Hipkins Chris: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 That speech made by Wayne Mapp was a totally intellectually and morally bankrupt contribution from a member of this Government. I have been keeping note on this piece of paper of all the arguments put forward by National members in favour of the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. That is it there. It is a blank page. Not one argument has been put forward by National members to justify why this change is being made. Not one less crime will be committed because of this legislation. Not one less victim will be created in this country because of this legislation. This bill will do nothing to reduce the number of people we have in our prison cells. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise to my colleague but the member who is sponsoring this bill Paul Quinn is not in his own seat and he is interjecting in a most offensive way on the member who is on his feet. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: There are two limbs to the member’s point of order. One is in regard to changing one’s seat for the purpose of interjection. I do not think the member has done that. The member has sat in that seat for the whole period of the speech and he is regularly there. The second limb of the point of order was to do with interjections about haircuts. I have not had a haircut recently and there are several other things I have not done. The member is quite out of court on that. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I think that interjections like that reflect on the intellectual rigour behind this bill. The most that Paul Quinn can come up with is to insult my haircut rather than any kind of interjection responding to what I am saying or justifying the bill that he has put forward. He had 10 whole minutes in his speech at the very beginning of this debate in which to give us a single reason why the House should vote in favour of this bill and he could not come up with one reason—not a single one. He could not come up with a single argument to justify this legislation. 
What did we have from Wayne Mapp? Wayne Mapp said that we do not have enough punishment in this country. Actually we have the second-highest incarceration rate in the developed world. The Commissioner of Police of all people has said that perhaps we should stop and think about that and maybe wonder why we have the second-highest incarceration rate in the developed world. What happened? The National Government and its cheerleaders—like Garth McVicar that total disgrace of a man who has been totally discredited—poured scorn on Howard Broad the Commissioner of Police for raising a reasonable argument and for raising some real questions that need to be addressed. 
We should be talking about why we have so many people in prison not about what we are doing to punish them and take away their right to vote. Taking away the right to vote is not so much a punishment at all; it is a deprivation of a right that should be universal because we have a universal franchise in this country. By majority the entire society gets a say in determining what laws result in people ending up in prison in the first place. We are saying that we will deprive those who end up in prison of that particular ability: to participate in that process and to have any say over the laws that govern what we as a society deem to be acceptable behaviour. 
This Government is pushing this bill through on the slimmest of margins in this House—it will pass by two or three votes—on the very same day that it has been preaching the importance of having widespread bipartisan support when it comes to significant constitutional change. There is nothing more fundamental in constitutional change than depriving a group of citizens of the right to vote. They are still citizens. 
We are not depriving them of the right to vote just when they go to jail; we are removing them from the electoral roll which means that even when they are finally released from jail they are still not guaranteed the right to vote unless they re-enrol. We are talking about some of the most marginalised people in society. When they are released from prison do we really think that their first priority will be to trot down to the post shop to get back on the electoral roll? That probably will not happen. The reality is that if we remove prisoners from the electoral roll the odds of their re-enrolling on the electoral roll in the future are very very low. It is likely that we are ultimately depriving them of the ability to vote for ever. That is what this bill will do. If National members wanted to stop prisoners from voting just while they are in prison they could pass a law that stopped them voting while they were in prison. This bill does not do that; it removes them from the electoral roll. 
I will give credit where it is due though. The bill that we are now debating in the third reading is a significant improvement on the bill that was reported back by Sandra Goudie’s Law and Order Committee. That bill did exactly the opposite of what it purported to do. It stated that it would remove the right for prisoners to vote but what did it do? It gave the most violent offenders in this country the right to vote. I say to the Government that if it is going to do stupid things like that and if it is going to pass these kinds of crazy laws then it should at least send these bills to a select committee with a competent chairperson—maybe somebody like Chester Borrows. Maybe the Justice and Electoral Committee should have been responsible for debating a change to electoral law. Perhaps that would have been the logical thing to do. 
Perhaps for a justice bill we could have had the Ministry of Justice provide some advice to the select committee rather than having advice provided by the Department of Corrections which is responsible for punishing people. Maybe having the experts from the Ministry of Justice provide some advice would have meant that we ended up with a bill that actually did what it purported to do rather than a bill that did the opposite of what it purported to do which is what Sandra Goudie that maestro genius over there sent back to this House. It was a bill that did the opposite of what it said it would do. That is what Sandra Goudie sent back to this House. It is no wonder that she had only about three sentences to say in favour of the bill when she spoke earlier because she made such a hash of the select committee process. 
It is such an embarrassment for the National Government that it is no wonder none of its members are speaking in favour of the bill. We have this blank piece of paper recording for all of history the contributions and the arguments put forward by National members in favour of depriving prisoners of the right to vote. It is totally outrageous. 
The other thing that this bill does which I think is one of the fundamental points of principle here is reinforce the two-tier justice system we have in New Zealand. Some people go to prison for their criminal offending and some do not. We had an example earlier this year in the  
Dominion Post 
 of a white-collar crook from the National Party who ripped off the taxpayer and got community service. He will keep his right to vote. On the other side of the page we had a poor criminal who went to jail for doing something that was of no greater scale. That criminal lost the right to vote. The crook from the National Party who rips off the taxpayer by abusing their taxpayer-funded travel gets to keep his right— 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The reason that I am taking this point of order is that I think the member ought to reflect on the fact that we do not in this House comment on the actions of the judiciary. We actually respect the role of the judiciary in this House. We keep a separation. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to the member that that is correct but on this particular occasion the member was not reflecting on a particular judgment. The member is quite within his rights to make comments about outcomes of cases. Otherwise we would never be able to comment on those matters. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He needs to be careful. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I do not need to be careful. I was on my feet speaking: if the member interjects it is against me. I do not need to be careful about anything. I have ruled that the member has not crossed the line. If the member does not want to accept that ruling he can make another challenge. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: This bill reinforces inequities in our justice system—it reinforces inequities. For example someone who is detained in prison for fewer than 3 years will lose their right to vote but somebody who ends up on home detention will not lose their right to vote. So we have an inequity there. 
Grant Robertson 
: Same crime. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: For the same crime. Somebody who shows up to court and cannot produce a home to be detained at will go to jail and lose their right to vote. A rich person who has committed exactly the same crime and has a home to be detained in will— 
Grant Robertson 
: Paid for by a good lawyer. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That person will pay for a good lawyer and will retain the right to vote. It will be unfair. It will not apply across the board. There will be different treatment for people depending on their ability to pay. Somebody’s right to vote under this bill will differ depending on their right to pay. That is the kind of inequity that this bill put forward by the member Paul Quinn will reinforce in the justice system. I do not think that is fair. 
This is a bad bill. When it was reported back from the select committee it did not do what it purported to do. In fact it did exactly the opposite. It gave the right to vote to our most serious violent offenders. At least that anomaly has finally been fixed. But the problem with the bill is that it does not do a single thing to deal with the fundamental problem of why we have criminal offending in the first place. That is what this House should be turning its attention to not punitive measures like this and certainly not punitive measures that are being pushed through without the overwhelming support that a significant constitutional change to electoral law should gather. 
National members have talked about this over and over again. We have heard it in the debate on the Electoral Finance Act. We have heard it today in their speeches about constitutional law reform. They have been saying that significant changes to our constitutional law should be made only when there is broad support for them. There is no broad support for this bill. It will pass by the narrowest of margins in this House. It was not part of the National’s pre-election manifesto. National mentioned nothing about it prior to the election. 
The bill is significant. It does not get much more significant in terms of constitutional rights than depriving citizens of the right to vote which is what this bill does. This is a bad bill that does not deal with the real issues of how we create fewer victims how we get less criminal offending in the first place and how we create a more equal society. Those are the debates that this Parliament should be focused on. We should not be focused on the punitive. We have spent far too much time trying to be tougher on crime than the person on the opposite side. We have had years and years of that and it has not got us very far. Let us take a step back— 
Paul Quinn 
: We had 9 years of it and it went nowhere. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It was more than 9 years; it has been going on for decades I say to Paul Quinn. It is time to take a step back and focus on dealing with the causes of crime.