SSDP Aotearoa New Zealand Submission on the Electoral Amendment Bill (2025)

Students for Sensible Drug Policy New Zealand (SSDP) is a student and youth-focused group with a vision of ‘An Aotearoa free from drug-related harm’. We have chapters in Ōtautahi / Christchurch and Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. SSDP supports the right of all New Zealanders to vote and to be involved in democracy. This bill would take this right away from a portion of New Zealanders and would disproportionately affect the rights of people who use drugs and people who are most harmed by the current system of drug prohibition. SSDP is opposed to the removal of rights of people who use drugs and other criminalised populations. For these reasons, SSDP is strongly opposed to this bill.

We are concerned about multiple proposed changes that the Electoral Amendment Bill  seeks to make to the Electoral Act 1993. This includes the proposed ban on all prisoner voting with no distinction made between people who are incarcerated the week of elections or those serving very long term sentences. The rationale for this proposal is to add additional punishment of people experiencing incarceration on top of their legally determined sentence, in breach of section 25(g) of the New Zealand Bill of RIghts Act, and to remove the rights of people who have broken laws to have a say in changing them. SSDP believes this rationale is extremely problematic as it goes against Aotearoa New Zealand’s human rights obligations, undermines prisoner rehabilitation, and could lead to discrimination and unequal outcomes for Māori (who make up more than half of our country’s prison population). In addition, people experiencing incarceration face a disproportionate level of harm from the policy of consecutive governments, particularly from drug prohibition, and thus, have the most to gain from being involved in the democratic process. We cannot ever hope to reduce crime or improve the social issues faced by this already highly marginalised group by excluding them from involvement in the democratic process and removing their ability to change this system. By excluding those who are most harmed, and at most odds, with current government policy, we entrench the status quo and diminish any chance at progressive politics.

People who use drugs are a criminalised group which leads to disenfranchisement, marginalisation, and excessive drug policy harm that is in addition to, and far outweighs, the harm of drugs themselves. This bill would further increase these harms, make it more difficult for people who use drugs, and other people experiencing incarceration to be a part of New Zealand society, and thus, hamper efforts to rehabilitation.

The prisoner voting ban policy has been implemented previously and the arguments against its inception then, still exist today. The Attorney General’s section 7 report highlighted that this Bill is inconsistent with Section 12(a) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which outlines that all citizens over the age of 18 have the right to vote. No justification for this inconsistency under section 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act was identified. On top of this more recent advice, a previous section 7 report on similar legislation ((Disqualification of

Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill 2010) had the same findings, as did the ruling of the High Court in Taylor v Attorney-General. The recent section 7 report is damning in the numerous evidence it highlights for this bill breaching multiple rights of New Zealanders and SSDP strongly urges all MPs to read this report thoroughly before voting against this bill.