A politician whose government is changing the rules in a way that benefits its election prospects has condemned politicians changing the rules in ways that benefit their election prospects.
David Seymour was emphatic when asked on Waatea News why his party was backing binding referendums on Māori wards at the upcoming local body elections. In his eyes, this was about maintaining the integrity of the electoral system and ensuring politicians couldn’t modify the rules to benefit themselves – as he suggested councils had done when establishing Māori wards. “I always think if there’s going to be a change to the rules for electing politicians, it shouldn’t be made by politicians who were elected by the same system,” he said. “If you’re going to change the system for electing the politicians, that should be done by a vote at large, rather than the rules changed by the people who benefit from being elected.”
Some would argue Māori seats don’t benefit current politicians at the ballot box, so much as expose them to indigenous perspectives and give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi. But it’s hard to argue with Seymour’s overarching principle. Politicians shouldn’t be able to unilaterally change the system they’re elected under, particularly in ways that enhance their electoral chances.
In other news, the Electoral Commission’s chief electoral officer Karl Le Quesne appeared before a parliament select committee last week to answer questions about new laws banning voter registration in the 13 days before the general election. Justice minister Paul Goldsmith has justified the changes as a way to speed up the vote-counting process. But Le Quesne said the law wouldn’t make things faster, and the commission would work to its usual 20-day timeframe.
Instead, the primary effect of the changes will be to disenfranchise thousands of people. As The Post’s Henry Cooke reports, the Electoral Commission expects the number of votes disallowed due to lack of enrolment to quintuple from 11,000 to 55,000 in the next election. But even that understates the impact of the changes. People have been allowed to enrol to vote until the day before the election for decades, and around 230,000 people enrolled to vote in the 13 days before the last election. The commission’s legal and policy manager Kristina Temel told the committee the law would reduce turnout, putting people off showing up to the ballot box at all.
Those late-enrolling votes have historically favoured parties from the left. The Greens gained a list seat and Te Pāti Māori gained two electorates when special votes – which those made by people who enrol during the advance voting period are treated as – were counted in 2023, meaning National and Act lost their majority and had to bring in New Zealand First to govern.
Following the committee hearing, the government has tried to stick to its line about vote-counting time, with prime minister Christopher Luxon berating election counters as the “slowest folk on the planet”. But Australia took roughly the same amount of time to count its votes in 2022, and our government coalition took six weeks to strike a deal — long after the official results were finalised.
Image: Electoral Commission
Other parties inside that coalition have given more plausible explanations for the changes. Asked why they were justified in June, deputy prime minister David Seymour said the people who didn’t get their registration sorted early were “dropkicks” who presumably don’t deserve special allowances from election officials. His justice spokesperson Todd Stephenson went further, explaining he was sick of “completely disengaged and lazy” people who “rock up to the voting booth, get registered there and then, and then vote to tax other people’s money away”.
On Waatea News, Stephenson’s leader delivered a stinging rebuke to that line of thinking. Politicians may not like people having the temerity to vote for parties other than their own, he said, but they should still win fair and square rather than tilting the playing field in their favour.
As Seymour condemned politicians changing the rules to benefit their election prospects, his government continued to usher through a bill that will boost its election prospects. It’s not the only time the deputy prime minister has failed to follow his own advice. Despite advocating for more robust regulatory standards in lawmaking, he defended the government’s decision to pass Act minister Brooke van Velden’s equal pay amendments under urgency, without the usual regulatory checks. Nor is this the only prospective rule change that could help the government at the ballot box. It’s also taking voting rights away from all prisoners, in what its own attorney general says is a breach of the Bill of Rights Act.
But if you don’t live by your principles, they start to look less like principles, and more like self-interest. On Waatea, Seymour left no room for doubt: he believes meaningful election changes should be put to a public vote before they’re enacted. Surely what’s good for the lefty goose is good for the libertarian gander. The Electoral Amendment Bill will have its second reading in the coming months. There’s still time for the deputy prime minister – and the government – to have a change of heart, and show some consistency.