Lees-Galloway Iain: Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16490. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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.