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Speaker 1: Cabinet has agreed to reinstate a total ban on prisoners

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Speaker 1: being allowed to vote in general elections. So in twenty

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Speaker 1: fifteen there was a High Court ruling that said a

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Speaker 1: blanket ban on prisoner voting was in direct opposition to

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Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights Act. Labor then allowed the prisoners

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Speaker 1: serving less than three years to vote from prison. But

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Speaker 1: Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is going to overturn that. Graham

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Speaker 1: Edgler is a lawyer specializing in electoral law and is

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Speaker 1: with us now, Hey Graham, Hello, what do you reckon?

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Speaker 1: Is Paul Goldsmith doing the right thing?

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Speaker 2: I think probably not, mostly because of the randomness. You know,

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Speaker 2: if someone's got a life sentence or ten years or something,

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Speaker 2: they're going to miss out on voting elections. For someone

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Speaker 2: who's got maybe a one year sentence, then the question

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Speaker 2: of whether they actually get banned from voting turns on

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Speaker 2: or were they sentenced in twenty twenty three or twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty five. Did they spend nine months on remand waiting

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Speaker 2: for their sentence and then get sentenced, in which case, well,

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Speaker 2: if they were on remand, they got to vote, but

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Speaker 2: the person who was charged alongside them at the same

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Speaker 2: time who guessed the same sentence but who didn't have

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Speaker 2: to see of any on remand they won't be able

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Speaker 2: to vote because their entire sentence will be served as

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Speaker 2: a sentence rather than on pretrol remand And so when

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Speaker 2: you're dealing with the people on three years or less,

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Speaker 2: it's the randomness that makes it sort of unreasonable. This

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Speaker 2: person who got a two year sentence gets to vote

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Speaker 2: because they've got sentence at the right time in the cycle.

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Speaker 2: This person who got a six month sentence doesn't because

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Speaker 2: their sentence was a month before the election. And it's

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Speaker 2: sort of the randomness. It's not well, is it a

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Speaker 2: good reason for that person to be deed to vote,

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Speaker 2: but that person not. And that's why the three year

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Speaker 2: rule has some sort of sense to it.

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Speaker 1: How many of them do you recoonisit in they're going

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Speaker 1: this is so unfair?

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Speaker 2: Probably not many. And I don't know if all that

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Speaker 2: many people actually voted.

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Speaker 1: If they don't care, who cares well?

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Speaker 2: Who cares well? They're going to take more time of

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Speaker 2: Parliament to change the law. You know, it's gone back

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Speaker 2: to three years already. Yeah, you know, so it's like,

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Speaker 2: you know, people have got long sentences they're not getting

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Speaker 2: about the people you think, you know, the murderers, the rapists,

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Speaker 2: the whatever. You know. It's the people on short sentences,

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Speaker 2: that's the people we're arguing about. And do the people

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Speaker 2: who care enough really care that it's worth spending time

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Speaker 2: to do it really, given given the randomness that's involved,

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Speaker 2: and who gets what actually punishment.

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Speaker 1: It's one of these it's one of these debates where

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Speaker 1: it's kind of theoretical, and I take your point. It's

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Speaker 1: an interesting point to make, but that's about it. It's interesting.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if these guys don't actually care about voting,

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Speaker 1: and the rest of us are largely just cross with

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Speaker 1: them for being, you know, misbehaving, and we want to

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Speaker 1: punish them a little. But then if they don't actually

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Speaker 1: want to be able to vote, why would anybody argue

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Speaker 1: on their behalf? Just leave them to it?

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Speaker 2: I think just equally the other way around, though, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's the if you don't really like for some of them,

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Speaker 2: your argument, it's hard of being in it's part of

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Speaker 2: being in a community.

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Speaker 1: Haven't they lost that right by being by being naughty.

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Speaker 2: They've lost the right to be free. They haven't lost

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Speaker 2: all of the other Like, yeah, like, are there any

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Speaker 2: other rights that we want to deny them? Yeah, so

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Speaker 2: we're going to deny them the right to movement and

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Speaker 2: deny them to freedom, the you know, not not watch

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Speaker 2: the TV.

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Speaker 1: Don't get me started, because yes, I'd say, yeah, I'd

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Speaker 1: want to take their TVs off them, and I want

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Speaker 1: to take all the nice food that they have off

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Speaker 1: them and all of their clothes as well, and really

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Speaker 1: punish them properly. You know, there will be a lot

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Speaker 1: of people out there who actually think they have too

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Speaker 1: easy to go in jail, and so this is just

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Speaker 1: a tiny little punishment, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: The people they're thinking about when they think that, aren't

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Speaker 2: the people are getting six months or nine months Since

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Speaker 2: the people you think of, oh that's too easy or

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Speaker 2: something like that. It's the people who are getting life sentences.

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Speaker 2: The people who you're in for ten years for aggravated

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Speaker 2: robbery and wounding with intent and things like that. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's the people we're talking about are much much less

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Speaker 2: serious offenders because the law has always banned people for

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Speaker 2: three years or more.

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Speaker 1: I take your point, and I think you are making

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Speaker 1: some interesting points here. Actually, though, why is this even happening?

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is the thing that it wasn't a

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Speaker 1: point of discussion. What's in it for the NETS to

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Speaker 1: do this.

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Speaker 2: They're doing a bill anyway, so it's doing it as

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Speaker 2: a one off. They had the Election Review Selick committee

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Speaker 2: came back with a whole bunch of recommendations. The government

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Speaker 2: sort of accepted almost all of them. Some of them

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Speaker 2: are going to do straight away before the next election,

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Speaker 2: some of them are going to be a bit more work,

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Speaker 2: and maybe we'll look at down the line and this

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Speaker 2: is just going to get added to the list. And

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Speaker 2: the government put out the press release today because they

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Speaker 2: wanted the news story because they think it looks good

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Speaker 2: for them, and so you know, they could have announced

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Speaker 2: half a dozen other changes which no one would have

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Speaker 2: cared about, because you know, it's some election financier all

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Speaker 2: or something like that, which no one understands and most

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Speaker 2: people don't need to if you're not running a political party.

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Speaker 1: You're true. Hey Graham, listen, thanks for talking us for

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Speaker 1: to do. Appreciate it. This Graham July, human rights lawyer.

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