‘Frustrations’ for voters overseas

Press, 4 December 1981, Page 3

‘Frustrations’ for voters overseas

PA Wellington The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was strongly criticised yesterday by the leader of the Labour Party (Mr Rowling) for its voting arrangements for people living outside New Zealand. Mr Rowling described as "dim-witted" some of the advice given to people who had tried to enrol and to cast their vote at High Commissions, embassies, and consulates. In Sydney — where only 1564 votes were cast out of a total New Zealand population of at least 100.000 — Mr Rowling said voters were told they could vote only on the Friday before the election and that they were likely to have to wait in a long queue. "Some of those people who gave this kind of advice are going to have some explaining to do," Mr Rowling told a post-caucus press conference. He said the Labour Party had been approached direct by people who had been frustrated in trying to vote. He had been told that in London the booth ran out of enrolment forms and stopped people from voting because of this, ignoring the fact that forms could be duplicated. One woman living in Paris who had been correctly enrolled before she left New Zealand had been told by the embassy there that it was unable to find her name on the electoral roll, and that she could not vote. “Maybe the problem is in the briefing. I do not know, but I aim to find out,” Mr Rowling said. Fewer New Zealanders overseas voted in last Saturday's General Election than in the 1978 poll. Figures released by the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Peter Horne, yesterday show that 13.346 votes were cast outside New Zealand, more

than 1000 less than the 1978 total of 14,466. In Sydney, fewer people voted than in the last election, in spite of the highly publicised visit there by Mr Rowling. Many people tried to vote at the New Zealand consulate there on Saturday, after special voting had closed. The votes cast at the bigger overseas posts, with the 1978 figure bracketed,' were: London, 4154 (5578); Sydney, 1564 (1680); Melbourne, 879 (1104); Brisbane, 851 (516); Singapore. 964 (925). The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) later admitted that in his experience “it is a very hit-and-miss business, this business of overseas postal votes.” The Minister of Foreign Affairs would eventually get a full report but Mr Muldoon said the diplomatic posts “try to make it as easy as possible" for New Zealanders overseas to vote. An NZPA staff correspondent, Tom Bridgman, reports that New Zealand consular officials in Sydney have strongly denied telling voters that they could vote only on the Friday before the election. “There was no way we told them that,” said a consular officer in Sydney last evening. “We made a point of telling people who inquired that under New Zealand law they had to vote by 7 p.m. in Sydney on the Friday because there is often a late rush." said the officer. "In 1978 there was a huge last-minute rush and we had to close the lifts at the ground floor so that we could process the votes of all those in by 7 p.m.” The officer said that an extra staff member had been employed at least a month before the election to help with enrolling and giving information on voting.