Duncan Webb: Labour justice spokesperson on planned voting law changes

Fears changes to the way we vote will impact our democracy. 

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is planning to stop election-day enrolment, ban prisoner voting, and ban free food and entertainment offered near booths.

Goldsmith says the changes will stop the vote count hold ups once poll booths close. 
 
But Labour's justice spokesperson, Duncan Webb told Andrew Dickens says there's many reasons people forget to change enrolment details. 

Webb says every single vote counts and they'd rather have a system where everyone gets a crack.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right, Well, major changes are coming on how you can
vote in the general elections. The government's scraps same day enrollments,
meaning you must now enroll to vote before early voting starts.
You're going to do that two weeks before election day,
and free food, drinks and entertainment of voting booths will
also be banned. Labor says tens of thousands of people
will miss out on exercising their democratic right to vote

(00:20):
as a result of today's changes. And Duncan web is
Labour's just a spokesperson and joins you this morning, immantity
of Duncan.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning, Good for you.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Now, why is this limiting democracy? A deadline is a deadline,
whether it's on the day or two weeks beforehand. Just
go out there and enroll.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, look, I guess the numbers speak for themselves. There
are one hundred and ten thousand people who didn't get
round to sorting out their enrollment prior to election day
for whatever reason, you know, busy people working, people looking
after kids inside. But and then they decide, gee, I
forgot that I want to vote. I'm going to go
down What do you know I can do it right here?

(01:00):
I think that those hundred and ten thousand people actually
have as much right to have a say and who
runs the country as anyone else does.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
But there's an obligation when you get a vote, and
one of those obligations is to enroll. And they obviously
didn't think much of the election and they weren't involved
in the democratic process if they couldn't get enrolled two
weeks before the election, there.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Is an obligation to be enrolled. And you know, I'm
sure a lot of people appreciate that. When you're moving
houses and you know, you've got a lot on your mind,
you don't always think and I've got to get hold
of the Electoral Commission and let them know my new address.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Dunk in the letter and the ad campaign arrives months
before the election. You got plenty of time. Two weeks
is the deadline. Get You could have done it three
months ago before you were moving.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Oh, you know, the ad campaign's out there. Not everyone's
watching TV and looking at those kinds of things. But
you've got to remember these are people, mainly people who
have moved. So the letter, which sometimes doesn't arrive, but
often goes to the old address, not the new one.
So there's all kind of administrative reasons why people might
not enroll to vote. And if you're going to say, well, look,

(02:04):
if you're not onto it, you don't remember that you've
got to change your enrollment every time your move house,
and a lot of people move houses frequently. Students are
a great example of that.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay, well, there's a lot of people who are insinuating
that the reason you are defending the right to enroll
on the election day is because you believe later rollers
are left voters.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Are you no, Look, I think this is about everyone.
There's all kinds of reasons people will forget to change
their enrollment details. Some of them will be left, some
of them won't. But every single vote counts, and I'd
rather have an enrollment system where everyone gets a crack.
They're one where you know, two electorates worth. Some people

(02:44):
don't get to vote because they weren't quite onto it.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Okay, what about the treating the food, the drink and
the entertainment. I mean that is actually a very mainor bribe,
is it not.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
You look, the rules around serving food or drinks and
so on around the voting have always been a bit murky,
and we actually support it and recommended in the Select
Committee that there be some changes around us. So it's
really good clarification to say, look, one hundred meters of
a voting place, you can't be offering sausages or hungry
or whatever it might be good.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Soeff Duncan, I thank you for your time this morning. Duncan,
Web Labor spokesperson.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
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