RAGLAN SEAT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25160, 16 April 1947, Page 8

RAGLAN SEAT

Further Evidence Heard

ELIGIBILITY OF VOTERS <P.A> HAMILTON. April 15. The contention Uiat although the home of two members of J Force who voted in Japan for Raglan lay outside the Raglan boundaries, tne Court was precluded from making any inquiry into the qualification to vote of a soldier voter, was made by Mr T. P. Cleary lor the respondent. Mr A. C. Baxter, when the Electoral Court today resumed the hearing of Mr Hallyburton Johnstone’s petition for the reversal of the result of th< Parliamentary election in Raglan.

Evidence as to the eligibility of 15 of the 167 voters challenged by the petitioner was heard by the Court today. In all instances but one the voters were challenged on the ground that they had not resided in the electorate for three months at the date of the election, and the complexities which the whole hearing involves were typified this afternoon as several witnesses told of their transient mode of living in the months preceding the election.

Mr Cleary was referring to the case of John Vivian Phillips and Laurence Joseph Phillips, and based his argument on the section of the Electoral Amendment Act, 1940. dealing with voting by soldiers. This section states, inter alia: “The validity of any election shall not be brought in question on the ground that any person who has voted under this Act was not entitled to vote.” Mr Cleary said the two young Phillips’s lived at Ten Foot road. Taupiri, which was some distance outside the Raglan boundaries, although the town of Taupiri was within Raglan. There was a time when part of Ten Foot road was in Raglan and part of it not. In 1943 there was a polling booth in Raglan known as Ten Root Road. Mr Cleary added that under the regulations governing soldier voting, there was nothing providing that the compilation of the J Force roll should be on the basis of declarations made by intending electors, as was the case with the civilian vote. J Force Roll The J Force roll was left to the electoral officer, who (1) used the Army records, which gave the soldiers’ home addresses; (2) checked their information where possible with the soldier, who was asked to give his address and his electorate, and (3) checked the information already gained against the departmental information as to the electoral boundaries. In spite of the care taken by the Electoral Department in compiling J Force roll it now appeared that a few soldiers had voted in the wrong electorates. That was not surprising w’hen it was remembered that there were 5000 members of J Force whom the electoral officer had to assign to an electorate under somewhat improvised conditions.

The Court was being asked to disfranchise these two soldiers. “When a soldier goes in to vote in some polling tooth in Japan, and the roll is produced. and he is shown as an elector of Raglan, he just would not know whether as a result of the boundary changes in June. 1946. he might be in Raglan or in Hauraki,” said Mr Cleary.

Counsel added that the amending Act of 1940 was intended to prevent subsequent questioning of votes taken overseas under military conditions. The two Phillips’s, said Mr Cleary were not the only two J Force soldiers on the Raglan roll whom it had been ascertained came from homes outside the boundaries. There were two other cases not on the petitioners list, “for reasons from which one can take an obvious inference.”

Mr Cleary said the petitioner, while objecting to the votes of the two soldiers whom he did not like, apoarently did not mind being elected by the votes of two soldiers whom he liked, but whose homes also lay outside Raglan.

The Chief Justice: Are you challenging any of these voters? Mr Cleary: No. Sir. We expected that the petitioner would challenge the two h° has and we intended to challenge the other two. but they were inadvertently left off our list

Matter of Legal Eligibility Mr W. J. Sim, for the petitioner, raid the question was not. as Mr Cleary had sought to make it, an emotional one of disfranchisement of soldiers. It was simply a matter of the legal eligibility of the votes of the two Phillips’s. Mr Sim also submitted that Section 6 of the Electoral Amendment Act. 1940, as quoted by Mr Cleary, could not be interpreted as completely smothering all inquiry into the conduct of soldiers’ voting overseas. That interpretation would be contrary to the spirit of the whole Act. which sought to preserve as far as possible the procedure of civilian elections in New Zealand.

Mr Cleary, replying to Mr Sim’s suggestion to the Court yesterday that the determination of the lineage of the voters challenged as Maoris should be referred to the Native Land Court, said it was at least doubtful if the Electoral Court had power to do so. Mr Clearly said that even if the power existed, the Electoral Court would hesitate before acceding to the request to refer to another Court a substantial part of the petition—a part upon which the fate of the petition might well rest. There was no precedent for the Electoral Court taking such action.

During further argument on the question. Mr Sim pointed out that on the issue of conscription, to which Maoris were not .subject, the task of determining the status of Maoris for the purpose of conscription was referred to the Native Land Court. This, he claimed, was adequate precedent. The Bench reserved decision on Mr Sim’s application. Evidence was called for the petitioner in support of the claim that a number ot voters were resident for less than three months in Raglan at the date of the election. Jock Douglas Kennedy, a farmer, told the Court that he had not resided in Raglan for three months when he signed a declaration of enrolment. Cross-examined by Mr R. Hardie Boys for the respondent. Kennedy admitted that in his declaration he affirmed that he had been three months in the electorate. What he told the Court to-day was true. His signed declaration had been untrue. Changes of Address Lola Florence Dally detailed her changes of address during 1946. and said she knew now that at the time of enrolling she had not been three months in Raglan. Cross-examined, she said that at the date of the election she had completed more than three months in Raglan. Gordon Wilfred Bethel, of Frankton, a labourer, brother of Mrs Dally, and, like her. one of the voters challenged by the petitioner, said that when he enrolled for Raglan on October 19. 1946. he believed he had been three months in that electorate. He had changed addresses within Frankton. but had believed that his earlier address was also in the Raglan electorate. Phyllis Eileen Dette. of Frankton, another voter challenged by the petitioner. said she and her husband and her father-in-law shifted from London street. Frankton, to Olwyn terrace. Frankton, on September 16. 1946. The former address was in the Hamilton electorate, the latter in Raglan. They had voted in Raglan. They had changed their address after the completion of a new house.

Corroborative evidence was called in this, as in the previous cases. The first cases dealt with after lunch ■were those of Leonard John Dynes, of Frankton, a farm hand, and his wife. Olga May Dvnes. Neither was available to give evidence this afternoon but Denis Camobell Clark, a farmer. of Komakorau. told the Court that Dvnes and his wife had been emnlnved bv him as a married couple until September 17. 1946 cn his prrnertv which was in the Piako electorate.

Cross-examined. Clark said 93 acres of his property lay in Raglan, but about 500 acres in Piako. Dynes would

have worked on both sections of the property. David Provo Millar, postmaster at Ngaruawahia and Registrar of Electors for the Raglan electorate gave evidence of an application for enrolment of Dynes and Mrs Dynes in October, 1946. for the Raglan electorate. To Mr Hardie Boys the witness adn.itted that these two electors had appeared on the supplementary roll for Raglan in February. 1946, when they were living at Horsham Downs. That they had disappeared from the main roll published later in the year was probably due to the purge of the roll. Betty Dinah Fisher told the Court that after living for some time in Epsom she accepted a job as housekeeper in Huntly on September 22. 1946. On October 21. 1946. she applied for registration in the Raslan electorate. Ten Years at Sea Unusual circumstances were revealed by the evidence of a former airman. Elmer Nevil McGill, who said he arrived back in New Zealand on October 22. 1946. with his wife. Irene McGill. and their two children. They spent a few days with his parents, at an address which he now knew to be in the Hauraki district. Then they spent a week with his brother in Frankton Junction, and later visited various relatives at different addresses. “At that time I could not say I had a home of my own at all.” said McGill. When, on October 4 last he began work, he was staying with a sister at her home in the Hamilton electorate, but later spent a week at Ngaruawahia, and exercised his vote there. Though he was seeking a home of his own he did not secure one until this month.

McGill said he left New Zealand in 1928 and scent 10 years at sea in the merchant service. By virtue of his occunation he claimed to have maintained his New Zealand domicile. Before going to sea he lived and worked at Mercer, in the Raelan electorate. In Aoril. 1939. he left the merchant service because he could see a war was coming, and volunteered for the Air Force, which he joined in 1940. serving until his discharge late in 1945.

McGill said he had not previously been on any electoral roll because he was a minor when he left New Zealand. but he had never voted in England because he had no permanent home there. McGill said he and his wife enrolled on October 2 last year. The statement on his wife’s declaration that she had resided in New Zealand for one year (which had not been struck out on the card) was incorrect, as was the declaration that she had been three months in the electorate. However, said McGill, before he and his w’ife enrolled he had telephoned Mr John Cameron Halliday, postmaster at Huntly. and returning officer for Raglan at the general election. Returning Officer’s Advice

“Mr Halliday told me that provided I gave the address of the house in which I was sleeping on the night I made the application, it would be sufficient.” said witness. ‘‘He said that if I voted in the district in which I worked before I went away it would be satisfactory.” McGill said he believed his wife was entitled, as a war bride, to some concession in regard to registration. Cross-examined by Mr Cleary, McGill said Mr Halliday had placed more emphasis on the fact that the witness, as a former serviceman was entitled under the Electoral Amendment Act. of 1940. to exercise his vote “regardless of declarations or otherwise.” Mr Cleary: But you did not know that an election petition would result in matters being put under a microscone.

McGill said he had understood from Mr Halliday that a serviceman’s wife was entitled to a concession excusing her from the normal residential qualification.

Another witness heard during the afternoon was Harold Fairhurst, whose postal vote had been challenged by the petitioner, and who was called before other voters in a similar category because he was leaving New Zealand to-morrow for England. Fairhurst said he voted in Australia before a justice of the peace with papers forwarded to him by his father. He had in 1935 to be enrolled as an elector.

The Court will resume at 10 a.m. tomorrow.