concerned to minimise the instances of electoral fraud wherever possible. But that concern has in my view manifested itself in a very harmful and unhelpful mechanism whereby the select committee seems to have agreed to delete all of these clauses related to the EasyVote card and I would put it to the Committee and to the Minister of Justice that we are really throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.If we go back to first principles we look at what an EasyVote card is and what it is for. It is simply a card that contains the name and address of the voter and the page number and line in the electoral roll where their name can be found. It makes it easier for the staff at the polling place to find them on the electoral roll and issue their ballot paper more quickly. It is not an ID card. It is no different in any mechanical sense from turning up at the polling booth with no ID at all and simply saying your name and your address. It just makes it quicker and easier for the polling booth staff to look up your name. It does not make it any easier to record a fraudulent vote. For example if somebody took it upon themselves to vote in someone else’s name they could go along to any polling place and do that by giving that person’s name and address. There would be no difference whether they had their EasyVote card in their hand or not. The EasyVote card neither increases nor decreases the risk of electoral fraud taking place. I think that is something that is really important for this Committee to understand when considering the amendments on the floor today.I think that the Justice and Electoral Committee has been labouring under a misapprehension and has got it wrong here. As a consequence we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We are throwing out the ability for the Electoral Commission to make a change that would make it much easier for it to run things on election day. What it would like to see is not a mass expansion of the use of the EasyVote card it is not making electoral fraud any easier; it is simply adding a scannable code to the EasyVote card that would allow Electoral Commission staff to scan the card after the voter has handed it in as a record that that voter has voted. In fact it would make it easier to catch out instances of fraud because instead of waiting until the electoral roll could be manually collated and could have people’s names drawn off with a ruler it would electronically record whether someone had voted yet or not. So if someone attempted to vote twice or someone else attempted to vote in their name it would show up much more quickly under the proposals before the Committee than under the status quo. So the Electoral Commission had a very sensible idea to have scannable cards in order to collate the roll electronically to make it much easier to tell whether someone has voted twice and to make it happen much more quickly and the select committee has essentially thrown that out.As Maryan Street pointed out in her contribution just now to the Committee the fact that the number of parties in the House have now identified this as a problem and are suggesting reinstating these clauses should not be controversial for the Minister of Justice because all we are seeking to do is reinstate exactly what she initially proposed in the bill. The select committee members thought about it. They made a recommendation. A number of parties in the House now consider that recommendation to be wrong and they are asking that we simply revert to what the Minister had in the bill in the first place. It should not be controversial for the Government to adopt the changes that a number of the Supplementary Order Papers on the floor of the Committee are recommending.I really implore the Minister and Government members to take this seriously and to listen and let common sense prevail because actually we could have consensus across the House as it is always best to do on electoral matters if they were willing to return to the bill as originally drafted. I think that that would be a significant improvement on what would pass if we allowed the bill to pass without these amendments.The Electoral Commission was a long way down the path of its planning for the 2014 election and it was planning that election on the basis that it would be able to use the EasyVote card with a scannable code on it to electronically collate the roll. If we do not allow it to do that I put it to the Committee that that is a missed opportunity to streamline electoral processes and it is based on a misapprehension—an understandable fear about electoral fraud but fundamentally a misapprehension—because there is nothing in the proposal that would make it any different from a user perspective to use the EasyVote card to cast the vote. It would not change that. It would not change the risk of electoral fraud one bit. So all we are doing is throwing out what would essentially be a really useful streamlined mechanism for the Electoral Commission based on an unfounded fear about electoral fraud. I think that would be a real shame. So I really implore members across the Committee especially Government members and especially the Minister in the chair to consider this seriously and to consider reverting to the bill as was originally drafted which is what my Supplementary Order Paper 420 would achieve.The other concern we have is around the inadvertent disenfranchisement of disabled voters by another change that was made by the select committee. These are the changes referred to by Maryan Street in her Supplementary Order Paper 416 and by my colleague Mojo Mathers and that is the idea of asking a voter to verbally confirm their identity at the polling booth. This again was a late addition to the select committee and it was born out of concerns about electoral fraud. But it appears that very little consideration has been given to the impact that this would have on voters with speech impediments with hearing impediments and on voters for whom English is a second language. We consider that for many people it would make it difficult or impossible for them to comply with the new requirement. The flippant response that seems to have been written into the bill is that they can confirm their identity with a gesture if they are not able to do it verbally. I put it to the Committee that that is very disrespectful for people in that position.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I would like to turn to the sections of the Electoral Amendment Bill that deal with donations to political parties and donations to candidates.Paul Foster-Bell: What about the leaders’ campaign?CHRIS HIPKINS: If the member would just hold his tongue for a moment I could elucidate for him the aspects of this that I wish to talk about. I want particularly to talk about contributions to candidates and political parties or donations to candidates and political parties that are made up of contributions. To put this into context this would be a situation where one person goes around and collects from a number of their friends a whole lot of cheques and then presents those in a bundle to a political party. There are a number of ways they could do this. They could for example host a dinner. They could host a dinner and they could collect from all of the people who attend their dinner—Kris Faafoi: This is a hypothetical right?CHRIS HIPKINS: —it is a hypothetical—some very large cheques. Let us say $5000—let us just say that they take $5000 from each of their friends who attend the dinner and they say that that is the ticket price for attending the dinner. They bundle all those up and they donate those to a political party. What is very clear from this legislation is the principle—let us say that they held it in 2010. Back then for instance the disclosure threshold was $10000. What is very clear from the law both in the provisions of this bill and in the principal Act the Electoral Act 1993 which it amends is that if any one person paid for more than two tickets then they would have to be declared separately. They would have to be itemised out because the bill is very clear that contributions have to be identified. The people contributing to that have to be identified as well not just the person who is making the overall donation but the people who are contributing individually to that if it exceeds the threshold. So anybody in say 2010 buying more than two tickets at $5000 each to a dinner would have to declare it. It would have to be declared.I want to know whether in fact the Government is willing to live up to that because it is very clear that exactly that happened. A dinner happened in 2010 where people paid $5000 per head to attend. Any person paying for more than two tickets—any person paying for more than two tickets—would have had to be declared to the Electoral Commission. If they were not then there was a clear breach of the electoral law. The law has been broken—the law has been broken—because nobody other than the person who collected the donations was declared on the National Party’s return of electoral expenses. So if the National Party knows that one person paid for more than two tickets it is clear that it has willingly and knowingly broken the electoral law. If somebody for example bought a table at that dinner and their name was not declared alongside the name of the principal donor then the National Party has knowingly and willingly broken the electoral law.Of course this matters. This matters because we have a situation where we have a Prime Minister—who is also the leader of the National Party of course—who believes that anybody who tries to conceal where their money is coming from is being tricky. Well the same standard applies to the Prime Minister. He is being very tricky when he tries to duck for cover and says that he is not going to reveal where the National Party gets its money from but he thinks that the Labour Party should reveal where every cent that it gets is coming from. That is an absolute double standard. It is a very tricky double standard.I want to know whether the National Party is going to live up to its commitments and the values that this bill represents because this bill and the clauses around contributions to candidate and party campaigns are very clear. It is about transparency and it is about making sure that the public of New Zealand know where political parties are getting their money from. But we do not know where the money that the National Party gets is coming from. So John Key on the one hand says that he thinks anybody who tries to conceal where their money is coming from is being tricky even if in fact they do front up in the end and say where the money has come from. If they front up and they say where the money has come from John Key still wants to attack them and fling mud at them but he is not willing to front up and say where the National Party’s money is coming from. That is a clear double standard. I want to see the Prime Minister live up to his own standards—something that thus far he has proven unwilling to do.The principle here again is transparency. It is a level of transparency that the Prime Minister is not willing to live up to. Under these rules—Part 1 clause 46 for example which deals with the return of candidate donations—it is clear that where somebody submits a donation that is made up of contributions and any one of those contributions exceeds $1500 the person making the donation has to identify the name of each contributor the address of the contributor the amount that they have contributed and the date on which the donation funded from the contributions was made. That same principle applies to donations made to political parties. Therefore if somebody knowingly submitted to the National Party a donation of let us say over $100000 and that person knew that any individual contributor had contributed more than $10000 to that overall donation then they must have listed down the name address contact details etc. of each contributor who gave more than $10000 to that donation. If they have not done so then they have clearly broken the law.I want to know from National Party members whether in fact that is the case. I want to have an absolute guarantee from National Party members that no single contributor—no single person attending that dinner—paid for more than two tickets because if they did pay for more two tickets the National Party has knowingly and willingly been a party to the breaking of electoral law. I look forward to full disclosure from National Party members and absolute assurance that nobody paid for more than two tickets because if they are not willing to give that it clearly means something is not right. It clearly means that they are now aware that they have broken the electoral law and what are they going to do to put that right? If no National Party member is willing to stand up in the Chamber and give us an absolute assurance that nobody attending that dinner paid for more than two tickets everyone in New Zealand has an absolute right to ask why that is. Why is it that no one from the National Party is willing to give an absolute assurance that nobody paid for more than two tickets? If National Party members are not willing to do that they are clearly not willing to stand up and say the party did not break the law because they know that it would not be true—because they know that it would not be true. In the absence of that reassurance in this Chamber the public of New Zealand are left with no other conclusion than that the National Party has broken the law.The National Party broke the law and now National Party members are not willing to front up. Not only are they not willing to front up and adhere—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am listening very carefully to the member and he has really launched into what might be a general debate when he should be talking about the principles of the bill. By all means he can make comparative illustrations but he has gone beyond that.CHRIS HIPKINS: In that case I will talk about the penalties for knowingly participating in breaching this law because there are penalties in this bill for people who knowingly file false returns and knowingly do not submit the information that they are due. If anyone in the National Party was involved in that then the penalties that they would be subject to are clearly spelt out in this legislation—clearly spelt out in this legislation. That is of course probably one of the reasons I think in the case of candidate donations—if it was a candidate donation it would be $40000. That would be the penalty that they would be liable for. I am not entirely sure where the section is—a party secretary who without reasonable excuse knowingly filed false information would be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $40000.Clearly if the National Party again under this bill was aware that one person paid for more than two tickets to that dinner then it is now liable under this bill for a fine not exceeding $40000. I am not surprised that no one from the National Party is willing to open themselves up to that by basically standing up and giving the reassurance that in fact the National Party did not breach the law because increasingly there is evidence to suggest that that may well have happened and they are not willing to deny that. So I am looking forward to the rest of this debate. I am looking forward to hearing those reassurances from National Party members although of course I will not be holding my breath. I will not be holding my breath because it is clear that John Key and the National Party are not willing to adhere to the standards that they have set for others. They are not willing to adhere to those standards themselves.Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri):I move That the question be now put.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Can I endorse the comments made by my colleague Chris Hipkins because what we see in the Electoral Amendment Bill are provisions that are designed to bring more openness and integrity and transparency to the making of donations yet either the bill fails to guarantee this or National has failed to live up to the requirements under the old legislation let alone under the new legislation that is being introduced. The point of the Committee debate is to have the Minister in the chair answer questions. So questions have been raised by Chris Hipkins and I would invite Craig Foss to answer those questions. They are valid questions. They are integral to the bill that is before the Committee which is designed to bring honesty and integrity around the question of donations to parties. But there are two other questions that I would like Mr Foss to address specifically. They are quite straightforward.The first question Mr Foss is why does this bill which came into the House with specific provisions that would provide statutory underpinning for the EasyVote card that were endorsed by the Justice and Electoral Committee which did the inquiry into the 2008 election and that were endorsed by the Minister of Justice in her first reading speech—why were those provisions relating to the EasyVote card removed from this bill on the instructions of the Minister or of Cabinet to the National members of the select committee? We have had no answer to that question. The EasyVote card according to the inquiry done by the Justice and Electoral Committee had considerably improved the efficiency of election day processes. It said that there was no risk that this would facilitate dual voting because there were safeguards against dual voting. So it cannot possibly be an argument that the EasyVote provisions have been removed because they would facilitate electoral fraud.The committee made it clear that we should make the changes in this electoral bill that were recommended in the bill as introduced to this House. Then the Minister endorsed it herself. She said it was “Another important change”. That is what she called it in the first reading debate. She said that “Another important change enabled by this bill is the greater use of EasyVote cards during the voting process.” Then the Minister Judith Collins set about explaining why the EasyVote card was so important. It was a record that the ordinary vote had been cast. It allowed the cards to be used as a declaration for special votes. She said: “This new use of EasyVote cards will simplify and speed up the issuing of ordinary and special votes.” The Minister of Justice was quite straightforward when she came into the House—we needed these provisions. The provisions have gone Minister so I ask Minister Foss why those provisions have been taken out because no clear explanation has been given.In the absence of a clear explanation we must assume that the Republican Tea Party faction has started to infiltrate the thinking of the National Party. The EasyVote card as the Minister said in the first reading debate makes it easier for people to participate and it improves the efficiency of the system. Does the National Party not want more people to participate? Does the National Party realise that more people participating counts against the self-interest of that party? Is the National Party putting the self-interest of its electoral benefit ahead of the right of people and the encouragement and promotion of people to perform their civic duty of casting a vote? If that is not the explanation Minister Foss what is the explanation? Throughout the Committee stage of this House the Minister has not risen to give an explanation on that point. What is the point of having a Committee stage like this if valid questions are raised that the Minister refuses to answer?There is another question I would like the Minister to address when he takes the call and that is the question of why this bill omits any provisions relating to coat-tailing of MPs into this House by a party that fails to reach the 5 percent threshold but does get one member elected from a seat. When we introduced the MMP system in this House we set a threshold of 5 percent for a reason—that you needed to achieve that level of support to be represented in the House. Included in that was that if you had one member of Parliament elected from an electorate seat then they could get the proportion of votes that their party overall achieved translated into further MPs. That might have been well intended but what the initiators of the MMP system never imagined was that one party would rort that system to get people into this House with greater numbers than can be justified.Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about Jim Anderton?Hon PHIL GOFF: I ask Nick Smith why it is so right that the ACT Party in 2008 got five members of Parliament elected on 3.65 percent of the vote and the New Zealand First Party which got more than that with 4.05 percent of the vote got no members. That destroys the principle of proportionality. That undermines the electoral system. In the referendum at the last election 58 percent of New Zealanders voted for a continuation of MMP but they voted for a continuation of MMP on the assumption that the Prime Minister would keep his word have a review of the electoral system and act on the recommendations of that review. So I ask the Minister when the independent Electoral Commission recommended that the coat-tailing provision be removed because it was rorting the system why the National Party has ignored that advice from the independent Electoral Commission.Why has it ignored constant public opinion that has consistently said that this ought to be removed? When it polled people time and again people said that the one thing that they thought was wrong about MMP was the coat-tailing provisions. Why is the Electoral Commission’s recommendation to remove coat-tailing not included in this bill? It is a fair question. It deserves an answer. I challenge the Minister in the chair not to sit there silent with his head bowed but to get up and answer the questions that are validly asked. It also rorts this parliamentary system when we have a Committee of the whole House—where the point is to go through clause by clause and to have the Minister answer questions validly raised—and when the Minister stays stuck in his seat. My challenge to the Minister is to answer those questions.How does he prevent the rort that is going on with electoral donations? These provisions in the bill do not seem to be enough to stop what the Waitematā Trust has been doing—for example giving $1.25 million each election to the National Party with no identification of the people who benefit from National Party policies being direct recipients of what is effectively a bribe by way of an election donation. It should be transparent; it should be clean.Why have the EasyVote card provisions been removed from this bill when the Minister of Justice herself said it would strengthen the democratic process? I ask why the Government has refused to act on public opinion and the independent Electoral Commission’s advice that coat-tailing should be removed and with it the likes of Rodney Hide and John Banks who take their place in this House only because they were gifted their seat by the National Party—the National Party that has rorted the system in order to maintain itself in power. It is that straightforward. It is that dirty. Those coat-tailing provisions should have been removed and Nick Smith should take the call if the Minister in the chair remains silent and he should explain why those provisions have not been included in this bill.Why does the National Party want to rort the system? Why does the National Party want to stop the EasyVote card provisions designed to encourage New Zealanders to get out and do what they ought to do which is to cast a vote to participate in the democracy to have a stake in the democracy? EasyVote card provisions were included in this bill as introduced. The National Government overrode the select committee system and instructed the National members on the Justice and Electoral Committee to take those provisions out and not a word of explanation or justification to this House was made about why they did that. Electoral law reform is special. It should be aimed to get consensus—JOANNE HAYES (National):I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. Party vote? The Clerk will conduct a party vote.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. New Zealand First has not yet had a speaker in this debate and it—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am on my feet. There have been over 20 calls. During my time and the time that I watched it there was no attempt by New Zealand First to take a call. That may not be the case. The Committee will now determine whether it wants the debate to continue. [Interruption] I have already ruled. The member will—[Interruption] I have ruled. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member did not listen and I have ruled. [Interruption] No I do not need any assistance. The Clerk will now conduct a party vote.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Because this is an electoral matter something which is constitutional I move That the Chairperson report progress to obtain the Speaker’s ruling regarding the acceptance of a closure motion by the Chairperson.Motion agreed to.House resumed.Speaker RecalledThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Mr Speaker the House in Committee has moved that you be recalled to determine whether my judgment in accepting a closure motion was an appropriate course of action. The debate on Part 1 of the Electoral Amendment Bill has been in progress over two sessions and by the records I have in front of me there have been 19 calls on the bill itself plus four closure motions. I have taken care to ensure that everybody who has a Supplementary Order Paper to the bill has had as many calls as they desire. I would just say that the debate had tended in my view to move away from the principles of the bill to a looser more general debate and so I gave one caution and I determined that in fact the principles of Part 1 of the bill had been well and truly debated. On top of that there was a claim by Denis O’Rourke that New Zealand First had not had a call in this debate. It had the fourth call in this debate so in fact that was a claim in error. On reflection I am quite convinced that a satisfactory debate on Part 1 of this bill has taken place.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Mr Speaker I moved to have you recalled. The reason for so moving was a very simple one. There was a suggestion from the Chairman that Mr O’Rourke had not sought the call. Mr O’Rourke had sought the call. That was part of the judgment the Chairman gave in making his decision. In my view he was wrong. There is a supplementary point that flows from what the Chairman said. This is not a debate about the principles of the bill; this is a debate about the details of Part 1. Mr Goff the previous speaker spoke extensively on the details of that part over a 10-minute call. If he had not been speaking on the details of course the Chairman would have given the call to someone else after 5 minutes.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):Just raising a point out of the commentary the Chairman made he said that every member who has a Supplementary Order Paper in their name had been given every opportunity to speak to that Supplementary Order Paper. My colleague Maryan Street has certainly had one opportunity to speak but she was seeking further calls.Louise Upston: No she’s taken two calls.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The senior Government whip is interrupting me. I point out that every member has the right to up to four 5-minute calls on each part of a bill. Maryan Street was seeking further calls in order to speak to her Supplementary Order Paper 416. There were also a number of questions raised to the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce none of which has been addressed. The issues the Opposition members are raising are around changes that have occurred to the legislation with little or no explanation. The Committee of the whole House is the opportunity for the Opposition to ask for explanations of the Minister and thus far none has been forthcoming so it seemed appropriate to us that the debate continue.LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):In the original point of order raised the member Mr O’Rourke said he had not taken a call in this debate. According to our records he did take a call in the first part of the debate which was not today but on a prior occasion. So I do not believe that the facts that were put on the table in the point of order were correct.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):What has just been said is completely incorrect. It is true that I took the fourth call but today I sought another call. What the Chairman said was that that had not happened—that no such call had been sought. I did immediately before he ruled seek to speak. I wanted to speak about some of the detail of the bill. In my first call I had talked only about some of the general issues concerned. So what has been said is not correct and I think what Mr Mallard said was correct. This debate should not have been curtailed at this stage.Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation):I have been in the House since the Committee resumed on this bill after question time and I think the Chair of the Committee has diligently carried out his duties. When he said to the House that Mr O’Rourke had not been seeking the call there had been a number of closure motions. On several of those occasions two or three members rose to take the call. Mr O’Rourke was not one of them until after Mr Roy had accepted the closure motion. That is where I thought Mr Roy the Chair of the Committee properly presented the case. He quite properly reported to the House that had Mr O’Rourke been repeatedly seeking the call since the Committee started after question time he might have a fair point but he had not been. It was only at the very last opportunity that he sought the call and that is when Mr Roy quite properly represented the events that occurred in the Committee in his justification for accepting the closure motion.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):It is just a straight matter of fact. Dr Smith said that Mr O’Rourke did not contest the call before the Chairman ruled; he did.Mr SPEAKER: I thank all members for their points. I am going to refer members to Speakers’ rulings 64/4 and 64/5. In essence what those Speakers’ rulings say is that it is not for me as Speaker to second-guess the Chairperson’s acceptance of a closure motion. I was not in my office listening to the debate but I am mindful of the point that Eric Roy made as Chairman of the debate that he felt that the debate was already getting loose and that he had taken the opportunity of cautioning the Committee that if members wanted to further debate it they needed to tighten it up. In this particular case the Chairman has made a decision that there have been 19 calls and a number of closure motions. He is the person who is listening to the debate. He has decided that the matter has been adequately debated. On that basis I am accepting the position of Mr Eric Roy as Chairman. I therefore declare the House returning to Committee.In CommitteeDebate resumed.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 412 in the name of Mojo Mathers to Part 1 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes59New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 416 in the name of the Hon Maryan Street to clause 24 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes49New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1.Noes71New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Brendan Horan to clause 24 be agreed to:replace this clause with the following new clause:24Section 167 amended (Issue of ordinary ballot papers)(2)The elector must identity themselves to the issuing officer(2A)The issuing officer may take such steps so as to be reasonably satisfied as to the identity of the elector(2B)Nothing in section 167(2) or section 167(2A) requires or allows electors generally to be required to produce photo identification.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 417 in the name of Andrew Little to Part 1 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 420 in the name of Holly Walker to Part 1 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 415 in the name of Brendan Horan to clause 55 be agreed to.Amendment not agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Consequential amendments to other enactmentsHon MARYAN STREET (Labour):Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill as it stands simply seeks to bring into line other pieces of legislation that are affected consequentially by the passage of this bill. They are the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000 the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011 and then there are amendments to the Electoral Regulations 1996. I wonder whether I might prevail upon the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce to participate in this debate and simply explain whether at the end of the bill in Part 2 where the amendments to electoral regulations are outlined there have been any changes to this provision since the enactment of the Legislation Act of last year—in fact of 2012 but which became effective in 2013. The Electoral Regulations 1996 are I presume disallowable instruments. I would just like that confirmed because here Parliament is talking about and considering electoral regulations and amendments to them in front of the Committee rather than having regulations go through Order in Council. So I ask the Minister in the chair just to clarify that point for me as to whether these come under particular provisions that are provisions of the Legislation Act which would make these disallowable instruments and not legislative instruments. I can only assume they are legislative instruments because we are addressing them in the Committee of the whole House in Parliament.I wish that the legislation in Part 1 which we have just passed could have been amended and that it could then have enjoyed the support of all of the parties in the House. It is a shame that part of this bill has not enjoyed the full support of this House. This legislation is too important. Any legislation around the electoral provisions that we have in law in this country ought to be passed not by just a simple majority of 61 to 59 which is about as slim as one can get it should enjoy the support of the vast majority of parties in this House. If the Government had seen fit to accept some of the amendments that were put up in the last part then this piece of legislation could have enjoyed that support. As it is we will support these technical bits in Part 2. There is no point in opposing them. It would be simply not only churlish but a bit stupid to oppose them. But what this does then do is make the passage of this bill problematic. If we pass these technical bits in Part 2 as a Committee of the whole House but we cannot bring ourselves to pass as a Committee of the whole House the essential and substantive parts in Part 1 then this Electoral Amendment Bill is a farce.It should not be this way in this Committee. It should not be this way in a democracy like ours which has the benefit of being a small democracy and is therefore transparent by necessity and also by convention. It should not be that we have a piece of legislation amending our electoral laws that does not enjoy the full support of the Committee in all parts. It is not impossible for a piece of legislation to enjoy the full support of this Committee. If the bill were fair and it did not put up barriers to people participating in the voting process then it could have enjoyed the full support of this Committee. As it stands we will support clauses 57 58 and 59 through to 64 because it would be silly not to. But if only the same courtesy had been done to the Supplementary Order Papers in Part 1 then we might have had a logical and consistent piece of legislation that we could then say is the electoral law of the land as supported by all parties. As it is we will be compelled to go out to electors to the people of New Zealand and say that the Electoral Amendment Act—as it will become—did not enjoy the support of all the parties in Parliament. That should have been front and centre of the Minister’s intentions. We will support Part 2 because it is silly not to but we wish that the members opposite had been generous enough to seek multipartisan support for electoral amendments that were provoking some disquiet and concern on this side of the Chamber.So it is with reluctance that we support Part 2 but we will make it clear to the people of New Zealand that the electoral legislation that we have was not as well supported in this House as it could have been and that in fact it was only marginally supported by a majority in this House. That is not good enough. When it comes to electoral legislation the Government should have tried harder to get the consent of all parties. It was not beyond its wit to do that. I hope it finds that Part 2 is a great trophy for it. This part is the administrative rats and mice. It makes other pieces of legislation consistent. It amends them because they are affected by this one. If that is the sort of achievement that the National Government takes pride in then God help all of us because it is not good enough when it comes to electoral legislation. We will support Part 2. There are no Supplementary Order Papers on it to my knowledge. There is no need for any. In supporting Part 2 we reflect on the wish that we might have been able to support in full Part 1 of this bill.ALFRED NGARO (National):I rise to take a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill—Part 2 “Consequential amendments to other enactments”. Can I make just some brief comments about the comments that were made by the Hon Maryan Street. I have the honour and privilege to have been part of the Justice and Electoral Committee since 2012. The committee had the Hon Lianne Dalziel also Charles Chauvel from the Opposition present as well. I can say that I am one member on the committee who has been there for some time. We went through the process of the inquiry as one would normally do. We heard a number of the submitters who were there. Can I say that over that journey over that process there were a number of issues that were controversial and that were issues of contention amongst the deliberations of the committee. However over that period of time the roles and positions of Government members have changed. Previously the chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee was Tim Macindoe and now it is the honourable member over here—Scott Simpson of Coromandel. There have been changes on the Opposition side as well. So Opposition members may not be aware of that journey and the sorts of contentious issues that were there. There were issues around for instance the balloons and logos and tags and so forth.However we got to a point where I have to say that it was this year as we deliberated at the select committee there was unanimous—can I repeat that unanimous—support for the bill as it currently stands. So one must question the reasons why we now have opposition why we now have Supplementary Order Papers that have been introduced. There were none in Part 2—yes in Part 1. One can only query that maybe there was an ability to say yes we agreed in the select committee but when Opposition members went back to their caucuses there was concern. But then as you know even with Part 2 Part 2 went back along with Part 1 and that was deliberated on in caucus. It was brought back again to the select committee and again I must confirm that at the committee it was a unanimous decision to support all parts of the bill even Part 2 where it is technical—“Consequential amendments to other enactments”. All parts of the bill were supported.The New Zealand electoral system has a very high level of integrity. Part 1 has minor changes to the legal framework. Then in Part 2 there are minor changes and amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act amendments to the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act amendments to the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011 and amendments to Electoral Regulations as well. All of these were debated rigorously over 2 years to the point where again even in respect of Part 2 with no Supplementary Order Papers there was unanimous support. I do not want to prolong this debate because the debate has been lengthy in the select committee. On all of the issues even the ones of contention that will be raised again here can I just say—and I may sound like a broken record—that all parts of the Electoral Amendment Bill were supported by all of the committee members. The Labour New Zealand First and Green Party members all saw this as a good bill an important bill and an amendment bill that will ensure that we have a democratic election come 20 September this year. I support Part 2 amendments to the Committee.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):I would like to pick up on a number of the issues raised by the member Alfred Ngaro in his previous contribution because I think he has raised some important issues that the Committee needs to consider and needs to debate. First of all he raised the fact that there were a number of changes in personnel on the Justice and Electoral Committee and that there were a number of controversial issues that were considered by the select committee at length. He is absolutely right. These matters are controversial and that is why the Committee of the whole House is asking for some explanation around some of the issues. What I have not heard yet from either Mr Ngaro or the couple of other of his colleagues who have managed to get to their feet and speak or anybody else for that matter is some explanation around some of the controversial matters that Alfred Ngaro referred to. It is true that there were members on that committee who represented the Labour Party who have actually now left the House. They are no longer here for us to actually ask them what their view was. So this is the place this is the time where we get the opportunity to consider all those matters.What I really really want to know and what not a single National member who was on that committee and neither the Minister in charge of the Electoral Amendment Bill the Minister of Justice nor the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce has explained is at what point in the select committee process the decision was made to remove the legislative requirement for voter identification cards. That is one issue that I am really interested in. As Alfred Ngaro raised in his previous contribution that was one of the controversial issues where there may have appeared to be consensus at the select committee but where there certainly is no longer a consensus around it. All we on this side of the Chamber are asking for is an explanation. Where did that idea to get rid of the voter identification cards come from?The reason why I am asking that question is that there is an extraordinary coincidence going on right now. Coincidences do happen. It is a big world and so I accept that coincidences can happen. But what is extremely coincidental is that right now in Canada the Conservative Party of Canada is pushing through the Fair Elections Act which is incredibly analogous to what the National Government is doing with this legislation. Those members have gone quiet have they not? Is it not strange that conservative parties around the world are using these so-called fair election changes to suppress democracy? Because that is actually what it is about. The changes they are making in Canada are around the use of voter identification cards. It is that similar—it is that similar. They are suppressing the use of voter identification cards to make it harder for voters to identify themselves at the polling booth in exactly the same way that the National Government is doing here in New Zealand. It is a mighty coincidence and one has to wonder what Crosby/Textor’s role has been in bringing these sorts of changes forward.You know they are even using the same argument over in Canada which is that there is widespread potential for voter fraud. However there is also in Canada absolutely no—[Interruption] Well Mr Chairman I appreciate that this is Part 2 but I am simply responding to the contribution made by Alfred Ngaro. What this Government has managed to do in Part 2 is get consensus around some of the “adminis-trivia” that is in Part 2. That is not exactly a high bar. Well done National you have got consensus around that. But what National has not managed to get consensus on is the bill as a whole and what it has not been able to answer either in Part 1 or in Part 2 is the question of where these ideas came from. Where did these ideas come from? That is what we want to know but nobody has been able to answer that question. I just find it remarkably coincidental that at a time when the Conservative Government in Canada is pushing through exactly the kinds of changes that are being made with this bill this legislation which was introduced before that got changed.HOLLY WALKER (Green):Apologies to my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway but I also would like to take a call on Part 2 to address some of the contributions made by Alfred Ngaro. Like him I have been involved in the Justice and Electoral Committee on this particular matter for some time starting with the inquiry into the 2011 general election. As Mr Ngaro will recall we spent a long time on that inquiry—some would say perhaps too long. There was at one point a question mark over whether there would even be time for this Electoral Amendment Bill to come before the House and be passed in time to put its provisions in place for this year’s election because we took so long over the 2011 general election inquiry. But I am not ashamed of the fact that we took a long time on that inquiry because it was a very robust process we reached consensus and we worked very hard to do that. I was proud of my work on that inquiry. It was my first experience of real genuine cross-party collaboration on a select committee item of business where I think we got a really positive result.One of the outcomes of that process was the recommendation that changes be made to the use of the EasyVote card to include on it a scannable code so that it could be used as a record that a vote had been cast in the election. That was what we went round in circles actually about for a while during the general election inquiry because there was concern about the potential for voter fraud. We heard from submitters who had that concern we heard from members of the committee who had that concern and we heard from the Electoral Commission which gave us evidence about why that concern was unfounded. We listened and we concluded that it was an unfounded concern and that we could include a recommendation to allow the EasyVote card to be used in this way. So we did and that is what appeared in the first draft of this legislation. So as we now debate Part 2 and the consequential amendments to what has just passed by a very slim majority in Part 1 I think it is important that we consider why it is that we have departed so far from the original draft of the bill which was what the Minister of Justice brought to this House and was what the Justice and Electoral Committee recommended after its inquiry into the 2011 election.I was not present for the select committee discussions on this bill. I would venture to say that if I had been I might have made these arguments in person in the discussions. Unfortunately I was on parental leave and I could not do that but the same arguments that applied when we were talking about the election inquiry and about the EasyVote card apply to this bill. Those concerns which may well have been raised by members of the committee during the discussion of this bill about the potential for increased electoral fraud are simply unfounded. From a user perspective—from a voter perspective—going along to cast their vote in the 2014 election on 20 September this year there would be no difference if the bill as originally drafted were to pass. Their use of the EasyVote card would not change. It would not make it easier for them to use the card. It would not make them more likely to commit fraud. It would not make them less likely to commit fraud. There would be no difference. They would simply take the EasyVote card along to the polling booth present it to the polling place staff member and get their voting papers. So those concerns that somehow there is an increased chance of fraud taking place from this are simply unfounded. From the user perspective there is no difference. You get the card in the mail; you take it to the polling booth.Where the difference comes is that after the vote has been cast the scannable code on the EasyVote card allows the Electoral Commission staff to scan it so that the casting of a vote is electronically recorded against the electoral roll. That is the difference and that is what we have inexplicably deleted from this bill which has broken down the consensus that was achieved over a very long period of time when the committee originally considered these items in its 2011 election inquiry. I think that that is a real shame because all it is doing is making it more difficult for the Electoral Commission to do its job on election day and it is missing the opportunity to streamline electoral processes and to actually continue to modernise and update our electoral law.There are a number of consequential amendments in Part 2 that stem from what we have debated in Part 1. Again we will support those because we do generally support the tenor of this legislation. We supported all of the recommendations that originally prompted this bill. We were very excited about modernising our electoral law and it is a great shame that some unfounded concern about voter fraud which if you take a cynical view as my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway has—KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill. Unlike with Part 1 the Labour Party is going to support Part 2 so this part of the Electoral Amendment Bill will go through with quite a sizable majority. As previous speakers have said Part 2 does make technical amendments to a number of other pieces of legislation. There are consequential amendments to them as a result of Part 1 of this bill. I would also like to take some of this call—I will refer to Part 2 very soon—as a chance to speak to some of the issues that Alfred Ngaro made reference to in his Part 2 speech.I understand that Mr Ngaro is a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee and I think that that committee does need some praise and Mr Ngaro actually needs some praise for taking a call in this debate at all. The Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce has sat in this Chamber and has been requested to answer a number of questions about the changes that have been made to Part 1 of this bill not Part 2 but as of yet Alfred Ngaro is the only National person who is willing to take a call. He did not address exactly why the changes that have been made in Part 1 have been made and some questions need to be addressed there because there are some controversial issues as Mr Ngaro said. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has already pointed out many of those but one change that has been made in the bill which I think Mr Ngaro mentioned in his Part 2 speech was around what I thought was a silly amendment that was in an earlier version of this piece of legislation around the use of ribbons and logos on election day. Earlier in this debate I think it was in the first reading I accused Scott Simpson the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee of suffering from I think the term is kordéllaphobia which is a fear of ribbons. I praise Mr Simpson because he has gone away during the select committee process he has realised that this particular piece of legislation was a silly amendment to the bill and he has struck that out of the bill. I do praise the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee.But there is a serious side to this which some members have already addressed and that is around the electoral confirmation cards. Most New Zealanders would know those as the EasyVote cards. Certainly in my electorate when constituents get those cards they know that they are ready to go and vote. Although this piece of legislation had that written into it at the very first stage the Minister of Justice has asked that this be removed. For what reason we do not know. Can I also point specifically to clause 57 in the bill which refers to amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act. Subclauses (2) and (3) refer to the deletion of the signature of the Minister of Justice in the schedule form 2 and the schedule form 2A. Of course we know that our current Minister of Justice is the Hon Judith Collins. This clause 57 asks for the deletion of the signature of the Minister of Justice. I guess you could call that—[Interruption] No the signature of the Minister of Justice—you are getting to my point—would be an endorsement of whatever that signature pertained to. We would hate for the Minister to be getting a bit of a reputation around the deletion of her endorsement on things given recent events. But let us not cry over sick milk.These amendments to Part 2 are technical amendments but as the Hon Maryan Street said although we apply principle to this on this side of the Chamber we are quite keen to modernise our electoral system to make sure it has integrity to make sure it is efficient and to encourage participation. We believe that Part 2 does do that. We are concerned with what is contained in Part 1 but we on this side of the Chamber do encourage support for Part 2 because we know that in order to make Part 1 work even though we do not agree with all of it Part 2 does have the support of the Labour Party.Part 2 agreed to.Schedule agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):This has been quite an extensive—well not as extensive as some of us would have liked in the Committee of the whole House and that is because there are a number of issues that have been raised with this legislation the Electoral Amendment Bill. Given that there is concern on this side of the Chamber that this bill does some things that we think are detrimental to our electoral law but also misses out a number of things that we think would make important improvements to our electoral law that the public desperately want Parliament to actually get on with doing I think a very appropriate name for this legislation would be the “Suppression of Democracy Bill” because it suppresses democracy in a number of different ways. First is the obvious which is that by removing the legislative requirement that the voter identification card—the EasyVote card is what most people would know it as—in combination with this new requirement which again came out of nowhere that a person must verbally confirm their identity to the person in the polling booth those two things combined is a very very dangerous situation for a lot of people who will find it more difficult to identify themselves when they get to the polling booth.It is known around the world that voter identification cards like the EasyVote card that we have in New Zealand are a facilitator of higher voter turnout. They know that in Canada research has been produced in recent days to counter its Conservative Government’s argument that the use of voter identification cards in Canada should also be suppressed and that changes should be made over there as well to the way a voter identifies themselves when they present themselves at the polling booth. Frankly the legislation that the Canadian Conservative Party is proposing is considerably worse than what the National Government is proposing here in New Zealand. What I think the National Government has done is it has seen what the Government is doing in Canada and it has tried to do some catch-up with some of the changes that have been made as this legislation has been making its way through Parliament. There has been much more public outcry in Canada about what its Conservative Government is doing and in fact an extensive filibuster by Opposition members in Canada where they have a system that allows for much more extensive filibusters than what we can do here in New Zealand such is the concern about the detrimental impacts on democracy and voter turnout of the legislation that the Canadians are promoting.I think what the National Government has done here in New Zealand is it has looked at that and thought: “You know what? There are a few ideas that we can take out of that and there are some ways that we can use the changes that are being made to electoral law here in New Zealand to suppress turnout and suppress democracy.” We know—it is just a known fact—that all around the world the progressive parties the parties of the left do better when there is a higher turnout and the conservative parties do better when there is a lower turnout when more people feel they cannot go to the polling booth or they do not want to participate in the election or when they show up at the polling booth some reason is found that their vote does not count. This is always done in the name of eliminating electoral fraud. Every time some party uses the excuse that by opening up the electoral process so that more people can participate it potentially opens up opportunities for electoral fraud the argument that is used against that is that electoral fraud is almost non-existent. That is certainly the case here in New Zealand. There is no documented evidence of electoral fraud occurring at the polling booth. When somebody shows up with their voter identification card or without it there is absolutely no example from any member of the Government or any example that I have been able to find in researching this legislation of electoral fraud at the polling booth occurring in New Zealand. So what is the problem? What exactly is the problem that the Government thinks it is solving by removing the legislative requirement for the EasyVote card to exist and by requiring voters to identify themselves verbally?That may not seem like such a big deal but we know that one of the most marginalised groups in New Zealand one of the demographics that is most likely not to engage in our electoral processes is new migrants—usually people for whom English is a second language. When those people are asked to identify themselves verbally it is absolutely possible that the name they have and the way they pronounce their name may not be entirely obvious to the person checking their name against the roll. That person may find it extremely difficult to find that person on the roll and that may be used as a barrier to that person being able to vote. But just the act of actually having to engage verbally rather than presenting your EasyVote card that has been provided to you in order to facilitate you casting your vote may be off-putting—in fact it probably will be off-putting—for a lot of new migrants who struggle to engage in everyday activities in New Zealand because of the language barriers they have.I think particularly of the former refugee communities that I have in Palmerston North and I know that other members represent those kinds of communities right across the country. The older generations in particular who have spent many many years of their lives in refugee camps have not had the opportunity for education and certainly have not had the opportunity to learn English whilst they have been living in those refugee camps. Their knowledge of English is extremely limited but I can tell you this. They are desperate to vote but they do not want any barriers put up in front of them. I wonder why exactly it is that the National Party seems so hell-bent on putting barriers up in front of people.I do see this as a “Voter Turnout Reduction Bill”. I do see it as a “Suppression of Democracy Bill”. I think actually frankly what we have discovered—because this is going on around the world—is that this is just another Crosby/Textor special. It has advised the parties of the right around the world of another way they can rig elections and rort the elections in their favour. But the biggest rort of course is the thing that is missing from this legislation and that is the abolition of the coat-tailing provisions. Seventy-one percent of New Zealanders want the coat-tailing provisions to go. There was no good reason for them to have been put into our electoral law in the first place.Hon Maurice Williamson: I’ve got two words for you: Jim Anderton.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The member brings up Jim Anderton. You could have put a small thermonuclear weapon under Wigram and you still would not have got rid of Jim Anderton. There was no coat-tailing involved in that. The people of Wigram loved Jim Anderton and they kept returning him. That was the situation in Wigram Maurice Williamson so please do not try to compare John Banks with the situation down in Wigram with Jim Anderton. No that is not a valid analogy to make at all.What is happening right now is that the National Party is making deals with the likes of ACT. Peter Dunne did not used to have to rely on a deal with the National Party but now he does. And of course we do not know what is going to happen with Colin Craig. Maybe Murray is going to have to give up his seat to Colin Craig to make sure National gets itself over the line. New Zealanders are sick of this. You gave them the review then you listened to what everybody had to say but you did not like it so you said: “No we’re not going to continue on with that.” even though the vast majority of New Zealanders wanted the change to happen and the National Government promised them that when the review happened changes would be made to MMP. That is what New Zealand expected. That is what New Zealand was promised. But because of its own self-interest the National Party has failed to deliver on the promise it made before the last election.I do hope that this Parliament gets the opportunity later this year to consider the bill in my name that would get rid of the coat-tailing provisions. I do hope that we get far enough through the members’ orders of the day in order to debate that before the election because I want to hear why the National Party thinks that it is the right thing to do to block the logical change that New Zealanders are asking for. We have a party vote threshold. If parties can get to that threshold they can be represented with list MPs in the House. That is what New Zealanders want to see happen. That is what is missing from this legislation. The reason it is missing is that the National Party wants to rort the electoral system in its own interests which is the same reason it is trying to suppress voter turnout with the changes that were made—KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Simply put the title of the Electoral Amendment Bill should be changed to the “Electoral (Diluting Democracy) Amendment Bill” because that is exactly what it does. The first substantial sentence on the front of this bill says that “The Electoral Amendment Bill seeks to make amendments to the Electoral Act 1993 to improve services to voters candidates and parties in time for the 2014 general election.” It is our argument on this side of the Chamber that because of the way that the Government has amended this bill since it first arrived in the House for its first reading it will in fact make life harder for voters in the 2014 election.A number of our speakers during Part 1 of this debate asked why the Minister responsible for the bill the Minister of Justice is making the changes around the enrolment confirmation card which most New Zealanders know as the EasyVote card. I do notice that we have got a new Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration who I have found in the past to be quite reasonable in the fact that he wants things that we put in legislation to be evidence-based. I know that in other parts of legislation such as the breath-alcohol limit he has asked this House that everything be evidence-based. So I ask the Minister in the chair what the evidence base is for the National Party to remove from this bill at the select committee stage the EasyVote card which most New Zealanders have relied on for a couple of elections now to ensure that when they go to the ballot booths on election day—most Kiwis go to the voting booths on election day—the experience they have has integrity and is efficient and that they can exercise their democratic right to vote in a general election.My experience has been that when constituents receive their EasyVote card—or as it is called within the legislation the enrolment confirmation card—that is their tick-box to say they are ready to go and are enrolled to vote in the election. I know that if a number of people in my electorate of Mana do not get that card this time round because it is not being protected in this legislation they will be confused as to whether they are good to go and vote. Why would you want to cause confusion out there amongst the voters 6 months out from a general election if you want your democratic process to have integrity and to encourage people to go out there and vote?I do not expect to hear a response from the Minister in the chair even though I would like to but I guess the answer would be that the Government wants to discourage people from voting. You have got to ask what kind of Government that would be if it does not want people to take part in the democratic process. What kind of Government do you have when it discourages people through legislation and through mechanisms in legislation like an EasyVote card from voting? You have got to ask the question and the question has been asked here many many times why this piece of legislation has changed or morphed into what it is now compared with what it was at the first reading when the Minister of Justice said that the EasyVote card part of this bill was a key part of this legislation. What has happened between the first reading and the select committee stage for that to be removed?The EasyVote card is something that is pretty simple. It has someone’s name on it. It has someone’s address. As Holly Walker has said to help the people officiating on election day it has the page number and the line number of that page so they can be easily identified to go and vote. What has this Government got against that? If it has got a problem with that it needs to tell us. Nowhere through this Committee stage nowhere through the select committee stage and I guess nowhere in the third reading stage will we get a justification as to why this Government is diluting democracy. That is why I argue that the title of this bill should be amended because that is exactly what this Government is doing.Iain Lees-Galloway has raised a number of examples as to why the EasyVote card encourages participation. If you have got a strange-looking or strange-sounding name the EasyVote card can help because the person officiating in the booth or at the ballot box that day has to go through the electoral roll and recognise you. I know that in my electorate there will be some people who because they do not have that card and struggle with English will not go and vote. We need to encourage every New Zealander not only to be on the roll but to go out and vote. But this particular deletion from the bill which so far has not been explained to us will discourage New Zealanders from going out and voting. I do ask the Minister in the chair in the closing stages of this Committee debate whether he can give us some idea—evidence-based—as to why this is happening. The excuse of voter fraud has been bandied around but there does not seem as Iain Lees-Galloway has said in his speech to have been an outbreak of voter fraud in the last two elections. I certainly have not experienced it in my electorate. So can the Minister in the chair please give us a justification and an evidence base as to why this has changed in this legislation?In other parts of this legislation the evidence-based approach has worked. I did—I think comically—refer to a part of the bill that has been removed. That was around the use of rosettes on election day. There were a number of submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee that I have read that said that bringing in that piece of legislation would make no difference. So I think that on that occasion the Justice and Electoral Committee made a very wise decision. It realised that having that particular thing in this piece of legislation was a silly thing so on evidence it decided to remove that. I think that is something that the select committee needs to be praised for. But there does not seem to be a very uniform approach to use an evidence-based approach to this bill when it comes to the removal of the enrolment confirmation card.Hon Maurice Williamson: How many calls have you had? This is getting boring.KRIS FAAFOI: I can take another one if you want Mr Williamson. Just in conclusion if the Minister in the chair could change the tactics of the National Party and take a call to justify why the EasyVote card has been removed maybe we will have some justification for something that the Government is doing which I think is really being designed to suppress democracy in our country.HOLLY WALKER (Green):In what will be my final substantive contribution in the Committee stage debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill I would like to propose an alternative title for the bill and that is the “Electoral Fraud is a Red Herring Amendment Bill”. Fraud is indeed the excuse or the reason that has been given for the removal of the clauses related to the EasyVote card which we have largely been debating for most of this afternoon.I want to quote from the Justice and Electoral Committee report. The committee gave its rationale for the removal of those clauses. This is what it said: “We consider that the proposed provision for a new process known operationally as EasyVote Express”—i.e. the scannable EasyVote cards—“would in effect lower the threshold for casting a vote increasing the potential for fraud and harming the integrity of the voting process.” I just want to drill down into that a little bit more to see whether we can as a Committee begin to understand what that increased risk of electoral fraud supposedly is because it is my contention that it is in fact a red herring and that is why I am proposing an alternative title for this bill.Let us have a look at what voter fraud might actually mean in practice because we have been very short on practical examples in this debate. From my understanding of the possibilities for voter fraud and the concerns that may have underpinned the removal of these clauses the concern is that somebody may find or steal the EasyVote card belonging to another person and take it along and impersonate them at the polling booth which may increase the risk of electoral fraud. Well first of all I would say that that is equally as possible under the status quo where we have EasyVote cards that are not electronically scannable as it is if we make them electronically scannable. The risk of that happening neither increases nor decreases as a result of removing the clauses from this bill.Secondly I would say that it is pretty unlikely that that would happen. Most people do not leave their mail lying about in the street. They do not leave EasyVote cards on their front lawn or on the berm in front of their house for people to collect. But if somebody was so exercised and so desirous of committing electoral fraud that they were going to go and steal somebody’s EasyVote card out of their letterbox knowing that what they needed to do was look for an Electoral Commission - branded envelope with the orange guy on the front of it in the letterbox and steal it so that they could commit electoral fraud then they could do that.Actually they could also steal the enrolment confirmation letter that the Electoral Commission sends to every voter because it looks the same. It is in the same kind of envelope and it would provide exactly the same information that somebody who was hell-bent on committing electoral fraud by stealing an individual’s EasyVote card out of their letterbox would need to go down to the polling booth and commit that fraud.So the EasyVote card neither increases nor decreases the risk of somebody doing this incredibly bizarre and incredibly unlikely action of stealing an EasyVote card out of somebody’s letterbox. But let us say that they did do that and they got hold of somebody else’s EasyVote card and they took it along to the polling booth to try to commit fraud by voting in somebody else’s name. If the person in whose name they were attempting to vote had already voted that day then they would not be able to do that because the Electoral Commission—at least under what is proposed—would have scanned the EasyVote card and it would show up that that voter had already voted. So a question mark would immediately be raised through the electronic system that there was somebody who was coming to vote for a second time.Actually under the status quo where the card is not scannable that would not show up in the system until much later. So the people at the polling booth would have to allow that person to vote because they would not know that they had already voted at a different polling booth. So the proposal to make the card scannable which has now been deleted from the bill would actually decrease the chance of that happening.But let us say that someone manages to cast a vote in somebody else’s name and the true voter has voted already at a different polling booth. When the Electoral Commission staff collate the rolls at the end of the day they see that the same person has apparently voted twice. That flags for them that there is a problem there—either someone has erroneously voted twice or there is an instance of potential fraud. If they ring up the voter and ask: “Which polling booth did you vote at?” and the voter says: “At Pētone Central School” the Electoral Commission staff would then say: “That’s funny because somebody tried to vote in your name at Wilford School.” The voter would then say: “No it wasn’t me. I definitely voted at Pētone Central School.” and therefore the Electoral Commission is able to determine and cross out the vote that was erroneously cast. That is how it works at the moment.Making the EasyVote card scannable as the proposal was in the original version of this bill would in fact make it faster and easier for that to occur by making that an electronic process not a manual compilation later in the day so it actually decreases the risk of electoral fraud. It is nonsensical to me to remove that provision and that is why I am proposing the title “Electoral Fraud is a Red Herring Amendment Bill”—that would be the risk on which the decision to delete these clauses would be based.The other way that somebody could commit electoral fraud does not even involve the EasyVote card because you do not need the EasyVote card to vote at present. You can just go to the polling booth and give your name and address and they look you up on the roll. All the EasyVote card does is make it faster and easier for the staff in the polling place to do that. But if I was hell-bent on committing electoral fraud like all these thousands and legions of fraudulent voters who are apparently desirous of doing then all I would need to do is go and give an erroneous name and address of somebody I know who lives in the electorate and try to vote in their name.I could do that without an EasyVote card and perhaps more easily because I would not even have to erroneously pass something over. I could just say that yes my name is Joe Bloggs and I live at that address. If that was the name of a voter on the electoral roll I could vote in that person’s name. That is no different under the removal of these clauses from how it would be otherwise. The risk neither increases nor decreases with the use of an EasyVote card. Yet again we have that excuse of the potential of increased fraud being held up as an example.In fact the Electoral Commission gave very clear evidence on this when the select committee first did its inquiry into the 2011 general election. The Electoral Commission knows when this happens. It gets a flag because it sees that the same voter has apparently voted twice. It rings that voter up to find out where they voted and it discards the irrelevant vote. It prosecutes any cases of electoral fraud. It has very clear processes to do that and they work very well. So there is no need for this exaggerated fear about voter fraud that has resulted in the removal of a number of very useful clauses that would allow the EasyVote card to be scanned and used as a record that a vote has been cast.If we take a cynical view which I am increasingly inclined to do like my colleagues in the Labour Party you could argue that electoral fraud actually is a red herring here. It is not about electoral fraud. We have had very clear evidence that there is no increased risk of electoral fraud. Electoral fraud is not an activity that is undertaken on a widespread basis in New Zealand. When it is it is easily caught. The very few cases that we have had have been prosecuted. In fact this is about trying to reduce the use of a card that maximises people’s participation in our democracy.The EasyVote card streamlines the process of voting for many people particularly for those for whom English is a second language for those who have impairments and for those who may be new migrants. It makes the process less intimidating and much easier. And for the staff in the polling booth it makes the process faster and smoother and allows them to get through the very busy and important work on election day in a more efficient manner. And we are throwing all of those things out because of some beaten-up fear of increased voter fraud which is not borne out by any evidence of reality. In fact the risk of fraud is neither increased nor decreased by the use of the EasyVote card.So I think it is a real shame and I am increasingly inclined to take the view as my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway has that there is some ulterior motive at work here. If the Government was listening to reason and listening to common sense it would have allowed the bill to be amended and to revert back to the way it was when it was first drafted to ensure that the EasyVote card provisions which would enable the Electoral Commission to make the card scannable and use it as an electronic record of a vote cast were included. That is a sensible and smart modernisation of our electoral law and that is what should have happened.There would have been consensus across this Committee albeit that the select committee did not recommend it. Upon closer consideration in the Committee of the whole House which is the proper place for that to happen there would have been consensus to make those changes or to leave the bill as it was originally drafted to allow the Electoral Commission to make those changes. And it is a real shame that that has not happened. So my proposed title for the bill as it now stands is the “Electoral Fraud is a Red Herring Amendment Bill” and I invite listeners to consider the Government’s motives carefully.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National):I move That the question be now put.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Clause 1 agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question that clause 2 be agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): To the member who is just arriving Brendan Horan because you are now in the Chamber you are required to vote. I will just ask the Clerk. We are voting on clause 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill. The Clerk is going to call for your vote.A party votewas called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes65New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Clause 2 agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.