Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Richard Hills: Auckland Councillor on Auckland Council ditching postal voting

Transcript

Richard Hills: Auckland Councillor on Auckland Council ditching postal voting · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Auckland Council is ditching postal voting. Fraud scandals during the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: 2025 vote undermined public confidence in democracy. Their words, voted
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to adopt a booth voting system now. That's going to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: cost tens of millions of dollars. Richard Hills is Auckland Council,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: joins us live this morning. Richard, good morning.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: So I can understand why you've done it, because you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: don't want people, you don't, I mean, no one votes
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in local elections, barely votes in local elections anyway. The
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: last thing you want is for those who do vote
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to be committing fraud.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, voter turnout is low. And we're not
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: saying that this change itself would completely change the turnout.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: But I think it would help the integrity of the elections,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the trust of the elections. I mean, I'm delivering pamphlets
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: during elections and just see piles of voting papers sitting
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: in the rain and being eaten by snails. And sadly,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: we did have some significant legal issues and alleged theft
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: and photos of You know, you would have seen the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: photos online of people holding hundreds of papers in their hands,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: clearly voting illegally. And I think it's just time to
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: move away from posts. I mean, nobody uses the post
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: for anything apart from local elections now. So it's a
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: time to move to booth voting. It is more expensive, though.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: But I guess, you know, how much value do you
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: put on democracy? I think it's important that we we
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: moved to booth voting.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of a necessary evil, isn't it? Why
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the cost? So estimated to cost up to $ 40 million
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: compared to $ 16 million for postal voting.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the main cost is people and the technology
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and the printing. So obviously you have to print more
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: ballots because there's more places, much like the central government elections.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: So central government elections sort of hundreds of millions of dollars.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: So if you extrapolate that to Auckland, a third of
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the country, that's why the cost is pretty high. So
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: we're going to have to have people at the booth
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: right around the city and making sure we've got good
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: coverage and then printing and, of course, all the technology
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: and new computers and stuff to make sure we've got
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: the electoral roll sitting there. We would like the Electoral
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Commission to take over this process. There would be savings there.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: That still doesn't happen. So we have to do it.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: ourselves and bring in all the, you know, enrollment and
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: all the advertising and everything, you know, unique to Auckland.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: So there could be savings if we did it sort
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: of nationally through the process and use the same system
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: as the government, but we don't.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: It's still 2% of rates, according to Wayne Brown. I mean,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: it is a lot of money. Is it not?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It's not quite 2%. So yesterday we put a ceiling,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: which I don't believe is possible, you know, an aim
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: of $ 20 million, which is about... You know, less than 1%. 1%
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: of rates is about $ 32 million. So it's about 1%. And,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: of course, we're only going to.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Spend $ 16.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: So half a percent.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I do wonder sometimes, Richard, with all of the advertising
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: that goes on, and it's happening with the central government elections.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Do we need to... I mean, people live in a democracy.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: You can vote or you cannot vote. Do we really
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: need to blast them with advertising all the time? Because
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: that's expensive.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we discussed that too. It's more... you know, where
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: your voting places are, how to vote, the fact it's on. Sadly,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, you know, don't necessarily go about
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: their lives that interested in politics as you and I are.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So it is important to advertise it and try and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: increase awareness of how you can find out about your
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: candidates and how you can actually vote. But yeah, we
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: did discuss how can you cut that back? How can
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: you make sure you've got a good level of, you know,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: awareness without, you know, blasting, as you say, on big
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: billboards around the city, etc. All right.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Richard Hills, Auckland Councillor.