Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, I'm very honoured to be speaking to you. We are here, in Ottawa, and you are in Australia and New Zealand. This shows how strong the Commonwealth is.

Mr. Peden, it's a real pleasure to talk to you in the first round. In the second round, I will have the privilege of speaking to Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Peden, your country has undertaken a long journey to achieve what you have done in the last two decades, which all began with the royal commission in 1986. We're talking three decades. I would like to know why you took 18 months to complete your work on this royal commission. Why was it 18 months?

[Robert Peden]

The terms of reference of the royal commission were broad. They included consideration of the electoral system and many other matters of democracy, and the report was broad-ranging. It began by identifying 10 criteria by which they would judge electoral systems. In the material we have provided to the committee, we included the report that the electoral commission undertook in this review of MMP in 2012.

We reported to the New Zealand Parliament. We attached as an appendix to that report the 10 criteria that the royal commission used in judging different electoral systems. I would recommend it to the committee. Notwithstanding that this report was undertaken 30 years ago, it remains a very relevant and helpful piece of work. The report in general would reward your consideration.

It took 18 months because it's a comprehensive and thorough piece of work that included considerable public consultation together with visits to international jurisdictions.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

You achieved a lot in 18 months. You were very busy, but you were very effective.

What surprises me is that it took almost 15 years to put the question to the people before a decision. Why so long?

[Robert Peden]

From 1985 to 1993 the two major parties that were then in Parliament supported first past the post, and as I said in my introductory comments, there was considerable public and political debate between the royal commission report in 1986 and the decision in 1991 to introduce legislation to provide for a referendum in 1992, which initiated the process that saw the adoption of MMP in 1993 following a binding referendum, and then the first MMP election in 1996.

One other thing I would say, sir, is that after the decision to move to MMP in 1993, it was a very busy three years preparing for the first MMP election in 1996. A lot of work had to be done.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Just before going to the three full years for preparation, let's get back to the two referenda, not referendums. In French we say référendums, even if we are talking about two referenda, but I learned that in English it's like Latin, and it’s “referenda”. It reminds me of 1976, when I had some Latin lessons in high school.

You had two referenda. Why two?

[Robert Peden]

The first referendum was to provide New Zealanders with the opportunity to indicate whether they wanted change, and if they did want change, which alternative system they would prefer.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I recognize again that you took your time because it's a very interesting and very important issue in democracy.

Then you took three full years before—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're almost done, Mr. Deltell.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Okay, so I'll come back in the final minutes. Thank you.

Thank you so much, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Aldag.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to pose one quick question for each of you, but they're different questions. Then I have something that I'm hoping will take a bit more time.

I'll go to Mr. Rogers for the first one. The issue I want to look at is mandatory voting.

When I was out door-knocking during our election campaign, I came across two religious groups that do not vote. I wonder, in your case, if you have any sort of allowance for circumstances in which people, for religious reasons or others, do not support voting. How do you deal with that?

[Tom Rogers]

There is no blanket exclusion from mandatory voting, but the electoral act is clear that you may be able to provide what is referred to as a “valid and sufficient reason” for not voting, and generally a religious conviction would be one of those valid and sufficient reasons.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

What else would fall into that kind of category related to mandatory voting? Sorry; I'm going into a second question, which I wasn't going to do, but I'm interested.

[Tom Rogers]

No problems.

It's written in a way that the valid and sufficient reason is at the discretion of the local divisional returning officer, but essentially the reasons are that you were not able to be released from work that day, you were ill, or you were genuinely travelling. A whole range of things may be valid and sufficient reason for not voting.

The way that's uncovered is we write to every non-voter after the election and they write back to us and explain why they may not have voted.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Could physical or mental incapacity be reasons?

[Tom Rogers]

That is correct.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

Moving to Mr. Peden, I want to pick up on Ms. May's question on the Maori seats. You've indicated that the specific seats have been in existence since 1867. Has it always been seven Maori seats, or is it based on percentage of population? Do they grow over time or change over time?

[Robert Peden]

They grow over time.

In 1867, four seats were established. There continued to be four seats up until 1993. That was the first occasion when the number of seats would grow according to population. Since then the number of Maori seats has grown to seven.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Along with that, you indicated that there is not a constitution in the way that we have one, but those seats and that growth would be protected in some sort of legislation or a constitutional equivalent. Is that where those come from?

[Robert Peden]

No. There is an entrenching provision in the Electoral Act, section 268. It only entrenches a limited number of provisions, and the number of Maori seats and the distribution of Maori seats is not one of those entrenched provisions.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

Here's a question I'd like to throw to both of you. You seem to have, in the case of New Zealand, a new system that you brought on board, and in Australia, it seems a bit of a complex system to somebody coming into it. Building on Ms. May's earlier questions about education, how do you build voter awareness and support?

I'd like to hear from both of you briefly about what sort of education campaigns are used, or perhaps what role the state plays in helping people shift to understand these kinds of changes as they take place over time.

[Tom Rogers]

I'll start off, if that's helpful. Briefly, we do a number of different things. First, we run a national electoral education centre in Canberra, and more than 100,000 school kids a year come through that centre. We reach out to schools and run elections in schools—not all schools, but the schools that want us to do that—and there are a range of other factors focused on youth.

At each election, we run a significant electoral education campaign based both on awareness of the election and on how to complete a valid vote. We use a range of media: social media, advertising, TV, radio, etc. For the recent change to the Senate, we did a separate campaign to alert the public to those changes. Again, it was a very comprehensive, targeted campaign.

We do those sorts of campaigns at every election. We also provide other services at election time, including language-appropriate voter information officers in polling places where there may be a heavy element of people with English as a second language, etc.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

[Tom Rogers]

All significant materials are translated into about 28 different languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're out of time, unfortunately, on this one, but we'll jump now to our second round, beginning once again with Ms. Romanado.