Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's a conversation that, yes, certainly members with young children have raised. It's not so much a conversation that's happened around staff. I think that's because they've come into an employment relationship where they've acknowledged that this is something they'll have to do.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have all the details of the parliamentary crèche. There is one within the parliamentary campus, and although anyone is able to go there, the true preference of its role is for children of members and staff of Parliament. It has quite a long waiting list. It takes children from a very young age.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I can, and sorry, I forgot about that part of your question. I believe that's the case, and that would be normal in most child care centres in New Zealand, but I'll check those two things and provide the information to the clerk.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sure. It's still a requirement if a parliamentary committee wants to meet that the members must be there in person. They have no ability to take part by video conference or teleconference, but the committees do make use of video conference in the way that you are now to meet with people remotely around New Zealand, which is a very small country in comparison to Canada, but still occupies quite a lot of time to travel.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The party whip is considered to have the ability to cast all votes for their party without a specific proxy from individual members, and if a member wants to vote differently from their party then they would instruct that whip that way, although in that instance they'd be quite likely to go to the chamber and cast their own vote.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  But vote.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, we would ring the division bells, call all members to the chamber, and they had seven minutes to get there and then they would be locked and they would go out in the lobbies to vote as we would have seen at Westminister. That seemed to take about two minutes for the vote. As I say, the change was made in 1996.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The number of times they truly have free votes has probably not changed. There are issues in New Zealand that have been identified as conscience issues, really just by convention and tradition, things such as alcohol laws, same-sex marriage, abortion, gambling regulation, are issues on which members have been given a free vote by tradition and they continue to exercise that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, you are. Occasionally members do other things. We had a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement last week in the House. The major opposition party is opposed to it. One of the members, a former trade minister who began the negotiations on it when in government, actually voted contrary to his party, with the understanding that he was going to do that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They stand and vote. The Clerk calls out the name of the party while standing. The whip then stands and casts a number of votes and says whether they're in favour of the question, against it, or abstaining, and the Clerk then records those and hands them to the Speaker to announce.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We've thought about it. There are seven parties in the House at the moment. It takes a few seconds for each of them to cast their vote, and it would be possible to use technology for it. At the moment I think the feeling has been that there's a preference for parties to actually stand and give voice to their vote so that anyone who's watching or listening can hear how they voted.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Indigenous Maori in New Zealand have had the option of one of two electoral rolls. There's the general electoral roll and the Maori roll, and there are a number of Maori seats throughout the country. The number will increase or decrease with the movement in that population. It's increasing and it has been for years now because there's a higher birth rate amongst Maori than other New Zealanders.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Many members of the New Zealand public share your discomfort with that. It's possible for the full Parliament to vote with only one representative of each party in the chamber. There are usually a few more than that at times when votes are conducted, but it's certainly far from full.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer. It is possible for one member of a party to cast all of the party votes while he is the only member of that party who is present in the chamber, but 75% of the rest of the members of that party must be within the parliamentary precinct; 25% of the members can be anywhere at all, outside of the precinct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It is very much operated on a trust basis—the word of a whip that they have all of their members present and are able to pass the full number of votes as available to them. The Parliament is always seen very seriously and it probably would be treated as contempt, if a whip did pass votes they were not entitled to.