Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) Link to this

I move, That the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill be now read a second time. As I said last Thursday, this is actually a very simple bill. The current legislative framework governing spending by parliamentary parties expires on 31 December this year, and this bill extends that expiry date until 30 June 2009. The extension is required because we are unable to reach agreement across parties on a new permanent regime.

It has been interesting to hear some of the arguments put forward by National to oppose this bill—arguments that are unusually weak, even for National. The reality, of course, is that this is one of those bills that National really hopes will pass, even though it will vote against it. The last thing that National really wants to happen is to have no funding for the activities it has been engaged in over the last year or so to be available in 2008. Mr Heatley is smiling wisely, as he knows the truth of that particular reason.

We know for two reasons what National’s real hopes are. The first way we know that National does not really oppose the bill is that the central proposal to extend the expiry date of the current legislation came from National itself. Mr Brownlee actually confirmed this in the House a week ago when he said National was happy for a rollover provided it would lead to a much shorter election period. In other words, as long as we were prepared to allow lots and lots of National Party money to be spent in the last few months before the election—the vast treasure chest that National has available, particularly the money it has available from Macquarie Bank—to purchase public-private partnerships post the election it would be quite happy to have a rollover of the current legislation in relation to parliamentary spending. Perhaps this explains why National sent into the House Bill English, Nick Smith, and Anne Tolley to oppose the bill—because Mr Brownlee could not possibly speak against it, because he knew that National’s position was a quite different one. Perhaps that is why Mr Brownlee has been unable to speak on this issue any more, because it might reveal more of the strategy in that regard.

So we know that National does not really oppose this bill, as the bill does nothing more than implement its own proposal. The second reason, and the much better reason, why we know that National really does not oppose this bill is that it keeps spending the money that comes from Parliamentary Service for communications. National has thrown around some absolutely outrageous claims around the use of parliamentary resources. It has accused other parties of corruption. It has likened New Zealand to some of the worst non-democratic regimes in history. Compared with us, Pakistan is a beacon of light in a democratic world, or at least one would sometimes think that from the speeches we have heard. Despite all of this, National keeps spending parliamentary resources on the very things it says they should not be able to be spent upon.

What is lacking here is some consistency. If it is corrupt to produce material such as John Key’s “10 Budget Pledges”, published in May this year, then where are the calls from Bill English and Gerry Brownlee for John Key to resign? If it is corrupt to produce material such as John Key’s “Join the Conversation” postcards, published this year, then where are the calls from Mr English and Mr Brownlee for John Key to resign? If it is corrupt to produce material such as John Key’s letter to a Wellington community group sent out in June this year, then where are the calls from Bill English and Gerry Brownlee for John Key to resign? We all know that Bill English would really like John Key to resign, but it is simply not credible for National to try to claim some high moral ground while still collecting the lion’s share of parliamentary funding—by far the largest amount goes to National—and spending it on exactly the things it claims it should not be spent upon.

After all, the person who sits opposite, just over there, squawking during every question time, muttering his little “Oh!”s, yelling out, and going completely berserk almost every day, sent out this year on parliamentary letterhead a publication headed Nick Smith MP for Nelson. This sometime deputy leader of the National Party sent out this publication, with the parliamentary crest, outlining why New Zealand needs a new Government. The publication was paid for by the taxpayers, paid for out of Parliamentary Service, paid for out of the communications vote, on Parliamentary Service letterhead, and was from Nick Smith. It is all about tax and bureaucracy, home affordability, Crown environment, and migration.

Then there was what I thought was an extremely bold, bold question from Dr Smith: “Want to meet your MP?”. One wonders what answer came back from the masses in Nelson at that point. Probably not a single person turned up at the Nelson market from 9 a.m. to 12 noon outside Rebel Sport and the pet shop. Probably not a single person went to the Nelson AMP show from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and one doubts whether anyone went to the Nelson electorate office, because the risk was that person might have met Dr Nick Smith spending the money from Parliamentary Service.

Nick Smith comes into this House and sits over there saying it is corrupt to spend money from Parliamentary Service on communications out to the electorate. There is a word for that and it is one of those many, many words in Parliament’s dictionary of words that we cannot use, which is almost bigger in number than the amount of words we can use in Parliament. This is one of those words that describes this particular letter from Dr Nick Smith, as it does, of course, most things that came out from Mr Key.

On the topic of lack of credibility, if there is any person who lacks credibility on this issue, it is Mr English. Mr English does the deepest moral outrage of anybody on the National Party front bench. But it was Mr English, when leader of the National Party, who put out into the public arena in the 2002 election campaign a pledge advertisement carrying the parliamentary crest, paid for out of taxpayers’ money, and on the parliamentary communications vote. It was a pledge advertisement in the newspapers—National Party’s pledge. Do those words “pledge” and “parliamentary spending” ring a bell? The bit that is different is the National Party. That spending was all right at that point, was it not? After all, National was desperately trying to get above 20 percent of the vote, so presumably it was OK. Was it corrupt for Mr English to spend that money in 2002? Will he pay back the taxpayer for that spending in 2002? Or is it the case that previous convictions should not be taken into account in that particular regard? The fact is that National does not follow the same standards as what it says it does in this respect.

This bill grows out of genuine multiparty engagement. I put on record my appreciation for the good faith shown during those negotiations by all parties other than National, which at the end of the day made it quite clear that it wanted to link this to the Electoral Finance Bill, that it could not give away the political advantage, and that it could not actually front up to what it was doing, but that it hopes like hell that the majority holds together to pass this bill so that it can carry on doing next year what it has been doing this year, the year before, the year before that, and every other year that I can remember during my time in this House.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this

It was not until the end of the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech that it became clear that he is absolutely aware of why the National Party opposes the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill, and it is because of its link with the Electoral Finance Bill. At the beginning of his speech Dr Cullen revealed the Government’s true agenda with this legislation and the Electoral Finance Bill. It is all about the suppression of Opposition parties’ ability to talk to other voters in election year. If one couples this bill with the Electoral Finance Bill, then one has a marriage of an onslaught on the taxpayers’ purse to advantage the Labour Party in the run-up to the next election.

One would not have thought from Dr Cullen’s speech that this is the party that stole $800,000 of taxpayers’ money at the last election, a party that knowingly breached the spending limits in the electoral system, and a party that was warned by the Chief Electoral Officer that its pledge card, paid for by the New Zealand taxpayer, would have to be included in election spending. It did not do this, because it knew that it would then have to report a breach of the spending limit. This party is standing on its high horse in other places in this building and saying that parties should not be allowed to spend more than the spending cap in an election period, and that is the party that spent $800,000 more than it was allowed to spend! It stole the 2005 general election, because if it had not spent that $800,000 it would not be the Government today.

So let us not have the Minister of Finance pro tempore coming forward and saying that the National Party is not serious about this bill. He knows that the exact reason why we oppose this legislation is that it is in a marriage of political convenience with the Electoral Finance Bill in order to continue to rort the New Zealand taxpayer and to give the New Zealand Labour Party an advantage at the next election.

Here is how the bill works. It expressly provides for members of Parliament to undertake their efforts and responsibilities as members of Parliament. That is fine. It puts in place rules that are a checklist, a checklist that would allow, for example, a party to distribute a pledge card to all households in New Zealand with that party’s commitments on it. That is allowed under this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. Also allowed under this legislation is a poster that might say that the Labour Party will do x, y, and z. That is allowed under this legislation, and a full page ad stating that only the Labour Party cares for the environment, and paid for by Parliamentary Service, will be allowed under this bill. “So what?”, members may say. “Why is that a problem?” Well, maybe that would not be a problem if it were not done during the 3-month election period. As the Auditor-General and Chief Electoral Officer said, those sorts of adverts during the 3-month election period are electioneering and they must be included in a party’s spending limit.

What happened? The Labour Party members stole $800,000. They did not include that figure in their spending return, and that is appalling. What did the police do? They investigated the case on the last possible day they could possibly investigate it. What that tells us is that this bill allows the pledge card to go ahead, and what makes it worse is that if we marry this bill with the Electoral Finance Bill, we see that those bills provide a blanket exemption for any spending by members of Parliament in their responsibilities as members of Parliament, and that spending does not have to be included as an election expense. It does not have to be included as an election expense. So it just allows Labour to do the pledge card rort again. I hope the Labour Party does the pledge card again, because it will remind New Zealanders of how Labour stole the 2005 election and how it spent $800,000 of taxpayers’ money that it was not allowed to spend.

What is worse, the Chief Electoral Officer told the Labour Party that the pledge card should be incorporated in Labour’s election return, and it did not do it. Labour members did not do it, because they knew it would push them over the limit and it would be an illegal offence. But did the Labour Party members listen to the Chief Electoral Officer? No. They continued to spend taxpayers’ money in excess of the legal limit for any party to spend during an election. If the National Party had had the opportunity to spend $3.2 million on the election as the Labour Party did, the election result would have been very different, and those sad members opposite would not have had the opportunity to inflict themselves on the people of New Zealand for another 3 years. That is why we oppose this legislation.

This legislation has to be seen in concert with the Electoral Finance Bill, because the Electoral Finance Bill will legalise Labour’s pledge card for the 2008 general election. It will legalise Labour putting billboards up and down the country saying Labour will do this and Labour will do that.

Hon DARREN HUGHES (Deputy Leader of the House) Link to this

The mock outrage from the National Opposition continues unabated today, just as it did on Thursday. After listening to Tony Ryall’s speech just now, one would not think he was a front-bench member of the 2002 Bill English leadership team, which funded most of National’s election campaign that year off the back of Parliamentary Service funding because it could not get anybody to donate money to National while Bill English was the leader. One would not think that Tony Ryall was a member of the National Party leadership team then. If we listened to him speak just now, we would not think he had ever heard of an organisation called the Exclusive Brethren Church, which cosied up to the National Party during the last election campaign and was involved in a complicated routine of siphoning money to the National Party at electorate level right across the country, peddling its mistruths about Labour and the Greens. If we listened to Tony Ryall just now, we would not think he was a front-bench member of a party that failed to recognise the GST component of its advertising at the last election and therefore gained an unfair advantage in the amount of television and radio advertising it was entitled to at that election.

So let us not get the moral outrage from the National Party. Let us debate the facts about what this bill tries to do for members of Parliament and for our parliamentary democracy. We have to try to engage in a rational attempt to get a proper definition around the issue of what the interim funding measure means. As the Leader of the House has already said to Parliament this afternoon, we know that the National Party does not really oppose extending that definition. We know that, basically, for two reasons. The first is that Gerry Brownlee has already told us, by mistake during question time about a week ago, that the National Party wants to have a roll over of the interim definition of funding for parliamentary purposes. He confirmed that to us. The second reason we know that the National Party is in support of this bill and wants to see it passed is that National members keep spending the money they are allocated as members of Parliament to communicate to their constituents and to the country.

If the National members really thought that spending Parliamentary Service money on communicating with the public was so morally reprehensible—as the outraged Mr Ryall has just shown us, and as Mr English and Dr Smith showed us last week—they would stop spending it right now. If it is so terrible, so Third World, so corrupt, and such a rort, as Dr Smith keeps telling us as he calls out, much to his colleagues’ embarrassment, every question time, they would not be spending the money. They would stop now. There would be no more advertising. The Southland Times would not carry advertisements that tell people where to go to see Eric Roy MP at a constituency clinic, because that would be so corrupt he would put his hand into his own pocket to pay for it himself and would not want to have Parliamentary Service money anywhere around him. But I bet that if I ask the Parliamentary Library for a copy of next week’s ,there will be a beautiful smiling photo of Mr Roy with the parliamentary crest right by him.

If the National members were so opposed to this measure, they would stop publishing Mr Key’s “10 Budget Pledges”. Of course, members can make a Budget pledge only if they think they will win an election, and they can win an election only if they get votes. So we could argue that by putting those kinds of publications out, members are trying solicit votes, which is outside the rules that Labour and the other parties in Parliament are proposing in this debate. The National members certainly would not be sending out taxpayer-funded pamphlets that invite people to “Join the conversation with John Key.”, which is very like what Hillary Clinton would do in that regard.

We know that National is not opposing this legislation. We have seen that through Nick Smith’s own leaflet that he has put around the Nelson constituency, promoting himself quite heavily. The most revealing part is probably the fact that with every single person whom Nick Smith helps—not being satisfied with the great joys of helping people as the local member of Parliament and of having that as the reward—Nick Smith obviously cannot wait for that person to go and write down how grateful he or she is to him, so he can go and put it out in a pamphlet. That is an ironic kind of twist on public service. There are about 10 quotes in the pamphlet about how wonderful Nick Smith is, then on the back there is the very interesting phrase “Why New Zealand needs a new Government.” I would have thought that that phrase is directly related to a general election, and I would have thought that it directly tries to encourage people to cast their vote in a certain way in order to ensure that that could happen.

Then there is the website address—www.nick4nelson.co.nz. What could “nick4nelson” mean? It presumably asks people to vote for Nick Smith to be their member of Parliament in that area.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) Link to this

The Minister is not going to get mock moral outrage from me. The Minister does not want high moral outrage; he wants a rational debate, although I did not see much evidence of his participating in that this afternoon. I will give him a rational debate this afternoon. I am going quietly to analyse the facts. This is not a debate about the Exclusive Brethren. It is not a debate about National’s award-winning billboards, which we paid for by ourselves. It is all about Labour’s laying the foundations for another display of pledge card rorts in 2008.

Let us recap; let us look at the history of the pledge card in 2005. It was a disgraceful episode in New Zealand’s democracy. Labour—knowing what the rules were and knowing what the spirit of the rules was—shamelessly ignored the rules, prepared the pledge card with the airbrushed photo of the Prime Minister, and distributed it throughout New Zealand. It did so at the expense of the taxpayer. The Chief Electoral Officer warned the Labour Party. He wrote to the Labour Party and to Mike Smith, its general secretary, and told them about the risks of incurring that kind of expense. Mr Smith then wrote back to the Chief Electoral Officer before the 2005 election—I think it was in early September—and made it quite clear that Labour would include the expenditure of the pledge card in its return of expenses. But then, surprisingly, after the election—like Paul on the road to Damascus—Mr Smith had some kind of sudden conversion. Essentially, he wrote to the Chief Electoral Officer, withdrew his offer, and told the Chief Electoral Officer to go to see a taxidermist.

A complaint was made to the police, which the police failed to investigate. The Auditor-General was then brought in on the act. He wrote a very comprehensive report that made it quite clear that that kind of expenditure was unauthorised and that, in fact, the Labour Party had overspent by $800,000. Then last year there was rushed legislation to validate that spending to get this Government off the hook. Admittedly, the Government paid back the $800,000, but one thing it did not pay was interest.

It is a great shame that the Supplementary Order Paper I put forward to the predecessor of this legislation last year did not pass. It is very interesting that if someone is pursued by the Inland Revenue Department, for example, for taxes that have not been paid on time, then a miscreant will have to pay large sums of default interest. But this lousy Labour Party had to pay back only the principal, because it ensured that there was no legislation to deal with the payment of interest.

The Minister of Statistics wants a rational debate about the facts. Those are the facts that need to be addressed—that with this legislation we have a continuation of this disgraceful assault on New Zealand’s democracy. This is not the fruit of genuine cross-party arrangements. This Government does not know what genuine cross-party arrangements are. This Government consults only to the extent that it is necessary to secure its majority, and then it steamrollers legislation through, including legislation of a quasi-constitutional character like this legislation. The phrase “genuine cross-party negotiations” contains two key descriptors. First, the consultation must be genuine, not sham. Secondly, there has to be proper cross-party negotiation. But we in the National Party find that this Government freezes us out of every kind of discussion, as long as the Government has its majority.

This bill is not the product of genuine cross-party negotiation. It is being steamrollered through by a Government that has cobbled together the smallest possible majority, and it is being cobbled together to ensure that it is passed into law to allow a 2008 version of the pledge card to go ahead. This bill permits unlimited advertising by members of Parliament, but what is worse than last election year, it goes hand in hand with the Electoral Finance Bill, which will impose huge constraints on the free speech of the public and will constrain what political parties can do in the context of a campaign. This is legislation that promotes incumbency, that protects a Government and discriminates against Opposition parties and those who seek to become involved in the political process outside this place. It has to be seen in the context of the Electoral Finance Bill, and to do otherwise is to turn a Nelsonian eye to reality.

They are the facts. What I will do now is to look closely at the phrase “funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes”, as Mr Hughes asked me to, because the rules are not clear. The rules are very general and very elastic. It can be seen when one looks at clause 3(1)(a), for example, which states that parliamentary funding may be used for “the performance by a member of Parliament of his or her role and functions as a member of Parliament:”. No one is denying that from time to time, as Mr Hughes said, a diligent member of Parliament will want to communicate with his or her constituents, or with people within a district if it is a list MP, over issues of the moment—for example, to send out a survey to inquire about the response of the public to a particular issue, of whatever kind. That is genuine communication and that is necessary communication if a member of Parliament is to do his or her job properly. But it is not necessary communication to publish a pledge card using the parliamentary crest. That is not a fundamental task necessary for the performance by a member of Parliament of his or her role and functions as a member of Parliament. That is stretching the rules, that is driving a horse and buggy through the rules, and it is unacceptable and inappropriate.

The same thing applies when one looks at clause 3(1)(b): “the performance by a recognised party … of its roles and functions as a recognised party:”. People who are genuine and honest know what those rules are and will act according to them, but the language that has been used is so vague and elastic that it allows other parties that perhaps do not like living according to the rules to get away with it. Members should look at clause 3(2), which is extremely unsatisfactory. It defines “electioneering” as “any communication that explicitly” does one or more of four things. But the phrase really should be “directly or indirectly” seeks, for example, support for the election of a particular person, persons, or party. The word “explicitly” enables members of Parliament who do not want to obey rules to avoid the rules, and it enables parties that do not want to face up to their responsibilities to avoid the rules. So this legislation is wholly unsatisfactory.

I would say in closing that this a particularly bad way to legislate, because it seeks to extend the lifetime of legislation that is due to expire on 31 December 2007. I have a feeling we were told last year that there would be an opportunity this year to have a comprehensive review of the law, but that has not happened. In the usual slapdash and rushed way, we have another bill with a sunset clause seeking expiry on 30 June 2009. This is most unfortunate. National cannot and will not support this shabby legislation.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this

I have to say that that was an interesting speech, but it almost totally contravenes what National members on the Parliamentary Service Commission have said in terms of this sort of ruling. Some 5 years ago, just after the 2002 election, members of the Parliamentary Service Commission sat down together. There were two National members on the commission: Gerry Brownlee was one and John Carter was another, if I recall correctly.

We discussed the Speaker’s directions as they appertained to MPs going into the 3-month period before an election, which is what is currently in the legislation. It was agreed that electioneering embraced members going out and asking for a vote, embraced members going out and asking for financial assistance, and embraced members going out and seeking support in many ways. That is reflected in this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill.

It was also agreed that any literature that the member or the party put out that was paid for by the member, by the party from the party leader’s fund, or by the individual’s fund would have displayed on the back, or somewhere prominent, the parliamentary crest, in order to show that it had been paid for by taxpayers’ money. It would also include contact numbers.

The Auditor-General came up with a report in June 2005, in which he intimated that there could be some concerns about the methodology, if you like, that had been adopted. Obviously, I cannot read out the whole report, but he made some relevant points. One of them was when he spoke about MMP: “The nature of MMP politics also makes it essential for parties to differentiate themselves from each other, both in Parliament and when in government, and visibly to take ownership of particular policies and initiatives.” One could conclude from that statement that it is OK for MPs to go out and tell the public at large what they stand for.

The Auditor-General went on to state in another part of the report: “The autonomy of Ministers and MPs in their relationship with the public must be preserved. Ministers and MPs are elected officers, not employees. They have a right to freely interact with the public as their elected representatives, without restriction.” Those are the Auditor-General’s words in his June report.

Further, he went on to state, under the heading “Complementary rules and standards should apply”: “Each set of rules and standards should”—and this is one of the bullet points—“identify clear and workable procedures for the approval of publicity before publication takes place;”. There were a number of other points, but the points I have read out are very, very relevant.

When it came to the 2005 election, New Zealand First went along to the Parliamentary Service and asked for approval to publish the document Your choice for change. The document outlines what the Auditor-General in his June report said was allowed. That is all it does. It does not ask for a vote, it does not ask for members, and it does not ask for money. It has the crest on it and it has the contact numbers. Not only did we go to the Parliamentary Service but we went to the Chief Electoral Officer, and he approved the document.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Every year on 9 August the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is celebrated. It is a day that provides the world with an opportunity to focus on indigenous peoples—to address the issues of exclusion, discrimination, poverty, and marginalisation that are still very much part of the daily reality for many indigenous peoples.

This year 9 August was marked by another significant event, referred to as “credit-crunch Thursday”, which is the day the world banking community took fright. It was a day when, simply, all international banks, on the brink of a complete financial meltdown, stopped lending to each other. So here we are, just 3 months later, throwing caution to the wind and allowing the liberal use of taxpayer funds for political party spending. The Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill extends the interim, and narrow, definition of electioneering in order to validate the range of spending allowed under the auspices of taxpayer funding.

So where does 9 August fit in the greater scale of things? How does the credit crisis, the disparate economic outlook of Māori New Zealanders, feature within the argument over election funding? The answer is nowhere. And this is one of the most serious issues we have regarding the funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes. The payment of funding entitlements does not occur in a vacuum, so when we look at the context of estimated spending for this appropriation bill, we cannot ignore other realities, such as the fact that bankruptcy levels in New Zealand are now at an all-time record high. New Zealand households now owe some $78 billion—a $5 billion increase in this financial year.

Having established that this appropriation bill has nothing to do with financial reality, it only remains to be seen what the funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes really stand for. In this bill, the provision will apply to the close of 30 June 2009 for funding to be used by the performance of individual members of Parliament or political parties in meeting their roles and functions. We in the Māori Party have supported the pursuit of tikanga, such as accountability, transparency, and integrity, in association with the funding of political parties and election campaigns. But this is where the challenge of this legislation is so apparent, because of course its origins are anything but in line with tikanga. Its origins are based firmly and squarely in legislation that invalidated the invalid spending for purposes deemed improper by the Auditor-General after the 2005 elections. We know that the confidence and trust of te iwi Māori is essential towards enhancing democratic political participation.

The question we must ask is: when we look at this bill, what is the record of honesty that we know of the parties sponsoring this bill? Can we really trust any party that can support retrospective legislation to condone past illegalities? Can we trust any party that can call for strict rules of sub judice to be applied in debates in this Chamber but then go outside and suddenly, it is open season on matters before the court? Integrity and honesty are hardly the image, however, that we associate with parties that have variously interpreted the rules regarding the broadcasting spend or parliamentary funding to serve their own needs. There is no way to entertain corruption, illegalities, invalid spending, or abuse of power in the running of democracy.

And so we look towards this bill, as with any bill, to ascertain how it can guarantee the active exercise of responsibility. If one was to believe yesterday’s editorial on the front page of the New Zealand Herald, that active exercise of responsibility being debated in this bill is being potentially undermined by backroom deals being struck by Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First in the secret election spending laws being dreamt up outside of this Chamber. So while all other political parties are being lulled into a false sense of innocence that basically this bill is nothing more than a temporary stop-gap to continue interim definitions of funding for parliamentary purposes, some other players are merrily reforming electoral spending laws. What presumably is going on behind closed doors is laws to favour the political parties that are putting the bill together. And this, hilariously, is supposed to be a bill about how to enhance participation in the democratic process!

In the interest of supporting transparency, good governance, and ethical practices in our Parliament, we in the Māori Party want to share four important concepts that could be helpful in the legislative process. The concepts that we believe complement transparency are: rangatiratanga, which is chieftainship or leadership; kaitiakitanga, which is sustainability and protection of taonga; kotahitanga, which is unity of purpose; and manaakitanga, which is mana enhancement. We believe that these four concepts are central to the pursuit of a healthy political democracy.

The bill before the House today is merely an exercise to adjust the time frame that was due to expire on 31 December 2007. But, although this bill is just to stretch out the time boundaries, at the same time the Electoral Finance Bill is spinning along regardless. The question that we are, of course, curious to know the answer to is whether the Justice and Electoral Committee will keep to the original time frame anticipated for the Electoral Finance Bill of reporting back by 25 January 2008, or whether, miraculously, there will suddenly be sufficient agreement behind closed doors for the process to be sped up before Parliament breaks up this year.

We return again to the central concept of democracy and enhanced political participation. Remembering that this appropriation bill is based on the premise set up by the Auditor-General, Kevin Brady, that there needed to be fairness in matters of parliamentary expenditure, we cannot help but be influenced by the power of messages put forward from groups, such as the Law Society or the Human Rights Commission, regarding electoral law reform. The Law Society stated in its submission on the Electoral Finance Bill that it would “make participation in our parliamentary democracy an arduous and perhaps even legally dangerous undertaking for ordinary New Zealanders,”. The Human Rights Commission has famously described the restrictions on election activity as a “dramatic assault” on the fundamental rights “which undermines the legitimacy of political processes”.

Just as the Government could carelessly, callously disregard the priorities and world views of indigenous peoples by voting against the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it would appear that it is also seemingly oblivious to the fact that democracy is generally considered to be about sanctioning a system of decision-making processes that promote free and equal rights of participation—not three parties in; all other parties out.

It is perhaps useful to conclude with the wisdom of Aristotle, who said: “If liberty and quality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the Government to the utmost.” It is because these factors are not found on this legislation that the Māori Party has no alternative but to vote in protest against the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this

Parliament, the media, and the public are caught up in a phoney debate about democracy and fairness. The media and some MPs have exploited the public’s general hatred of MPs to argue that any money we spend at all doing our jobs as MPs is electioneering and should not be allowed. I know I have been told that I should not fly to Wellington and that I should catch the train—never mind that it would take 24 hours to get here and 24 hours to get home again. There are members of the public who think that every penny that an MP spends is money ill spent, and, therefore, they are hostile whenever the subject comes up. At the same time, we have an argument that is raging publicly about so-called freedom of speech under the electoral finance legislation. Certainly, when we look at the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill as introduced, we see that there is some reason for concern around that.

But what is really behind this phoney debate is the old and important issue of whether democracy is about one person, one vote or one dollar, one vote. We know that unlimited money to spend on election campaigns tends to win those campaigns. It is not that people are too stupid to see through saturation advertising; it is more that saturation crowds out those messages that are infrequent because they are not so well funded. In particular, attack campaigns can sow doubt in voters’ minds, which those who are being attacked have no money or time to counter. This is why we have laws putting a cap on election expenditure. These were circumvented last election by wealthy third parties campaigning on behalf of political parties, but that expenditure was not caught in the spending cap rules. That is why we now have the Electoral Finance Bill, which this debate is not about but which is part of the overall picture that I am describing.

That is the context in which we now have a debate about how parliamentary parties should spend their parliamentary funding, which is voted to them to enable them to do their parliamentary work but is not supposed to be used for electioneering. This bill rolls over the current legal definitions of what is parliamentary work and what is electioneering. The nub of the issue is what it is that MPs are elected to Parliament to do, and what is legitimate use of publicity and advertising to do that job.

In my view, we are elected to represent a policy programme on behalf of our constituents—a set of ideas that the public has voted for. We are elected to communicate with the public—with those who put us here to represent them. We are elected to have the policy debate in here, and to explain and argue those policies, both in here and out amongst the public. The Auditor-General agreed when he reviewed our spending after the last election that it was part of our parliamentary purpose to communicate policies to the public, yet he knocked out virtually every action we had taken to do that during the campaign period. It left us with massive uncertainty.

The Auditor-General’s rulings were hugely inconsistent. He would say on the one hand that the principle of doing something was fine. Then, on the other hand, he would look at what we had done, which came within those rules, and say no, it was not fine. I spent hours and days studying what he did and I could not follow it. I gather that just about everybody else was in the same situation. It was a Kafkaesque kind of situation, where we were being prosecuted under rules that had been determined arbitrarily, that were internally inconsistent, and where we did not even know the rules under which we were being prosecuted. So when the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Act was passed last year there was a sigh of relief that it provided some clarity and certainty. It was not so much whether the rules it came up with were right but rather that they gave us some certainty.

I find, as the person responsible for the leader’s budget for the Greens, that it is a huge burden to determine what I can and cannot legitimately spend money on if there are no rules or if the rules keep changing on me. So that legislation was a relief. It gave us the certainty to do our jobs. It defines electioneering, and it defines parliamentary purposes. In our view, the definitions of parliamentary purposes are a bit too wide. Electioneering is defined only as a person or party asking people for their votes or their money. There are lots of ways of electioneering that do not actually use those words. In my view, we needed to sit down with all parties to draw up some slightly tighter rules that we could have now been legislating into force. But the National Party would not play.

Short of having agreement across this House by all parties as to how to clarify the rules further, Parliament is now left with no option but to continue the current rules. They are not, in my view, entirely satisfactory but we cannot go back to the situation we had last time where there was huge inconsistency between what we could use our staff, our telephones, and our travel for, and what we could use our advertising budget for, and where only part of the leader’s budget was ever looked at by the Auditor-General—where the rules were completely and totally unclear. I believe we have no option but to extend the existing legislation through the next election period, so we know where we stand.

The one thing that can clarify the situation further for us is the use of Speakers’ rulings. In fact, the legislation makes it clear that Speakers’ rulings have, effectively, the force of law as a result of this legislation. We have asked the Speaker for clarification about websites, for example, that are shared between the party and the parliamentary office. We look forward to her bringing down some rulings on that. There are other issues too. We do take some comfort in the fact that it is possible now to submit advertising to the Speaker’s office and get a ruling, before we publish it, as to whether it is deemed to be within the rules. I would very much encourage the Speaker to bring down further rulings at the request of any party that wants greater clarification so that we know where we stand and any loopholes remaining in the law as it is written now are closed.

This legislation will get us through the next election, despite the clamour from some members of the House who nevertheless are quite happy to spend their parliamentary appropriations fully when they get them. But I do not think this will get us through in the long term. What we need is a thorough scrutiny of both the Electoral Finance Act, as it will be, and the Parliamentary Service rules by the people of New Zealand. It is not good enough to send this off to some specially chosen commission that will come up with the answers it is asked to come up with. We need a process that is trusted by the people of New Zealand because it is representative of the people of New Zealand.

The Greens are strongly promoting and recommending the process that I have seen used in Canada recently, called a Citizens Assembly, where a person is chosen at random, off the electoral roll, from each electorate to form the assembly. That would give us some 69 people. We screen it for people who are not of sound mind, or a few things like that. We bring members of the assembly together regularly over a period of several months, and have staff to do investigations, and they study the questions that are put in front of them. They come up, in the end, with recommendations to Parliament. The Ontario Citizens Assembly did a brilliant job of looking at the electoral system. It was led by a judge who chaired the process. It was fair and democratic. The assembly did its homework really thoroughly, and came up with a considered view of how democracy should proceed. I strongly recommend that process to this House.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this

The ACT party rises reluctantly to support this bill. We are reluctant to support it because I do not think anyone in this House finds the present rules satisfactory. We did not vote for this bill originally because our view then was that it was an attempt to legalise spending retrospectively that the Auditor-General had found to be outside the rules. It is now the case that every party has committed to paying back that money. Certainly New Zealand First will pay it back, once it has collected all the interest that it can gather.

The difficulty I have with this bill is that we have not yet fixed the rules. I do not know how any party in this House can, in good conscience, vote against it. The situation is that the Auditor-General said that the rules we were operating under were not good enough. In fact, I think he said that he would freeze our funding if we did not work to fix up the rules. I have to congratulate Speaker Margaret Wilson, who has been working assiduously with the Parliamentary Service Commission to try to come up with a decent set of rules that are workable and that get the big tick from the Auditor-General. I have to say that there have been some parties, and I am thinking of National in particular, that want to keep the rules as they were in 2005. That has been the big constraint in getting a decent set of rules through with the Speaker.

If we do not accept that there was a problem, and the problem is that the Auditor-General said there was a problem, then it is very hard to set about fixing it. The National Party’s position has been “Oh, we just want to stay with the rules as they were.” Well, sorry, the Auditor-General’s report ruled that out of court.

We then had a situation where we were to come up with new legislation. It was actually the National Party that suggested it be rolled over. I can remember National members approaching me and asking me whether I would be comfortable with this bill, which I originally opposed, being rolled over. The idea was that they would roll it over until we had seen what the Electoral Finance Bill would do. My position then was that I was trying to get a decent set of rules for everyone. We failed to do that. So our situation is that unless we pass this bill we cannot be funded into next year unless we stick with the old rules. If we stick with the old rules, there is no doubt about it that the Auditor-General will ping us and probably freeze our funding. I do not know how we are supposed to operate as MPs. It seems to me that it is unfortunate, because it would be nice to have had a proper set of rules, ideally with bulk funding, proper transparency, and some accountability, with clear rules about what to do in the election period. But sadly that was not the case.

I ask those parties that are voting against this bill to reflect on this: what rules are going to apply to their spending from now until next year’s election? It seems to me that if they vote against this bill, they are saying they are happy to operate under the rules that the Auditor-General slammed. It is not only that the Auditor-General slammed the rules but also that those of us who followed the rules, who got it all certified and ticked off that we were within the rules, got pinged. It seems to me that the ACT party reluctantly has no option but to support this bill. It is a second-best option. We have worked assiduously with the other parties to try to come up with a decent set of rules. Unfortunately, agreement has not been achieved around this Parliament. I make the point that it was the National Party that suggested we roll this bill over, until the Electoral Finance Bill is passed. It was the National Party’s suggestion, so I do not want to hear any criticism from those members. Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker.