Parliament makes a rare step and amends a reserved provision of electoral law - something designed to be hard to achieve.
Parliament's MPs had the chance this week to do something pretty unusual. No, not Morris Dancing, but that is fun to imagine.
Among the many bills they debated was the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Bill which enables Māori to swap between the General and Māori Electoral Rolls at almost any time, and as often as desired.
The Bill itself wasn't the unusual thing, although it's been on some people's do-to lists for quite a while. The unusual thing was that the Bill included an amendment to a clause in the Electoral Act 1993 - a clause designed to be difficult to change. A "reserved provision".
Listen to the radio version of this story.
I'll let the Speaker, Adrian Rurawhe, explain.
"I would like to inform the House of my approach to the proposal contained in the bill for the amendment of a reserved provision. Clause 5 amends section 35 of the Electoral Act 1993, which is a reserved provision under section 268(1)(c) of that Act. During the committee stage, the question will be put separately on clause 5, and it will be agreed to only if the votes of 90 or more members are cast in favour of it."
Reserved provisions are a bit of a rarity in New Zealand law. They are designed to be hard to change, requiring three quarters of MPs, or alternatively more than half the voting public (in, say, a referendum), to change.
That 75 percent is the required 90 MPs the Speaker referred to. Ninety MPs means both National and Labour need to agree. That may sound unlikely but despite the hoo-ha they agree more than you might expect. Mostly on uncontroversial, nuts-and-bolts legislation. Less so on the big, tricky things.
The Vote
Despite the added difficulty of surmounting a reserved provision, political parties prefer to pass electoral law with broad agreement. To help achieve that consensus, the Government had agreed to tighten the Bill to assuage National party concern about tactical roll switching - especially for by-elections. With that change made, National joined Labour in favour.
During the debate National MP Paul Goldsmith gave credit to the Minister, Kiri Allan for adjusting the Bill.
"We're grateful for that. Some cynics have said it's just because 75 percent is required and they need our support. I'm sure that that's not just the case actually, but I think the Minister was genuine in her concern to have widespread support for what is a significant electoral change - as this is."
Enough suspense already - the vote on the reserved provision went like this..…