Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of New Zealanders could feel their vote has been taken from them, Labour leader Chris Hipkins says, as he continues to take aim at “reckless” government changes to enrolment law.
Hipkins was speaking to Q+A earlier today, his last appearance on the programme before election day. He said the Electoral Commission had “absolutely not” done enough to tell voters about this year’s change to enrolment rules.
“I’m really concerned that we’re going to have tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of people completely disenfranchised from this election,” he said.
“We’re going to have people showing up at the polling booth and realising too late that they’re not on the roll ... there’ll be a big outcry when a whole lot of people who didn’t know that they weren’t on the roll show up and find that their vote’s not going to count.”
The coalition’s changes to electoral law ended same-day enrolment and also during the two-week advance voting period, which begins October 26.
Voters have until midnight next Sunday to enrol or update their details, including their address. Those who have moved but miss the deadline risk having their electorate vote thrown out, although their party vote will still count.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said when the law passed in December that late enrolments had “placed too much strain on the system”.
'Some very angry people'
But Hipkins said today the result of the change would be "some very angry people who feel like they’ve had their vote taken away from them".
“This was a reckless decision by the current government to change enrolment laws so that, 10 days out from the election, a whole lot of people are going to find that their vote’s not going to count," he told Q+A.
Interviewer Jack Tame asked whether the changes risked undermining the election’s legitimacy. Hipkins said he would not follow the path taken by some politicians overseas.
“I don’t want to get into the territory that we’ve seen overseas, where a party that doesn’t do as well as they hoped in the election starts to scream about the illegitimacy of the elections. That’s not a territory that I want to get into,” he said.
“But I am concerned that there’s going to be a whole lot of people after this election who are concerned that their vote wasn’t taken, or even if it was taken, didn’t count, and that’s not going to be good for confidence in the overall electoral system that we have".
He said Labour would accept the result: “Oh yes, absolutely.”
Hipkins said the commission “probably haven’t had the resources”, but that it had been “progressively doing less and less” during his time in politics.
“When I first started as a political candidate, I’d be out door knocking, and the Electoral Commission would be out door knocking too. They were sort of one street ahead of me, making sure everyone was on the roll,” he said.
“Getting the electoral roll up to date is a critical precursor to there being a good, robust election.”
Social Investment Agency may move to PM's department
Hipkins also said he wanted to look at folding the Social Investment Agency into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
“One of the things that I want to look at is whether it should be part of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet rather than a separate agency, because I think the social investment approach is actually one that could deliver much better outcomes from government spending,” he said.
“I want to see that analytical capability that they’ve developed applied right the way across government.”
He described the idea in simple terms.
“At its heart, social investment’s about saying if we spend $1 now, how much does that save us further down the track?” Hipkins said.
“The same applies in reverse. If you cut $1 of spending now, you can actually be incurring $4 or $5 extra spending further down the track.”
But the Labour leader stressed no decision had been made on the party's position.
“It’s something that I want to look at, but I’m strongly supportive of the work they’re doing.”
Labour had earlier pointed to staffing problems in Starship Hospital’s oncology department as evidence of an under-resourced health system.
Asked about overseas systems, Hipkins said the party was “very open” to legislated minimum staffing levels in hospitals, like those in Victoria and Queensland.
“The idea that you’d have minimum levels of staffing, minimum levels of safe staffing, clearly articulated, is something we’d be very open to,” he said.
'Enjoying it more this time'
Asked what he had learned from Labour’s 2023 defeat, Hipkins accepted that criticism of his campaign’s energy had been “probably a fair criticism”.
“We’ve structured our campaign quite differently. It’s a higher energy campaign,” he said.
“I think we probably didn’t convey to the public the energy that was going on behind the scenes in our campaign. It was the first time I’d ever run a nationwide campaign, and I learned a lot from that.”
“I’m enjoying my campaign this time much more than I did last time, so that probably tells you something.”
He said the campaign was “more focused around the things that I enjoy doing on the campaign trail, and I’ve been having a great time”.
For the full interview, watch the video above
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
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