As Parliament debates Paul Quinn’s ill-conceived private members bill on prisoner voting, the UK government is being forced to go in the other direction. The UK bans voting by all convicted prisoners. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the blanket ban on prisoner voting in place in the UK is discriminatory and breaches European human rights conventions.
Now its important to remember that in NZ the law as it stands says that if you are in prison for a conviction of more than three years you can not vote. So the arguments around murderers etc do not apply here. Paul Quinn’s bill would see that cover all prisoners in prison on the day of an election, including those on remand. (Actually the way it was re-drafted as Andrew Geddis has pointed out, the Bill actually gives the vote to anyone who is in prison before the Bill is enacted.)
The arguments being tossed around in the UK are of course similar tho those here. You can listen to a slightly odd interview on Morning Report (today, 8.48am) with the former prisoner who took the case to the European Court. Odd because he leaves the interview part way through to answer the door!
We will be back onto Paul Quinn’s Bill next Wednesday. Apart from the drafting stuff up, the bill is a waste of space. As said here before, It will do nothing to make our communities safer, it will not reduce our appalling imprisonment rate, it creates inequities between those on home detention and in prison, takes in people before they are convicted, and will do nothing to support rehabilitation or reintegration. People convicted of crimes of three years or less will be back in society, and we need to try to help them be part of society again, not exclude them from it.
Last word to Juliet Lyon from the Prison Reform Trust in the UK. She said ” people are sent to prison to lose their liberty not their identity.” That is a challenging notion for some people, but it is one that we need to remember if we want to start to reduce recidivism.
Grant – A prison term generally means that the crime committed is quite serious regardless of length. I fully support Paul Quinn’s Bill because the intent of prison is to take away the freedom of the prisoner. Not allowing them to vote is one of the consequences of paying their debt to society.
I am fascinated that you believe that just because a European Court of Human Rights found that prisoners should have the vote we should adopt this here. Hell – such an institution is almost bound to make a finding that way.
Do the crime – pay with time and loss of freedom and voting rights. Would Labour rescind the law and give back the prisoners their vote when your lot get elected in 2020?
They will get elected in 20/20 as a fourth term!
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I hope Labour dies in the ditch over letting axe murderers like John Hirst be able to vote in prison.
This si a prime example of why you don’t cede control of your country to unelected faceless bureaucrats.
I think you will find that public opinion is with the Government on this bill. But feel free to campaign on giving pedophiles, rapists, and murderers the vote.
Labour have no hope of being elected in 2011 for several reasons, but mainly because Labour have no game plan. Their policies are either a hang-over from the Clark years, and Goff – while he might inspire you – does not inspire the country. Like Grant in his post here demonstrates a failure to link and understand with the public who are generally in support of such measures to limit the freedom of the crimnal spending time in prison for offences against people and society.
Furthermore Grant fails to explain why prisoners should get the vote – the rationale about “inequity” and his social justice thinking show how out of touch Labour really is – especially at a time when the public want the government to continue to get tougher on crime.
With this lack of connection with the public (and add john key saving The Hobbit) and the polling which has had Labout at 30% for two years and there is no way Labour even have a show of coming close in 2011 (then rebuilding etc and the first possible chance may be 2017 – but probably 2020)
I have read the bill as introduced, and as amended by the Select Committee.
It clearly does not prohibit from enrolling to vote (or voting) those in prison on remand awaiting trial.
If anything, it shows how out of touch ‘little NZ’ers’ are compared to a vast chunk of the free, western world.
Of course, all very relevant information about scandanavian and dutch (for example) recidivism rates are lost amongst right wing blood letting and a clamour to take away the convicts tv.
As long as jail and sentences are seen as strictly punitive and not a great opportunity to help turn some of these unfortunate peoples lives around into decent, upstanding citizens, then the great shame that is NZ’s convict numbers will continue their upward trend, and our slippery slope to Americanisation of our society becomes much harder to climb up.
The thought that jailed drug dealers, violent thugs, thieving Finance Company owners, murderers etc are allowed to vote sends chills down my spine and it’s interesting you are happy to include these people in our voting process Grant.
Monty thinks he’s a gypsey, you and your crystal ball
11 will be Labour’s year 
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it would be nice to have the nat apologists actually arguing from a position of knowledge for once… the monty’s of this world don;t seem to have the slightest idea what people are getting locked up for nowadays…
assuming that to get imprisoned in this country , you need to have done something serious, is naive at best, and is part of the reason we now have thousands of prisoners here that should never have seen the inside of a jail cell….
an intellectually bankrupt policy pushed by a morally bankrupt philosophy is driving prison numbers to the point where we will soon be better known as a modern day “prison colony”…
of course we want to drive the message home….”you don’t have a place in this society if you fail to live the way we want you to”… only fair really… after all, how many of them went to the right schools for a start?
then why put them in jail at all bbfloyd ….”you don’t have a place in this society if you fail to live the way we want you to”.??
How can we expect prisoners to rejoin society, the fact is that most of them will, if we’ve removed a key way for them to participate? Further, their prison sentence is incarceration, not removing their right of suffrage. This is effectively adding an extra punishment that the judge, who works for us as the public, did not mete out.
But why do I get the feeling Monty, Jabba et al aren’t interested in rehabilitation…
Monty (et al) argue “Do the crime – pay with time and loss of freedom and voting rights.”
Obviously imprisonment is a punishment for criminal behaviour (as well as a means of protecting society from dangerous individuals). And that punishment involves the loss of a right – freedom of movement – plus attendant restrictions on rights like expression, assembly, etc that are necessary to enable the imprisonment regime to function. But punishing prisoners by taking away their vote is an entirely different matter: it removes a right that has nothing to do with imprisonment as a regime. It makes as much sense as saying “we will punish criminals by prohibiting them from praying or reading the bible” (thus taking away their freedom of religion), or “we will punish criminals by injecting them with trial drugs”" (thus taking away their right not to be experimented upon).
The point is, Grant doesn’t have to justify anything. You lot are the ones who want to remove a fundamental human right from thousands of New Zealand citizens. So it’s you who has to make the case for doing so – that’s the way rights work. After all … YOU don’t have to explain to anyone why you get to vote – you just get to because it’s your right to do so. Same for prisoners – they get to vote unless you can give a good reason why they shouldn’t. And “it’s to punish them” just isn’t a good reason, unless you can show why removing this right as a form of punishment is somehow OK in a way that is different from taking away rights to practice religion or be free from medical experimentation.
AG – I think Monty’s view of do the crime and going to jail = losing all rights, including the right to vote is very straight forward and self explanatory.
It is also one with which I agree 100%.
Of course I can understand Labours concern as it falls in the polls. Prisoners make up an increasing percentage of their core constituency.
Spud for Crimville!
So, pdm, just so we’re clear … imprisoned burglars can be tortured, experimented on, randomly executed, beaten if they try to pray to God, and generally treated in any way an individual prison officer wants? That’s what you mean by prisoners “losing all rights” … right? Or were you just being a little bit silly?
Alternatively, if you think prisoners still have the right not to be tortured even after being imprisoned, why exactly does their right to vote get removed? Remember – YOU have to do the explaining here, so don’t hide behind “it’s just punishment” … why THIS right removed?
it would also be interesting to know how many villains actually vote anyway (before being jailed).. we are lucky if 50% of all citizens vote anyway. I can’t imagine low life’s like Burton, Bell and gang members trotting down to the local hall to do their thing. You guys have yet again picked a poor issue to die in the ditch for.
I’m curious too jabba
@Whale etc. Please read the post and understand our law properly. The law as it stands prohibits anyone with a conviction of more than three years from voting. That includes all the rapists and murderers you are invoking. No one is proposing changing that, so please do not spin that position.
I am not dying in a ditch over this, and nor is Labour. We are raising issues about a bill that is petty and will not make our communities one bit safer.
@Grant…and what has Labour proposed…done…to make our communities safer? Oh that’s right nothing.
Plenty of people are proposing changing that. Most of the submissions to the select committee supported allowing all prisoners to vote. I believe Andrew supports that. And I support that.
Plus, if a big thing is to be made about accuracy, it would be nice if you didn’t include statements like “Paul Quinn’s bill would see that cover all prisoners in prison on the day of an election, including those on remand” and “it … takes in people before they are convicted” – because these things are demonstrably untrue.
Surely voting is a liberty, not an identity… so yet another UK ‘expert’ is wrong. Following that logic… prison = loss of liberty so it = loss of vote. Easy as ABC and ‘freedom to vote for criminals’ is not a vote winning slogan… but if you wanna go there…
I don’t care if crooks vote, as long as they’re paying their debt to society and whatnot. I don’t begrudge them a triyearly tick!
Pedrovsky,
If voting is just a “liberty”, then there would be no problem in (say) raising the voting age back up to 21 in the same way as is proposed for the supply of alcohol? After all, no-one has a “right” to be able to buy alcohol, just like no-one has a “right” to vote … right? Or, if a majority decided that used car salespersons should no longer have the “liberty” to vote, then that’s just a policy decision that they can take without any other considerations entering into the equation?
BTW – since when did the test of “the right thing to do” become “will it win votes”? Interesting that so many on this thread seem more concerned with the political optics of enfranchising prisoners rather than the fact that it is a question of fundamental individual rights. Just hope none of you are hypocritical enough to start squealing about “property rights! property rights!” when Labour starts nationalising the country’s farms …
Whale says “This si a prime example of why you don’t cede control of your country to unelected faceless bureaucrats” yet he supports John Key ‘ceding control of our country’ to wealthy Hollywood fatcats. This prisoner voting bill is pure dog whistle stuff, just like the state housing thing. Heavily polled wedge politics to divert attention from the ‘no plan Key’ government. It’s pure politics. I doubt whether Quinn could even spell ‘prisoner’ before some flunky in Key’s office told him to run with it.
Ha. Jennifer brings The Hobbit into the argument of Prisoner Voting… cue Labour red faces and lots of cringe.
harold,
Should hobbits be allowed to vote? What about orcs? Discuss …
Whale oil is probably right – “I think you will find that public opinion is with the Government on this bill. But feel free to campaign on giving pedophiles, rapists, and murderers the vote.” It would be all too easy to paint it this way, That does not mean its right.
I personally think all prisoners should be allowed to vote, oh an also get representation from their MP, as circumstances arise. As is pointed out it is a right (in our democracy) and it is up to others to prove removing this right serves the greater good. And why the fear, do you really think that one pedo with his vote can elect a pedo friendly MP?
Probably should do it as a private members bill rather than campaign on the issue. This way we could have a reasoned select committee hearing rather than town hall shout out.
All persons over 18 should have the right to vote, the idea of politicians so arbitrarily taking away the most fundamental right just shows how brazen Parliament has become (as if we needed any more reminding after CERRA)…
Quinn is a uselss MP, it boggles the mind someone like that can get into Parliament…
I’m pretty disgusted by this legislation