Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Julie Haggie: Transparency International NZ CEO on South Auckland local body election overturned

Transcript

Julie Haggie: Transparency International NZ CEO on South Auckland local body election overturned · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There are concerns about the integrity of our elections. After
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a South Auckland local body result was thrown out over
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: claims of voter fraud. Amnico judge found irregularities in the
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Puppa Toy Toy subdivision that affected the result. That means
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a new election has to be held next year. Investigators
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: say seventy nine votes were cast without the voter's knowledge,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: some allegedly taken straight from the mailboxes. Julie Hagey is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the CEO of Transparency International New Zealand and joins you now,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: good one to.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You, Julie, good morning.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: This is pretty concerning. Really, we haven't really heard much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of this sort of thing in the past.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: No, that's right. I think this is a very unusual case.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: There have been complaints to judges, but none has actually
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: none has actually resulted in an overturning of an election
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: as far as I could look back, as far as
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I could see, So it is really an unusual case.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: And I have to say I haven't seen the decision
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: of the complaint and no change has been laid. But
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: though there are two investigations underway, so I can't talk
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: about publicly available on the media.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, it's interesting. It's interesting when they've looked at
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: seventy nine votes the four the four councilors who got
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: onto the board all got on with majorities between twelve
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: hundred and two thousand. Would seventy nine irregular votes actually
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: affecting a result?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think what the judge said was
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: that there was an indication that there might be more,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: and that this was just the ones they opened, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: they found that that a high portion of them had
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: been were actually voted for the group of the group,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and so they said there's likely to be it's likely
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: to be a bigger problem. And so I think that's
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the biggest issue. The threshold they have to get to
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: under the Local Literal Act, the judge has to get
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: to to look at voiding a result, and he got
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: to that, and that's that's a high threshold. So it's
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: not clearly there's a range of issues. We don't know
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: them all yet, but clearly there's a range of problems.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Do you reckon there's more electorates and more elections that
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: are affected by this thing?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Oh well, no, I don't see evidence. We've got pretty
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: good systems and in this election there's been several challenges
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: to the District Court and quite a few of them
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: have been overturned because they hadn't met that three child.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: So I think there is a process for people to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: go through. It probably needs in the select committee that
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: looked into the last local abody election, the previous local
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: body election said thinks there are some changes that need
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to be made the law to strengthen it and to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: increase the penalties. But it does seem to be picking up.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: That's the good thing about this is that a person
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: made there, made the effort to go to make a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: district court inquiry, to petition for that and got a result.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So that's that's a good thing. That's a good thing
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: about our system.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Random message. Well, I was going to say, you could
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: say it was caught, and you know, it was caught
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and the result was thrown out and that shows in
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a way that our system is working. But it was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: only caught because vivhaus here, who's the deputy chairman of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the board, actually had some concerns and brought the complaint.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So is the system really working or do we need
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: whistleblowers like Viv Well, I.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Think it doesn't. We do need people is your right
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to say we don't think this voting process has been
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: run correctly. It's not just about somebody above that finding
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: it out. So everybody's got a right to do that
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: in relation to their voter, in relation to their who
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: voted for them or who didn't vote for them, They've
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: got a right to get there. There's there's problems with
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the timing. They have to get it through very quickly,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: so that's a that's an issue with timing. But it
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: is that system does seem to be does seem to
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: have held up in this in case, although we now
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: need to see the police investigations are underway. What really
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: matters is that if there has been malfeasance happening here,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: people are actually held to account. And that's the real
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: nub of this. That's it might be harder to prove,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: but I'm hopeful that the police are putting good energy
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: into that those investigations.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Julie Hag.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: and News Works. It'd be from five am weekdays, or
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.