The Wire with Caeden

Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith, recently announced a proposal to the Electoral Act and Constitution Act, removing the ability for an individual to enrol on election day.

Alongside this comes the proposal of halting the ability to enrol during the advanced voting period.

This move has received backlash - including from within the government. This morning, Attorney-General, Judith Collins KC, says the move goes against the Bill of Rights Act.

During the 2023 general election, over 450,000 enrolled in the 12-day period, with 110,000 enrolling on election day.

A significant proportion of those later enrolments consist of young people, and in areas of bigger Māori, Pacific, and Asian communities.

In light of this move, ACT Party Leader, David Seymour, says those who have left voting to the last minute are “drop-kicks”. As well as this, the ACT Party’s justice spokesperson, Todd Stephenson, added to this, saying “Democracy works best when voters are informed, engaged, and take the process seriously,” and that “It’s outrageous that someone completely disengaged and lazy can rock up to the voting booth, get registered there and then, and then vote to tax other people’s money away.”

For our weekly catchup with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel spoke to him about this move.

The United Kingdom is passing significant electoral reforms as part of an effort to “boost public trust in democracy.”

One of these reforms is to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections, aligning voting rights with Scotland and Wales which already have lowered their voting ages.

The reforms also include expanding acceptable voter IDs, a new automated system to register to vote, and a tightening of rules surrounding political donations. 

For International Desk, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Ralph Hall, advisor for the Electoral Reform Society, about these changes.

Last week, Education Minister, Erica Stanford, announced that the construction of open-plan classrooms would be halted.

The National Party had previously petitioned for the classroom design in 2011, with the idea of pushing for flexibility in the way students were taught, and to accommodate a shift in how technology is used in educational spaces.

However, the classroom design has received a mixture of responses. 

Some say the classroom design resulted in a noisy and distracting environment.  Despite this,  surveys by the Council for Educational Research showed that most teachers liked open-plan classrooms, adding that students benefitted from the classroom design.

News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to Blair Dravitski about the government’s move regarding open-plan classrooms.

Dravitski is a spokesperson on the topic for the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, and Tumuaki/Principal of Te Uru Tarata | Lemonwood Grove School in Rolleston.

The United Kingdom is passing significant electoral reforms as part of an effort to “boost public trust in democracy.”

One of these reforms is to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections, aligning voting rights with Scotland and Wales which already have lowered their voting ages.

The reforms also include expanding acceptable voter IDs, a new automated system to register to vote, and a tightening of rules surrounding political donations. 

For International Desk, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Ralph Hall, advisor for the Electoral Reform Society, about these changes.