Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) Link to this
I move, That the Electoral Referendum Bill be now read a second time. This Government committed to provide New Zealanders with an opportunity to express their opinion on the MMP voting system. This bill provides for a referendum on the voting system to be held in conjunction with the 2011 general election, as the first step in a two-stage process designed to maximise voter participation and provide a clear decision on the type of voting system that New Zealanders want. The 2011 referendum will ask voters whether they wish to keep MMP or change to another voting system. If 50 percent or more voters opt to keep MMP, the bill provides that the Electoral Commission must review MMP and report on whether any changes are necessary or, for that matter, desirable. If the majority of voters opt to change to another voting system, the Government has committed to hold a second referendum in 2014 that will ask voters to choose between MMP and the preferred alternative system. This approach follows a similar process to that taken in 1992 and 1993 when MMP was introduced.
Once again, I commend the all-party Electoral Legislation Committee—in particular its chair, Amy Adams, but all members—for its careful consideration of this bill. I am advised that the committee received well over a thousand submissions on the bill, reflecting the high level of interest on this issue from New Zealanders. The majority of submitters expressed support for the process set out in the bill, although suggesting some amendments. Some submitters considered that the voting paper could be made clearer by simplifying the language. The committee has proposed a number of changes in response to submissions. The committee also recommended that the alternative voting systems in Part B of the voting paper be listed in alphabetical order rather than being determined by lot. In response to submitter concerns, the committee has described the supplementary member voting system in schedule 2 using the key features recommended by the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in 1986. The description now provides that each voter would have two votes and that of the 120 seats in Parliament, 90 would be electorate seats and 30 would be party list seats.
Some submitters suggested that a review of MMP should take place regardless of the referendum outcome. The committee concluded by majority that the bill should retain the requirement for the review to take place only if 50 percent or more electors vote to keep MMP. This approach will provide a clearer indication of voters’ preferences with regard to the broad type of voting system that they favour. Voters who prefer MMP in principle but wish to see it modified would vote to retain MMP. Those voters who disagree with aspects of MMP would need to decide whether their concerns were fundamental enough to make them want to vote for another voting system in the referendum.
Many submitters sought expenditure limits on referendum advertising. The committee by majority recommended an expenditure limit of $300,000 during the regulated period. The committee has also recommended a number of technical changes to align the referendum advertising provisions in the bill with the election advertising regulation proposed in the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill. By considering these bills together, the committee has been able to deliver a coherent package of electoral reform.
I once again thank all political parties for the constructive way that they have engaged on this bill, as well as the one considered by the House in the second reading just previously. This is a critical electoral and constitutional issue, which in my view should require the type of approach taken by Parliament in this instance. I am confident that the committee’s recommendations support the Government’s objective of providing for a clear, neutral, and unbiased referendum process. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) Link to this
I cannot remember when the House last debated a referendum bill. I wonder whether anyone can. I think it might have been Winston Peters’ compulsory super bill, may it not have been? That would have been about 10 or 11 years ago. The result went down rather badly. But, none the less, it is not so often we debate them. Certainly in the 1992 to 1993 period we had two referenda, as we are about to with this round. So it is not so often, but here we are. I suppose I should say at the outset some nice things, because I forgot to say them the first time around. I endorse the remarks made by a number of people about the approach taken by the Minister of Justice from the outset of trying to get as wide a consensus as he reasonably could. He has been consistent in that regard. He has been somewhat successful. He has a really wide level of agreement—or perhaps it is best said that a number of parties are now equally unhappy about the result, whatever it is.
It is also the case that those parties that are a little more on the edge—the ACT Party on one edge and the Green Party on the other, to give a couple of examples—would probably say that the outcome was not what they would choose but the process was not too bad. So that is the first thing to say.
It is probably also fair for me to acknowledge that the Electoral Legislation Committee has worked very well. It has been chaired very well by a very able chair in the form of Amy Adams, who, I noted, made some nice remarks about officials, and I would like to do that too. That gets the nice stuff out of the way and it is important to say that, so I thought I would say it first.
Here we go! Why the hell we need a referendum, in the first place, I do not know. I really do not know where that promise came from. I do not remember it being part of the National Party manifesto. I could have been—
Then a good question is why it was part of the National Party manifesto, because there was no groundswell amongst the public for this. There was a groundswell amongst the public for something else, and that was for amendments to the MMP system. They said: “Could we please keep the MMP system but tweak it a little bit.” Of course the problem with that mood in society is that society—under a little bit of interrogation—can never quite agree on what the tweaks are, which is why we will need a review process. The review process is provided for in this legislation but it is provided for only if a whole lot of people really like MMP. It is saying: “If a whole lot of people really like MMP, we’re going to review it; and if a whole lot of people do not, we’re not going to review it.” That is one way of putting up the sort of residual difference, or one way of explaining the residual difference between the Government’s position, essentially, and the Labour Party’s position, essentially, on the issue of the review of MMP.
I am not standing in the next election so I should probably not announce Labour Party policy on the hoof, but in the event of there being a Labour Government formed a year from now and, in the event of the majority of New Zealanders deciding that they would like to try another system instead of MMP, I would be surprised if the incoming Labour Government did not say: “OK, we can do that but we will give you a new, shinier MMP system to measure against this other variety that you think you might like to test it against.” I would think that would be the likely outcome.
I do not want to get into too much argy-bargy with Mr John Boscawen, and I do acknowledge his analysis of $300,000 versus $5.5 million. I really think we need to add GST a few times to get to that $5.5 million, but none the less he showed us how to do it. He took every possible limit and maxed them out, and he got there. That is fair enough; that is a debating technique. It is not, I think, a realistic comparison, but he does make a point that $300,000 is a limit that, in his view, is too low. Fair enough, but he lost me on his first sentence. He said that this legislation—which, like the first one, has a $300,000 limit—is not good for the ordinary person. But I say that it is, because the ordinary person is precisely the person who does not have $300,000 to fritter around; that is just precisely the person who does not have $300,000 to fritter around. It is the extraordinary person, or the extra-committed person, who does. Actually, there is also the possibility of people clubbing together, and I say good on them if they want to.
He went on to say that his friend Mr McCroskie thinks that the limit is far, far too low; not that Mr McCroskie wants to go anywhere near that limit himself, but he thinks it is far too low for someone else. Well, who is this someone else, and why do they want to spend more than $300,000, perhaps as much as $5 million, trying to influence the plebiscite, which is in essence a contest of political ideas?
I think that probably the reverse also holds true: that in the referendum it is actually the politicians who need to stand back. If politicians are asked, they should say where they are casting their vote and why. It is something I intend to do, if I am asked. Perhaps I will be asked, but I do not intend to spend a lot of time raffling a lot of chooks in order to raise a lot of money to promote a certain outcome for a referendum. In case anyone is wondering, I will be casting my vote for a continuation of MMP. The main reason is that I think this is a decision that should be taken by the voters. It is their decision how they are going to elect us, and that might sound a bit cute for some people but I hold it to be true. That is why one of the provisions in this bill is a real cracker—that is, if I spend a dollar on this referendum advertising, it will count against my political limits as well as my referendum limits. So both of my limits will be activated by that dollar spend. Both of them will be 1 dollar less, by my expending 1 dollar.
I am not standing, and the chair of the committee—the now-extinct committee—is perfectly correct. I am not standing, so she and I are both extinct, in a sense. On the other hand, the idea that politicians can be a little bit limited by the fact that it will be counted against them twice is kind of nice. It happened almost by accident in the select committee, to be honest, because life became terribly technical at that point. I certainly will not bore the House with the details around that.
I think this is unusual legislation. When the Minister introduced it, I remember he was a bit disingenuous. I remember the Minister saying that this was the most transparent referendum legislation this House has ever seen—and he was right. In this legislation, as introduced, there is a requirement to register, which had never existed before. What he was doing was trying to defend, with his sophistry, the absence of third-party limits. But we spotted that; so did the rest of New Zealand. The Government has behaved well—even graciously, or sensibly, or something like that—and from now on, referenda will have reasonable limits. I for one look forward to that.
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) Link to this
I am very pleased to take a call in the House this afternoon on the second reading of the Electoral Referendum Bill. As the previous speaker did, I will refer to some comments I made in respect of the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill, which the House has just finished debating. I spoke about the way that the Minister approached the process, the way that the Electoral Legislation Committee worked, and the help that we had from the officials on that legislation. I simply repeat my comments in this context, because they apply to this bill too.
From the Government’s perspective, the starting point for this referendum is very much the view that I hear being expressed around New Zealand. I accept that I am just one person and the feedback to me is anecdotal and far from scientific, but it is that most New Zealanders thought there would be a second referendum on MMP. Most New Zealanders, as I hear them talking to me, understood that when they elected to adopt MMP back in 1993—not by an overwhelming majority, one would have to say—there would be a second chance to come back and say what they thought about it. What they had not done was to look at the asterisk and read the small print at the bottom of the page, which stated that it would happen if Parliament agreed. That is where those people got lost in some of the technical detail. Of course, Parliament looked at this issue in 2001, and by a very, very narrow majority at that time it decided not have a second referendum because it thought that it was a bit too soon to do so. Even then Parliament did not say a referendum was not necessary; it just said 2001 was a bit too soon.
It has always been National’s policy, and it was made very clear at the last election, that New Zealand should have a second referendum, despite the technical wording that went in at first. Quite apart from anything else, if New Zealand does once more signal that it wants MMP as its voting system, then that will legitimise MMP and put to bed the festering unease about whether we should have ever had a second say on it.
I find one thing slightly concerning, and I will get it off my chest nice and early in the piece. There seems to be a bit of a mood from the pro-MMP lobby to say we have the electoral system that we want, so there should not be any more debate on it now—that having got MMP, we should shut the debate down. I do not think that is right. If we are firm in the view that MMP has worked well for New Zealand—and I would be the first to say it has done some good things—then we should not be afraid to put it back to New Zealanders and say: “OK, this is your chance. You’ve had this system now since 1996. How is it going? What do you think of it? Should we endorse it?”. It has always been the view of the National Party, and this bill is the driver of that, that we should ensure that New Zealand has that chance, and that the process is fair and easy to understand.
For that reason the select committee spent a lot of time on the ballot paper, which is a schedule of this bill, to ensure that the language was as simple and as plain as it could be. The committee took some expert advice on that. We spent a lot of time on looking at the way that the systems were described—their names; their order on the ballot paper—in order to do everything we could to ensure that there was no perception of bias either for or against any particular system. As the chair of that committee it was certainly my view—and I think everyone on the committee shared it—that we needed to ensure that all the voting systems were put up in an unbiased way, so that the public could have their say without us sticking in our fiddle as to which system it should be. For my part, I have been pretty careful not to take a stand on any of the systems, because, as Mr Hodgson quite rightly said, that is not for us politicians to do. This is a referendum, and it is for the people of New Zealand. Our job in passing this legislation is to ensure, as the Minister said in his opening contribution, that the process is clear, neutral, and unambiguous.
I will just comment on the issue of the timing of the referendum. One way that this process is different, of course, from the 1992-93 process is that the decision being made by the Government in this bill is that both referendums, if there are two, will be held in conjunction with general elections. We had some discussion with submitters on that issue during the select committee process. Of course, what we get from combining the referendum with a general election is a far higher level of engagement and voter turn-out, and that is absolutely something to be desired. I guess the counter to that, and what we have to weigh up, is whether the referendum messages—and there are some reasonably detailed messages about the differences between the systems—will somehow get lost in the clutter of a general election campaign. We spent a bit of time discussing that, and I think that is certainly a fair argument. But my strong view, and where the committee ended up, is that the importance of having a high level of voter engagement, if the result of this referendum is to have validity, is absolutely fundamental. So we have the process whereby both referendums, if there are two, will be held in conjunction with general elections, and I think that is important.
This leads me to the issues of the public education campaign, which will be a key component of the process. Coincidentally enough, following on from the previous legislation we will have a public education campaign, and around $5 million has been allocated for that. Against that, we now have spending limits of $300,000 on independent campaigners in this process. I think the relativity between those amounts should not go without comment. It is important that the public information is out there and dominates the debate. Certainly, everyone is entitled to have a say in that. Let us just make the point that the limit is $300,000 per campaigner, and there could be any number of campaigners on both sides of this debate. As I said in my first contribution, arguably the limits should have been higher—that is where I would have started from—but that is where the committee has come to, on a consensus basis.
The other thing I want to comment on, which cuts across both bills—I did not make the point in the previous debate, but I will make it here briefly—is that we were very concerned about the compliance cost of these limits. We did not want to make the regime overly onerous, so we will require detailed returns to be filed only when campaigners are spending over $100,000, and are really playing in the big end of town. People handing out a few leaflets and the like do not have to go through the expense of filing detailed returns. We have not required an automatic auditing provision either, because we all know how onerous and expensive audits can be. Instead we have given the Electoral Commission the power to require an audit if it believes, on reasonable grounds, that there is merit in doing that. I think that is a good balance between ensuring that the system is robust and not imposing cost for the sake of cost.
I would very much like to talk about a number of other matters. The bill provides for a very, very interesting process, and I look forward to seeing how it rolls out during the next year. However, we will have more time for debate during the Committee stage, so at this point I will simply end my speech by commending the bill to the House.
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) Link to this
I am pleased to take a call on the Electoral Referendum Bill. I am not an electoral expert and I am not on the Electoral Legislation Committee, but it sounds like a fascinating process and one I think all MPs who participate in the House should take notice of, as this is the very reason that we end up here.
Labour will be supporting the Electoral Referendum Bill. Initially we were concerned about the spending caps on third parties, but National has addressed that in the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill that we have just debated, so that concern has gone away for us. But one of the things that we are concerned about is the chicken and egg approach to this referendum bill. We think there should have been a review of MMP first, before we go to the referendum.
I am concerned, as we go around schools and community groups—and not just in election time—about the lack of awareness that exists amongst many in our communities still about what we call civics literacy, which is just the understanding of the democratic process. I do not think $5 million expenditure on a referendum about voting systems will assist raising awareness on the importance of New Zealanders’ right to vote. I am aghast when we go out doorknocking, as we do as MPs, that people do not understand the current system. In fact, the Mana by-election was really interesting. Whether it was just to get rid of us at the door, a lot of people said: “I’ve already voted, thank you, dear.”, and we said: “But you can’t have. The election is in the next 2 or 3 weeks.” They would reply: “But I’ve just voted.” So they did not even understand the difference between local government elections and general elections. This was a bit atypical in being a by-election, but it showed the lack of awareness that exists. I think we have to start raising that awareness amongst schoolchildren, and it is about having civics in the school curriculum and appreciating the value of civics.
This referendum is to be in the 2011 election, and we started this MMP process in 1992-93, so that is nearly 20 years. So this is a good time to look at it anyway. It looks like the select committee has done a very good job of looking at this whole process. I am pleased that there is a $300,000 spending limit, which is limited to the 3 months prior to the referendum, so that the promoters cannot just spend huge amounts of money, as we see in the American elections, pushing a line that they inevitably will take, on which system of voting they prefer.
New Zealand likes to pride itself on having a very clean process for elections. I will never forget going into Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters, when she was standing for the Senate, and looking at the fund-raising that went on in the American election campaign, whether it was for the Democrats or the Republicans, and being agog at the amount of money that people were raising for elections. I think in referenda that for those who want to take a position, and that is democracy, which is valuable to us all, $300,000 is about right. One could run a pretty good middle-of-the-road campaign with $300,000, so a huge amount of money is not being spent to buy the persuasion of New Zealanders. We feel it is right that those who are overrun with cash will not be the key influencers here.
Labour supports the bill. I am a bit concerned that the Prime Minister has already stated a preference for supplementary member representation, because that was part of Peter Shirtcliffe’s campaign that we saw only too well in the previous MMP referendum, or debacle really. The Prime Minister going out, as the leader of this country, saying that that is his preference is already beginning political persuasion. I do not think that is a good thing. I think the possible voting systems that are in schedule 2—MMP, first past the post, preferential vote, standard transferable vote, and supplementary member—are very complex, as the chair of the committee said, and will need quite a lot of digestion by the community.
I go back to my colleague Pete Hodgson, who is an expert on electoral systems and referenda, and his question about why we are doing this when the majority of people seem to be relatively happy with MMP but say there may need to be some tweaks. When I go around school groups in particular, I think of the representation that is in the House now with MMP. There is more diversity—more women, more ethnic representation—and we think that is a good thing. But of course there are improvements we could have made on that system. So that is where we sit.
But it is great to have open debate again on this subject. I think it is timely. We support the bill. It will be interesting. I do not think even $5 million will educate the public, and I think there will again be confusion. I am pleased to see that a lot of time was spent on looking at the voting paper. Last time it was ambiguous, and it was confusing. People thought they had voted one way, and realised that in effect they had voted in completely the opposite way. That is a very critical tool, and I am glad a lot of time has been spent on that, because that is where the rubber will hit the road, as we will have that first before we do the review. That is Labour’s position on this. Twenty years goes by in quite a hurry, and it is great that this issue will be before the country again.
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. I will start my acknowledgement of the Electoral Referendum Bill by acknowledging a great leader, and a previous member of this House, Rod Donald. He did not craft MMP on his own, but he was a major player. It is very sad to me that he is not here today to participate in this debate because I am sure he would have some very powerful things to say on this issue. The Green Party is very interested in constitutional reform. Speaking personally, I think MMP has been a very major step forward for this country, but I do not want it to stop there. I would like to see constitutional reform based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I would like to see models followed, such as the Bolivian constitution, where the principle of Pachamama—Earth first—is built into the constitution. I would like to see the advice of constitutional leaders like Moana Jackson taken into account. We do not need to stop; we need to keep going in reforming MMP.
However, I would like to acknowledge the really good progress that was made at the Electoral Legislation Committee on this bill. The Green Party representative on the committee, Metiria Turei, said that it was very pleasing, considering the doubts that the party had about the bill, to actually participate in a positive process and to get to a point where the party was able to fully support the bill. We are very happy with that. I also agree with the previous speaker, the Hon Steve Chadwick, that the community is relatively politically illiterate on this issue, and that we really do need civics education. I think we have to ask who benefits when the citizens are politically literate. That is a real risk, and that is why we should be starting at the beginning, with civics education.
The Greens believe that our democracy thrives on ideas, not fat wallets. Our electoral process is the central mechanism to ensure that ideas are of greater value than our bank balances. A knowledge of our electoral process is, of course, important when electing the politicians and parties that make up our Parliament and our Government. It is even more important when citizens have to make a decision about how to elect politicians and parties to Parliament. It is that decision that affects the very core of the representative democracy that we have at the moment in Aotearoa New Zealand. Therefore, we must make sure that we make this decision with the best and fairest process possible. Our system is not perfect, and it never will be, but our democracy should never be static. It should always be evolving with the challenges of the 21st century. That is why I commented earlier on the fact that we are in Aotearoa New Zealand; therefore, our country should be based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as should our constitution.
This bill is an important step in confirming New Zealand voters’ choice of electoral system. It establishes a two-stage referenda on our electoral system. Voters will rightly make up their own minds as to the kind of electoral system that is best for the country. Voting is one of the responsibilities of citizenship, and with that responsibility, and with matters like the electoral system, citizens need to consider the needs of the country first. In order to do that they need to understand what it is that they are doing.
As this bill has progressed through the select committee process, the Greens have been very happy to play a constructive role in the process. We are particularly pleased that there is a cap on advertising spending by campaign promoters. We argued that that was critical in gaining our support, and the 1,000 individual submitters who also supported a cap will be very heartened to know that they have been listened to. It restores one’s faith in the select committee process. The Green Party has long campaigned on a fair and democratic electoral process that favours all citizens, not the wealthy few. The influence of money on politics is one of the greatest threats to freedom and to democracy. We know that in Aotearoa wealthy non - political party actors can intervene in the election process by buying advertising and distorting the process in favour of their agenda. For that reason, modern democracies all around the planet have introduced rules to try to limit the influence of money on politics. So a cap on those campaigning in the electoral referendum, just as there are caps in other referendums, is a critical step towards a fairer process.
The Green Party also holds open democracy as a central tenet of the New Zealand polity. It is important that the public knows who is involved in advertising both for and against MMP. We also believe that the identity of donors and the amount they donate should be public knowledge, as then people can make up their own minds about the messages they have been given.
The extensive select committee process confirmed much of the detail of the original bill, such as the referenda timetable, the review of MMP, and arrangements for the vote. The detail that changed was the improvement of the ballot paper. Again, there were many submissions on this point, and the committee was very responsive—all credit to it. We heard from many submitters that the review of MMP, which has triggered 50 percent of voters to vote to keep MMP, should be given some emphasis in referendum publicity. They believe that this is such an integral part of the referenda proposal that it should be given prominence, especially in the public information process. We support this, and we sought to have a review of MMP regardless of the outcome of the 2011 referendum. We will support Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper on that issue during the Committee stage of the bill.
We in the Green Party do not hesitate in affirming our support of MMP. MMP has meant that many more New Zealanders are represented in Parliament and in Government. MMP has enhanced the representation of women, of Māori, of Pacific peoples, and of Asian people in this House. MMP means that different ideas, ideologies, values, and solutions are represented in Parliament and Government. I would not hesitate to say that having different voices in the select committee hearings has resulted in a better bill, and it is because of MMP that we have those different voices present instead of just a single, monolithic, adversarial tradition. The advent of new parties has gifted the House with a creativity and innovation that was absent during the long reign of the duopoly of Labour and National, and it is great to see Labour, at least, supporting that. MMP has increased the breadth of Parliament so that it better reflects the country as a whole. Our country is now very diverse and more politically aware in terms of the Treaty and in terms of different cultures than in the past, and our Parliament must reflect that.
We still do not have 50 percent of women in Parliament. We still do not have that gender balance in Parliament. Some countries have quota systems to ensure that they have that. We still have a way to go, but we have improved because of MMP. If we are to be, in any sense, a House of Representatives, then surely a system that increases representation of New Zealanders is the goal. I know that women MPs, and, obviously, National women MPs in particular, must be proud of the number of seats they now command in this Parliament compared with previous Parliaments.
The Green Party believes that our citizens deserve a fair electoral system that is representative of the vast majority of New Zealanders and that is able to meet the expectations of our progressive 21st century Aotearoa, and we look forward to its continuance. We also support the progress that was made at the select committee, and we are pleased to be able to continue our support for the bill now. Kia ora.
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) Link to this
The ACT Party will be supporting the Electoral Referendum Bill. However, once again we have major reservations about placing a limit of $300,000 on what a third party or a group of individuals can spend to promote one of the four alternatives. I would like to go back and listen again very carefully to the speech made by the previous speaker, Catherine Delahunty, because I was somewhat surprised by her comment about buying advertising to distort messages. It might surprise the member to know that the Green Party spent $1.5 million at the last election, and I wonder whether she is prepared to concede that the Green Party spent $1.5 million trying to distort the truth. The reason that the ACT Party will be supporting—
Catherine Delahunty Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it is quite offensive to say that we spent that money to distort the truth.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Link to this
The member has taken offence. Under Standing Order 116 I ask the member to withdraw that comment.
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN Link to this
Let me clarify what I was saying. The member talked about organisations—individuals grouping together—raising money and spending money. As I said, I am quite keen to listen to that speech again, because I am sure I heard the word “distort”; I am sure I heard that word. If the member is suggesting that individual groups and organisations that want to participate in the electoral process want to distort the truth, then how do we know that the Green Party did not spend $1.5 million to also distort the truth? That is all I am asking. What makes the paid messages of the Green Party any different from the paid advertising messages of any other party or any other organisation that wants to participate in the electoral process? I note that the member referred to the late Rod Donald. He was a person who wanted to encourage New Zealanders to participate in the process.
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN Link to this
Let us look at this $300,000 limit, because we have just heard another interjection from the Green member, who said “But not the rich.” I think that was the point that Pete Hodgson was trying to make. He asked why the ACT Party has such an objection to restricting people to $300,000. Well, it is not as though it is one individual; organisations can be formed to push one or more of the particular four electoral options. I think Mr Hodgson conceded that a group of people could be clubbing together—I think he used those words.
I express the ACT Party’s objection to the $300,000 limit in the context of what the major political parties could spend in their own campaigns. I noticed that in Mr Hodgson’s response he said that one could spend that but that, possibly, in reality one would spend substantially less. It might surprise Mr Hodgson to know that if one looks at just the core spending of the Labour Party at the last election—ignoring the broadcasting, and ignoring what the party spent—one would see that the Labour Party was entitled to spend $2.4 million, yet it spent $2.271 million. So it was within $130,000 of the maximum.
Let us come back to this $300,000 limit, but let us also come back to the reason we are having this referendum. I think Amy Adams put the reasons for having the referendum very, very well. She said that most New Zealanders had a perception that there would be a second referendum. Most people, if we asked them honestly, would say they were going to get a second vote. But she said that people had not looked at the fine print and the little asterisks on the footnote that said: “only if Parliament agrees.”
National promised at the previous election to put this issue to the vote, and I say: “Good on them for doing just that.” Labour asked why. Well, this bill is enabling New Zealanders to express a view on their electoral system. Ultimately, that is the reason that the ACT Party is supporting this legislation. We support the right of New Zealanders to be involved and to express a view. We do not support the fact that an artificial limit has been put on the amount that groups that club together can spend. Nevertheless, we support this referendum and we will be voting for it, despite that reservation.
Interestingly, Steve Chadwick said that $300,000 will buy a reasonable campaign. I would like to remind Steve Chadwick that the contestants in the mayoral campaign for Auckland were entitled to spend $500,000—$500,000—to put their message across. What did we see in the weeks leading up to the Auckland vote? We saw Len Brown on television every night, night after night for 3 weeks. I congratulate Len Brown. I thought the television advertisements he did were very good, and he certainly got the jump on his principal opponent, Mr Banks. Len Brown was entitled to spend $500,000 to communicate with the people of Auckland, but we are going to restrict the amount of money that can be spent by people in New Zealand who want to club together to form an organisation, a support group, in favour of one or more of the various options. We will restrict the amount to just $300,000.
I also thought Steve Chadwick made another very interesting comment. She said the public information campaign that is budgeted to cost $5 million probably will not be sufficient. So she and the other Labour members are prepared to say that the State can go out and spend $5 million educating the public but that the State will restrict to $300,000 the spending of any group of people who want to club together to vote for and promote one or more of the options.
Earlier this afternoon Mr Hodgson made a reference to the 1986 Electoral Commission. He correctly recorded the fact that the Electoral Commission said that if we are going to restrict political parties, why would we not restrict third parties? He also said that the Electoral Commission in 1986 put up the proposal that there should be State funding of political parties. I would like to remind Mr Hodgson that we already have massive State funding when we travel around our electorates. Members of Parliament are paid salaries. In essence, they are funded to campaign.
What else did that Electoral Commission say? That Electoral Commission, in recommending MMP, said there was no reason for the Māori seats. There is no reason for the Māori seats, because if we have an MMP vote that is strictly proportional, each party will have in Parliament its share of the party vote. The Electoral Commission in 1986 said there is simply no need to retain the Māori seats. The ACT Party strongly opposes electoral seats based on a racial basis, and we will be putting forward an amendment in the Committee stage to have a referendum on that very issue. If we go to a great deal of expense to conduct a referendum on MMP, the ACT Party says we should actually be holding a referendum on Māori seats at the same time. We should let the people of New Zealand express a view.
Mr Hodgson earlier this afternoon asked why we are having a referendum. He actually queried whether it was in the National Party manifesto. The Minister of Justice said that, yes, it was. Mr Power said: “Yes, it is in the National Party manifesto.” I would like to remind the National members in the House this afternoon that there is actually something else in their manifesto, and that is an intention to abolish the Māori seats; to abolish seats that were based on a racial divide, if you like, or that were created along racial lines.
The ACT Party strongly believes in one law for all. We do not believe that we should be having those electoral seats. This is a tremendous opportunity, if we are going to the expense of having a referendum, to put that vote to the people of New Zealand, and to give them a chance to express an opinion. Thank you.
HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this
Kia ora. On behalf of the Māori Party I say we support the Māori Sports Awards, because we think that gives us the opportunity to showcase excellence in Māori sport; we support the Waiata Māori Awards because we think it gives us—the nation—the opportunity to highlight excellence in Māori music; and we support the Māori seats because we think it gives Māori people the opportunity to vote for excellent Māori candidates. We do not think that they are race-based; they are about increasing democracy, and increasing the right of every sector of this community to have their say in the sorts of people they want to represent them in Parliament. MMP, in fact, is not necessarily the best option for the Māori seats, because all of us from the Māori Party are in here because we won our seats. We nevertheless support MMP, because MMP has meant greater participation by Māori in the electoral system. Anything that is going to increase the participation of New Zealanders, generally, in the electoral system has to be applauded. I look at the make-up of the House, and I listen to the different twangs and the different ways in which people speak, and I realise that that is the way this country is made up. To try to deny that, and to deny tangata whenua, particularly, the opportunity to take their place in this House, is simply wrong.
We will not be supporting, at all, ACT’s amendment to the Electoral Referendum Bill to have a referendum on the Māori seats. We know that it is going to be defeated whether it comes up through select committee, or comes up in the House, simply because it is an issue that will be voted on on the basis of intelligence. So that amendment is likely to die as soon as it gets raised. The Māori Party does not support broad-brush referenda as an effective form of gauging Māori views. We support the view that Māori should be properly represented in Parliament in a way that reflects their place as the Treaty partner. We support a more comprehensive discussion with Māori over the whole range of issues affecting Māori and the electoral process. We support legislation that ensures elections are fair, and reflect adherence to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We support an electoral system that advances the reconciliation of kāwantanga and tino rangatiratanga. We support MMP because it has meant increased participation by Māori in the political system, and we support the opportunity for the nation to discuss these issues so all sectors of our society can engage in this debate.
We also support a cap on advertising expenditure by groups participating in this debate. When I heard about the amount of $300,000, even that was quite a scary figure. I note that one candidate recently spent $25,000—$25,000 just to get some legal advice on his own position in coming into Parliament. I was quite stunned, because it cost me $25,000 for my electoral campaigns. That was not for each campaign, either. It was $13,000 for the first one and $12,000 for the second one. So when I hear people talking about $300,000, what are they talking about? We are talking about essentially different systems. I see the way in which big money is used and has been used quite divisively in the past. I have to say that the same crowd who ran the “Iwi/Kiwi” campaign back whenever they ran that is the same crowd running the Coastal Coalition campaign nowadays. So I know absolutely the damage that can be caused to our society by allowing untrammelled use of funding to push a particular point of view, particularly one, in terms of the Coastal Coalition, that is clearly devoid of the reality of the legislation. That funding is being used simply to drum up fear of Māori getting access to the foreshore and seabed when the law clearly states that we will not get it. The Prime Minister himself has said that it is unlikely that Māori will be able to get it.
When we talk about the amounts of money used in campaigns of that sort—or of any sort, in fact—I am very wary about there being an open-door policy. The Māori Party opposed the Electoral Finance Act back in the day because we did not like the way in which we felt that Labour was trying to limit people’s abilities to participate in the electoral process. But what we are talking about here is the process itself, the way in which this country will vote. I do not think that the success or otherwise of that debate should be determined on the basis of the kinds of campaigns people are able to run based on how much money they have to use. So we will be supporting the Electoral Referendum Bill and we will also be supporting the opportunity for MMP to continue after this bill is done and dusted. Kia ora.
KATRINA SHANKS (National) Link to this
It is my pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Electoral Referendum Bill today. As the Minister of Justice stated earlier, this bill received about 1,000 submissions. The majority were in favour of supporting this bill in one form or another.
This bill honours National’s pre-election promise to hold a referendum on the voting system no later than 2011. This bill is interesting, because when it comes into law, people will get two votes in the referendum that will be held with the general election. The first question people will vote on is whether they wish to keep the current MMP voting system. That is the first vote people get. The second vote people get is on which alternative voting system they would prefer, from a list of options, if New Zealand were to change to another voting system.
If the majority of New Zealanders vote to keep MMP, then the Government will make the commitment to review MMP to see whether any changes need to be put into that system—that is, MMP will stay, but the Government will look at the system to see whether it can be improved. But if the majority of the country votes not to have MMP, people then get to pick one of the alternative systems that will be listed in one of the two votes in the 2011 referendum.
If people decide not to vote for MMP, the alternatives are FFP, or first past the post, which is what we had previously; the preferential voting system; the single transferrable vote system; and the supplementary member voting system. We have to ask ourselves how many people out there know what those voting systems actually are and what they represent.
I can even ask, as a member of Parliament—and the Opposition is saying the same—how many people in this House understand what those voting systems represent. They are complicated.
Our key message will be education, education, education. A member of the Opposition who spoke earlier, Steve Chadwick, said it is all about having civics education in the curriculum. Well, it is about that, but it is actually greater than that. It is about all 122 of us, as members of Parliament, going around all our schools, going into the classrooms, and talking to children about democracy and getting them engaged in understanding it. I already do this in my local schools in Ōhariu. It is the kids coming through school who have to understand the system as well. They have to know what democracy is all about.
I go into my schools in Ōhariu. I was at Onslow College just the other day talking about the reform of alcohol laws that is coming in. I was trying to encourage those kids to come in here, give a submission, be part of the democratic process, and get the feeling that they can make a difference.
We have a big job ahead of us of engaging the public to want to know what these electoral systems are, engaging them to make an informed decision, and giving the information to them in a way that they can understand it. It was a pleasure to take a call on this bill and I look forward to its next reading. Thank you very much.
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this
I rise to speak on the Electoral Referendum Bill as an enthusiastic student of electoral systems. I think it was in about 1998 that I did a POLS 206 course at Victoria University, taken by Professor Nigel Roberts, in which he went through all of the different electoral systems that were on offer the last time that New Zealand discussed this issue. He transposed historical election data, and tried to interpret what the outcomes would have been if those systems had been operating at those historical elections. It was a really interesting paper, and it would be fair to say it captured my attention for the whole semester, even though the nature of the topic is something other people would find very dry. It is fair to say, I think, the New Zealand public are being presented with an exciting array of options in the coming referendum. I will talk about a few of those in a moment.
Going back to the history of how we ended up with MMP in the first place, I think much has been written about, and many people have commented on, the fact that it was almost like an act of vengeance from the voters, who were unhappy with the way that Parliament had been behaving. Laws had been passed without the consent, if you like, or the implied consent, of the majority of the New Zealand public, and those laws were at odds with public opinion. It was almost as though MMP was adopted as a way of trying to slow Parliament down and bring it back under the control of the people. I think MMP has done that to a large extent. We do not have the laws being passed very rapidly through Parliament now that we did under first past the post. Having said that, I say there are a few exceptions to that, and we have seen some in the short period of time that I have been in this Parliament. But overall, I think, MMP has led to a slower parliamentary process, and a process that is more responsive to the views of all New Zealanders.
MMP has also led to a much more diverse and representative Parliament, and we see that when we look around the debating chamber. Now parties are represented in Parliament that were not here prior to MMP, and ethnic minority groups are now represented in Parliament that were not here prior to MMP. So there is a lot at stake in terms of what a change to the electoral system might mean for the way that Parliament functions and what Parliament consists of.
However, I think that changing the electoral system is not the most pressing constitutional issue that we have. If we go back to the idea of voters’ vengeance—one of the books that was written about the MMP referendum in 1993 was called The Voters’ Vengeance—we realise one of the concerns was that Parliament rapidly passed legislation that the public did not necessarily support. We can do things that place more of a check on this House. We have a very simple representative democracy here in this Parliament, and there are very few constraints on what this House can do. If we are talking about constitutional reform, then the idea of introducing constraints is something that we might want to talk about. For example, in the use of Parliamentary urgency should there be criteria that need to be met? I would argue that that would be a more significant constitutional discussion for us to have than one about changing the electoral system that determines how we end up getting here in the first place.
Hon Dr Wayne MappI do concede to Dr Mapp that having question time when Parliament is in urgency is a good innovation, and I congratulate the Government on doing that.
Coming back to MMP and this referendum, however, my concern is that the review of MMP will be undertaken only if the majority of people vote in the first referendum to keep MMP. I think that is disappointing. I would like to see the review of MMP happen anyway, regardless of the outcome of that referendum. I think even if we get to a second referendum where MMP is traded off against another system, it would be good for voters to know what voting to keep MMP will entail. I think improvements can be made to the MMP electoral system that will alleviate some of the public’s concerns and make them more inclined to want to keep it. They should know about that before they have to vote in both the first and the second referendums. I argue that we should do the review of MMP as soon as possible, but certainly before the referendums are undertaken.
Before I turn to the menu of options that voters will be given, I want to briefly talk about the rules on regulating what campaigners can spend on this referendum. I particularly take exception to some of the examples that John Boscawen used in his speech, when he talked about the amount of money that political parties have spent in general election campaigns. The nature of a general election campaign is very different from that of a referendum. There is a wide array of candidates campaigning across a wide range of issues, so the amount of money and the volume of activity are much wider than is the case with a referendum. In a referendum, there is a specific issue. There are usually a very limited number of choices, and the debate is very limited in terms of what is covered, so a smaller spending limit for referendums is very reasonable and relevant. To try to compare the spending limit for a referendum with a spending limit for a political party in an election campaign is, I think, a little unfair.
I was amused by Mr Boscawen’s reference to the Auckland mayoral election. Almost by inference he seemed to be arguing that the candidates on the right needed to have a higher spending limit because they ran worse campaigns than the candidates did who were on the left in the Auckland local body election campaigns. I simply say people did not vote for John Banks because they did not want him; it was not necessarily because of the quality of his television advertisements, or the lack thereof.
I move now to the menu of options that voters will be given should they choose to remove MMP and adopt an alternative system. Obviously, all New Zealanders are very familiar with the first-past-the-post electoral system; it is the system that we had prior to 1996. My concern is that I think going back to it would result in a real loss of the minority voices that we see in the House at the moment.
We then have the preferential vote system, which we saw in operation at the Wellington mayoral election. A National Party mayoral candidate argued there that because she had received more first-preference votes she should still be the mayor, even though the candidate who actually ended up winning received more second and third-preference votes and ended up defeating her on that basis.
That National Party candidate had won at previous elections when that method was used. So the voters of Wellington will know what the preferential voting system looks like, because they use it for their mayoral elections, and I know that a number of other territorial local authorities also use a preferential voting system.
There is also the single transferable vote system. Again, candidates are ranked as one, two, three, four, five, and so on. The difference with the single transferable vote system is—
I tell that member to hold on to his hat for just a moment. The difference with the single transferable vote system is that the electorates are much larger and there are multiple members for an electorate. I think one of the public’s concerns about that kind of system would be that they like to know who their representative in Parliament actually is. One of the concerns about list members of Parliament—and I am sure we all hear it expressed from time to time—is that they are not accountable directly to an electorate. Whether anybody agrees with that—
I will get into the single transferable vote system in more detail. Wayne Mapp is very impatient, but I will get into it in more detail. Basically, under the single transferable vote system, all of the candidates are ranked as one, two, three, four, etc. In order to be elected to Parliament—and, again, the threshold will differ, depending on the size of the electorate—a candidate will have to receive a certain number of first-preference votes. If a candidate gets that number on the first preference, then he or she becomes a member of Parliament. The number of first-preference votes needed would differ, depending on the size of the electorate. If, at the end of the allocation of first-preference seats, there are still vacancies, then the lowest-polling candidates drop out and the second preferences are reallocated. If, based on that, somebody receives enough votes, then that person gets the next spot. It means that constituencies can have multiple members of Parliament. Rather than there being a single representative for an area, there might be multiple representatives.
It is not a bad explanation.
Finally, the last system is the supplementary member system. I would call it “first past the post, with the winner’s bonus”. I know it is the system that John Key seems to be leaning towards. I do not necessarily support it. If we look at what the supplementary member system would have done to our MMP elections, we can see it could have dramatically altered the outcome of some of those elections. Of course, voter behaviour might well have changed, resulting from a change in the electoral system. We cannot just assume that if the electoral system is different, voters will still behave in the same way as they did. Of course, campaigns would also be run differently. We see National and Labour campaigning under MMP in areas where they did not campaign before, because under first past the post there was no value in doing so. So voter behaviour could well change.
Overall, I will leave it at that, given that my time is expiring, although I will say I am looking forward to the ongoing discussion on this issue.
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) Link to this
To the question that was posed by Mr Hodgson as to why we are having this referendum, I say that to me the answer is quite simple: because there was a genuine misunderstanding that the law required a review only, and the popular perception was that a referendum would be held in 2002.
That was what the review led by the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt in 2001 acknowledged. Even the submitters who were opposed to a further referendum went on to say that the reasons why most of them were opposed to that referendum was that it was too soon and that a referendum should be held later on. Well, we drifted through the first decade of this millennium and there was no appetite from our friends on the other side for having one. The simple fact is this: National believed that a referendum was the right thing to do. We campaigned on it and we are delivering on that promise.
Many members have been at pains to be neutral about what they think of proportional representation or MMP. I am not. I am a supporter of proportional representation. In fact, my very presence here depends on it, at least in this parliamentary session. I have every expectation that that will not be a problem after 2011, but only time will tell in that respect.
One of the things that I am very concerned about is not so much proportional representation as such but the thin spread of electorates, particularly in the South Island. This issue taxed the royal commission, which recommend 14 electorates. We ended up with 16 statutorily in the legislation, but the urban drift, particularly into Christchurch, is stretching those remaining electorates so large now that I think it is very, very difficult for electorate MPs to adequately get around these enormous electorates.
I think it is fair to say that most list MPs fulfil their obligations very well in what a speaker earlier today described as their “communities of interest”. I think that is a really good way of describing what list MPs do. One recalls that there was a belief that under MMP list MPs would get a bit lazy and not do the level of work of electorate MPs. I think that, ironically, the opposite is the case. I have half the staff resources in my local area and I look after twice the number of electorates. Being a Government MP, the door is opening pretty frequently.
I think the issue of what MMP might look like if it is still preferred by the public after this referendum is really important. I do not agree with My Hipkins that a review should be held before the referendum. The range of options is just too broad for that to be the case. I strongly support the Electoral Referendum Bill and I really look forward to the outcome of the referendum.
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this
My colleague Chris Hipkins referred to being in Nigel Roberts’ class in 1998 and going through various options on electoral referendums. I can go back a little bit further to when Mr Hipkins was perhaps a bit young—he is gone now so I can say these things about him, although I should not say that. In 1992, when the original referendum was going through, I was a student politician at Otago University, as I was in 1993 when we had the second referendum. It would be fair to say that as students we put a lot of effort into promoting MMP. In fact, I recall trying to justify it to a group of students on the basis that if the imaginatively named “Student Party” contested the elections and secured 5 percent of the vote, we would have students in Parliament. It was an interesting idea—one that I am not quite as keen on as I was then!
As a number of other speakers have said, through the 1980s and 1990s both a Labour Government and a National Government operated—in the words of a current member of our Parliament—in quantum leaps, with what some would say was disregard for the views of the electorate, putting in place programmes that had not been put before the electorate. I think there was a mood in the country in the early 1990s to punish not so much Parliament but the executive, or two executives in a row, from two different parties in Government. That mood was pervading the country and it was ripe for change. It was ripe for change not to only the speed of government, which is what I think was happening in the 1980s and 1990s, but to also the extent to which this Parliament was representative of the country. I too am prepared to proudly say that I am a supporter of proportional representation, and I am a supporter of the MMP system for two reasons that I will now discuss, which are relevant to the Electoral Referendum Bill.
The first reason is the representative nature of this Parliament. Statistically, we can look at the number of women members, we can look at the number of Māori members, and we can look at the number of members representing ethnic minorities in this country and see that, demonstrably, MMP has meant that this Parliament is more representative. That is a good thing. It is a good thing too that political parties that can earn more than 5 percent support in this country get to be represented here, because, to me, that level of support means there is a viewpoint out there that should be heard. I think the ideas that Mr Boscawen and his colleagues put up are, frankly, bonkers most of the time, but those people have the right to be heard here. He probably thinks the same about me and the Labour Party. But the fact is that parties deserve to be here if they can earn that 5 percent, and I will return to that question in a moment.
We have an MMP system that has allowed government to operate more slowly and on more of a consensual basis. Both Labour in office and now National in office have developed ways of making MMP work, of making coalition Governments work, and including parties. The risk for all parties is where those arrangements do not appear to the electorate to be governing in a fair way. The classic tail wagging the dog situation is where the public becomes concerned about elements of MMP, but overall I am strongly of the belief that this Parliament is a better and more representative place because of the system of proportional representation that we have. I do not believe that the public is in the same mood to punish politicians that it was in the early 1990s, and that is in part because MMP has required politicians to work in a more consensual way, in a slower way, and we have had a more representative Parliament to do that.
But we now find ourselves facing a referendum. Labour is supporting it as part of an overall package of changes to the electoral system, and we are happy to do that. We are particularly happy to do that because of there now being spending caps, and I will return to that point in a moment. But I think we have the cart somewhat before the horse when it comes to the two referenda that we are looking at under this bill. I strongly believe that if we are to do this—and there is some question in my mind about whether it is necessary—then we should be reviewing the system first. We should be reviewing the system first, because there is widespread acknowledgment among those of us who are strong supporters of MMP that there is room for improvement.
The particular area where I think there is room for improvement is the so-called electorate lifeboat. In this Parliament, that situation is represented by the ACT Party. Because Rodney Hide has won the Epsom seat, we are now treated to the spectacle of five ACT MPs in this House. Whatever people might think of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, his party polled at 4.3 percent, I think it was, in the last election, and it is not represented in this House. The question has to be raised as to whether that electorate lifeboat is, in fact, fair. If the ACT Party is polling at 3 percent of the vote, then why do we see it now represented in this House by five MPs rather than just the one MP who won the electorate? I do think that area could be relooked at. I noted that should the first referendum lead to a second referendum, then a review will take place and it will include that question of proportionality and of how people are represented. But I think it is a particular area that could be looked at.
There are, obviously, other issues that need to be looked at. Some people have raised a concern about the mix of electorate and list members. Mr Woodhouse has just mentioned questions about the size of the electorates, and I think a number of the members of Parliament who represent electorates are concerned about that issue.
These questions could be dealt with in a review prior to a referendum, so that we know what we are really discussing. As it happens, we will get that review if we go to a second referendum. The review should happen anyway—that is what members on this side of the House believe. We think it should happen first. In any case, regardless of what happens in the first referendum, there should be that review so that we can clear up some of these matters.
I would disagree with one thing that my colleague Chris Hipkins said. He said that all New Zealanders would be familiar with first past the post. That is actually not true, in my opinion. I think that people under the age of 35 know nothing other than MMP when it comes to a voting system. I believe that the question of what people understand about the systems is a moot point. I think there is a lack of understanding across the board, and I very much endorse the comments of Catherine Delahunty and Steve Chadwick about civics education. One of the things that we need to do significantly better in this country is helping people understand from an early age how the voting system works, what their role is in society, and how they can influence decisions.
It is quite clear that members on this side of the House are happy to support this bill, given the changes that have been made to it, but I believe that the timing and sequencing of the referenda and the review have put the cart before the horse and will perhaps confuse some people unnecessarily. I think we could certainly find our way to a situation where we have the review anyway, regardless of the outcome of the first referendum.
I will talk about two more things in my contribution. The first is the question of the spending cap. I am very pleased to see the spending cap of $300,000. I acknowledge that it is difficult to come up with a number—why $300,000 instead of $500,000? But the Electoral Legislation Committee has attempted to get the balance right between participant equality and participant freedom in elections. This is something that Andrew Geddis from Otago University has written about. It is a difficult balance in every electoral system in the world—the freedom for people like Mr Boscawen to participate and to put money into a particular issue, and the equality question of how we make that fair so that elections cannot be bought and so that referenda cannot be bought. It is a difficult balance, but I believe that the committee has done the right thing by putting a spending cap in place.
We know that the likes of Peter Shirtcliffe are interested again. Mr Shirtcliffe is out there, promoting the supplementary member system, which Mr Key now seems to favour. It is not a proportional system in the terms in which it has been put before the electorate. It means that only 30 of the 120 seats would be allocated on a proportional basis—90 of the 120 seats would be first past the post. That is not proportional representation. I am sorry to say that I think Mr Shirtcliffe will try to present it in that way, but it is not.
In conclusion, I believe that the bill has come back from the committee in much better shape. The fact that we now have a spending cap in place will ensure to some extent that participant equality is balanced with participant freedom in this referendum. I would urge all of us as MPs to ensure that we work hard in our electorates to make sure that people understand as much as possible this referendum and about what the options are. From my point of view, I believe that MMP has served us well over the last 14 years or so, and I would like to see it continue, but we in Labour are committed to supporting this bill so that the referendum can take place in an orderly manner.
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this
I will take just a short call on the Electoral Referendum Bill. Most parties in this House have gone through the issues of the different aspects of proportional representation and have talked about the public’s awareness and their desire to have their say on how they are represented in this House. This bill is the practical aspect of giving that option to the public at the next election.
We support this bill. We will see that it goes through the House and that the public has the option of making their point of view known to Parliament at the nearest convenient time. Thank you.