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

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

I move, That the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill be now read a third time. In considering what is actually quite a straightforward piece of legislation, which simply extends the expiry date of the current legislative framework from 31 December this year to 1 July 2009, it is very interesting to look at who so far has spoken against the bill. This bill relates exclusively to parliamentary matters. The Opposition spokesperson on such matters is the shadow Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee. Mr Brownlee is not known around the House, it is fair to say, for being someone who hides his light behind a bushel. He is not known for being a shy member of Parliament. Yet, despite this, he has not contributed at all to the debate on this bill and there has to be a reason for that.

The reason Gerry Brownlee has not spoken at all on the debate on this bill is that if he did speak, he would have to admit not only that the National Party secretly supports this bill but actually that it was that party’s own idea. To use Mr Brownlee’s actual words from question time less than 2 weeks ago: “… National was happy for a rollover, provided it would lead to a much shorter election period.” Without Mr Brownlee in the House, National’s charismatic team of Tony Ryall and Nick Smith have been trying to explain this away. They have come up with all sorts of creative explanations for what Mr Brownlee meant. But his comments make the matter quite clear: National supports a rollover to the current legislative framework. Of course it does; it was National’s suggestion. The simple reason that the National shadow Leader of the House has not spoken in this debate is that to do so would be to give away National’s dirty secret. Despite that party’s bluff and bluster, its members actually support this bill; they actually use it, and they actually need it.

The other reason we know that National does not really oppose this bill is that National members keep spending the money that the Parliamentary Service provides for communication services.

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

The only elucidation that came from that speech was the fact that we just heard 10 minutes of talk about the National Party and not one total minute about the content of this bill. This bill is all about the Labour Party being up its old tricks. New Zealanders know that the member who has just resumed his seat would not be in this Parliament if the Labour Party had not stolen $800,000 of taxpayers’ money and spent it on the pledge card. Those members stole $800,000 of taxpayers’ money. They had to pay it back. They had been told by the Chief Electoral Officer that if they spent the taxpayers’ money on the pledge card, they would have to include that money in their election expenses. The Labour Party members said they would include it in election expenses. In the end—and it is a summary of this bill—they did not include it in their expenses, and that is what this bill is all about.

This bill is all about allowing the Labour Party to repeat the pledge card rort of 2005. Hand in hand with the Electoral Finance Bill, this bill provides for the Labour Party to spend taxpayers’ money right up until election day with complete abandon and no regard whatsoever for the rules that have previously existed in Parliament. What the National Opposition has said is that we should have the rules that applied before the 2005 general election. Those rules were clear and understood. Those rules made it clear that if a party spent taxpayers’ money on electioneering, that was illegal and would have to be declared in its election expense, but the Labour Party ignored those rules completely. It was found to have stolen $800,000 of taxpayers’ money. It subsequently stole the 2005 election.

That has allowed Labour to get the red printing presses working overtime. We asked a number of questions in the House about this never-ending slew of material coming out of the Labour Party. We asked whether that would carry on in an election period. Here is what was amazing, and this is what this bill does. If these brochures I am holding up were put out by a Labour Party MP in the week of the election, they would not count as an election expense as a result of this bill. But wait for this—if a Labour Party candidate who is not a member of Parliament puts out these pamphlets, they are counted as an election expense. They are counted as an election expense if a Labour Party candidate who is not a member of Parliament puts them out. Dr Cullen would not answer this question, so let us hear an answer from the next speaker from the Labour Party. What is the principle that allows the Labour Party to say that because this brochure is put out by a member of Parliament, it is not counted as an election expense, but, if this brochure, together with a picture of a woman who purports to be the Prime Minister of New Zealand, is put out by a Labour Party candidate, then it is caught as an election expense? There is no way that that can be justified. It is Labour up to its old tricks again, rorting the system in favour of its own party.

This bill is not about what is being spent today. This bill is about what the Labour Party plans to spend in an election year, and about changing the electoral law to favour Labour. Everyone in New Zealand knows that the Electoral Finance Bill and this bill are all about advantaging Labour. Labour members will do anything, say anything, and spend anything to win the next election. What we know is that their union mates spent well over $1.5 million at the last election, by estimates, in support of the Labour Party. We know they will do everything possible to secure a victory at the next election.

Gerry Brownlee has been absolutely clear on this bill. We do not believe that this bill should be passed to allow this practice during an election period. We do not know why members of this House want to give existing parties and members of Parliament an electoral privilege that they are not prepared to give to anybody else. There is silence. Why would the Government want to give an electoral privilege only to members of Parliament and existing parties and not to other people who are standing in an election? Let us understand what that means. Labour is exempting only members of Parliament from the coverage of the Electoral Finance Bill.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

That was a tired old retread from the National Party, called Tony Ryall. He had the temerity to talk about people who have been here a long time, and are old in face. There is such a thing called a mirror that I might give him for Christmas, which is not too far away. The debate gets more and more curious, the more we listen to the National members on the other side of the Chamber. The problem, of course, is that they have completely misread and misrepresented the bill. This is a very, very simple little bill.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) Link to this

In 1988 a Labour member of Parliament was found guilty of committing a corrupt practice. We need to be quite plain today that this law makes what was corrupt now lawful. Let me recite the offence of that period, because it speaks volumes about the importance of this debate today. Reg Boorman, back in the time of the previous Labour Government, was trying to secure his re-election in the Wairarapa electorate, and he extensively used his parliamentary budget to win that election. The judge ruled that that was a corrupt practice—that he had breached the $20,000 limit in using taxpayers’ money. But this bill says that it is quite OK to use parliamentary money, and, more significantly, when tied up with the Electoral Finance Bill it makes such expenditure outside the $20,000 limit.

Did anybody in 1988—anybody in the media, or any member of the Labour Party—defend Reg Boorman and say that his rort was OK? No, they did not; they said that it was corrupt. And that corrupt practice prevented Reg Boorman from ever being able to stand for Parliament again. That has been the settled law through all the period since. Yet through this sneaky, dirty bill, and under a fragile majority in this House, we are today to make what was corrupt, right. But I say that it does not; it was corrupt then and it is corrupt today. I also say that this—

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I know that points of order must be raised at the time a matter to be raised occurs, but I did not want to interrupt the speaker, Nick Smith, who was on his feet. During the course of the member’s debate, Mr Woolerton continually interjected from an advantageous position, not from his normal seat. I just bring to your attention that that is certainly inappropriate in the context of the debate.

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

The Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill is a very simple bill. Basically, it reflects, in part, the Speaker’s directions. Several MPs—two from National, two from Labour, and, I think, one from every other party, with the exception of Progressive—have sat down on a regular basis for quite some time and debated and discussed the Speaker’s directions, and they have been amended accordingly. When they were recently signed off, the Auditor-General’s opinion was sought. I am not sure whether his opinion was formally sought or whether the Speaker spoke with him privately; I understand that a National member spoke with him privately. He agrees with the sign-off—

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

There is not really any alternative to this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill if Parliament is to operate properly, particularly in the 3 months leading up to polling day. Every party in this House will be in the same bind, which is why it is so disappointing that there is not unanimity in this House over this question. Instead, it has become a political football, even though we just do not have any alternative.

On the Parliamentary Service Commission all parties, including National, worked as best they could to try to sort the implications of the Auditor-General’s decision in relation to spending in the last 3 months before the last election. If we do not clarify this issue through this legislation, all we will be able to do in the last 3 months before an election is to sit in our offices—if we have offices in the cities outside of Parliament—and do individual casework, because it is difficult to sort this out in terms of the Auditor-General’s decision, without clear legislation or reference to the Speaker’s direction. At one end, as the legislation makes clear, we can cut out anything that calls for a vote for a person or a party, that calls for people to join a party, or that calls for money for that party. Those things are clearly ruled out in this legislation. We can clearly establish that if any advertising—particularly during that 3-month period leading up to the election that the Auditor-General is so worried about—calls for any of those four things, then that advertising is not parliamentary business and is not paid for out of a parliamentary budget.

At the other end of the spectrum—and some of the Auditor-General’s rulings are confusing, as the previous speaker, Peter Brown, indicated—if we are dealing purely with policy and members of Parliament explaining policy, then that should not be included in this ban. If it is included, we run the risk of virtually the whole of Parliament closing down and all the staff being sacked for the last 3 months before the general election.

In between those two poles of things calling for votes, members, or money and things dealing with policy there is a whole grey area in the middle of what we might call sloganeering. This includes using billboards for sloganeering that do not necessarily tell people to vote for the National Party, the Green Party, the Labour Party, or whatever, but that are sort of in a bit of a grey area in the middle. That still has to be sorted out—we still have some work to do. We have not had time to work it all through in this Parliament before establishing rules for the next election, so we had to roll things over and pass this bill.

As has come up in Parliament today, the Greens have an idea of people outside of Parliament, a body representing the citizenry—we call it a Citizens’ Assembly—somehow getting to grips with this issue, as well. When MPs approach this issue they do so with a certain bias that comes with being in an incumbent party, and a certain vested interest. It would be good to have that independent look at it. It is true, and it cannot be completely avoided, that incumbent parties do have a certain advantage in the election period. We have resources—communications resources, travel resources, office resources—based on incumbency, which gives us an advantage, perhaps, over parties that are not represented in Parliament and are trying to get into Parliament, or individuals who are trying to get into Parliament. That is a structural problem, so we have to take advice. I think the Citizens’ Assembly is a way to help to achieve that, and to redress some of that imbalance. I do not think it can ever be completely redressed, but I think we have to proceed in an objective way.

I think we should work together on this issue, so it is disappointing that all the parties are not working together on it and that some parties in this House today are using the issue as a political battering ram, when we are really all in the same boat in that respect. So, hopefully, we can all work together, support this bill, and try to fine-tune it over the next year or two. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. A week ago today the Māori Party’s view on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill was clearly set out by Dr Pita Sharples. As with anything we in the Māori Party are involved with, particularly in regard to issues in this House, we take this issue very seriously, as indeed we do the serious business of humour.

Last year we received a notice that we had committed a crime. The crime was advertising and publicity expenditure deemed outside appropriation for the 3 months prior to the general election of 17 September 2005, and here is the notice. As there is no word for “guilt” in te reo Māori, we could only acknowledge this and say: “Āe, i raro i ngā ture Pāremata, i hē mātou.”—that we were wrong. The Māori Party did not make up excuses. We did not seek legal advice on how to convince others that our wrong was in fact a right. “Fair enough”, we thought, and we fessed up and paid up. The crime was centred on an advertisement in a local paper, and it was for the amount of $53.66, including GST.

On 16 August 2006 we dipped into our Māori Party and staff kai kitty and duly paid in cash the amount of $53.70, for which we received a letter of receipt. [Interruption] Thank you. This letter of receipt, which was received on 17 August 2006, was headed “Receipt of illegal election advertising expenses”, and it stated: “we confirm receipt of funds representing the refund of illegal election expenditure as outlined in the Auditor general’s report. Please find attached your tax receipt for $53.70. This represents $47.73 plus GST. Regards …”, blah-blah-blah.

When we discussed this crime of expenditure outside of appropriations, we thought we might invoke what is normal for the Office of Treaty Settlements and this House in settling Treaty claims. We thought 2 percent of $53.70 would be a satisfactory amount in repaying the debt, which would bring the compensation payment to about $1.07. We chose not to do so as we were not prepared for the outcry that would surely, and rightly, have followed. We imagined the headlines of “Māori Party refuses to pay in full”. So we decided to pay the paltry sum of $53.70. We decided that it did not really warrant that sort of headline, so we paid in full. We congratulate the Hon Jim Anderton and his Progressive party on being the only political party in this House that did not act illegally. Most other parties have paid, but there are still one or two that to date have failed to put their hands in their pockets. The interest on their debts must be building, I am sure.

What has disappointed us most is that, first, some people still believe that Kevin Brady, the Auditor-General was wrong; and, secondly, even worse, this House has passed retrospective legislation to make legitimate that which was illegal. We sure know how to look after ourselves and we have a wonderful ability to rationalise our behaviour.

The question we in the Māori Party have is about the letter that refers to the refund of illegal election advertising expenses and whether the other parties have received a letter headed just like it. I wonder why it is that we in the Māori Party have not received a letter to say that all is now forgiven and that it has all been made legal and above board. As we have stated previously, although this bill is portrayed as merely being a rollover of existing legislation to 2009, and although pledges have been given that what happened in 2005 will not happen again, what the Māori Party knows only too well, as students of history and of power, is that the ends will always justify the means for those who crave power. History has shown that some people will do almost anything to retain their positions. The funny thing that I have found interesting in the debate thus far is that both major parties seem to blame each other, yet they both tested the rules to the limit and were found wanting.

Much reference has been made in this House to Nicky Hager’s book The Hollow Men as we have debated this bill and its mate the Electoral Finance Bill, which we will be debating before the House winds up for the year. Both of these bills have rightly been linked, but it is the book that I want to make reference to. The book alludes to the notion of what is referred to as “wedge politics”, the politics of division and fear; the politics whereby one group is cynically set up to be feared. It is a type of politics that has again been seen on our television screens and in our newspapers, and this time around it has also been directly experienced by the men, women, and children of Rūātoki and Tūhoe. It is a sort of politics that utilises a technique called dog whistling, which refers to the notion that certain messages will be transmitted and heard by a specific set of the audience. They are subliminal, racialising messages that politicians use and that are the last words to be remembered by the listener.

In the last few weeks we have been subjected to wedge politics and dog whistling straight out of The Hollow Men, which provided a damning account of gross manipulation of the public in the interests of power. By way of example, I ask members to think back, if they will, to the press conference of Monday morning, 15 October, when the nation was advised of terrorist training camps in Tūhoe, of Molotov cocktails, of napalm bombs, of military-style weapons, and of threats to the lives of the Rt Hon Helen Clark, the honourable John Key, and the President of the United States, George W Bush. When leave to lay charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 was denied, the Prime Minister went on the offensive, stating that those arrested were still facing very serious firearms charges. All of this happened while the issue was sub judice, and while much effort was being made in this House to ensure that members of the Māori Party did not break the sub judice laws in debates. It was then announced that the Hon Parekura Horomia was also a target of assassination.

Increasingly, more and more people are coming to believe that the police raids of recent weeks have been a cynically orchestrated campaign by and for the Labour Government, based on the very thing that drove Dr Brash, that was practised by Mr John Howard in Australia, and that has its origins in Karl Rove, the brain of Mr George Bush. The irony is that this divisive and destructive form of politics, when published by Nicky Hager, was the object of considerable criticism by the Rt Hon Prime Minister and her colleagues, who railed on Don Brash following his Ōrewa speech. But over these last 4 weeks the Prime Minister and her colleagues have been indulging in exactly the same behaviour, for exactly the same purposes, and, it would seem, for exactly the same kind of populist result, with Labour improving in the latest Fairfax media Nielsen poll this past weekend.

It would seem that racism, despite technically being an illegal practice, remains as something to successfully draw on when ratings are down. Don Brash did it to spectacular effect in the year before the last election. Could it be that the Labour Government is following suit? What sort of games will be played out before the next election? I have used this example to make the point that when it comes to power, any means will justify the ends. The financial cost of such behaviour will be borne by the people as we in this House set about appropriating money for parliamentary purposes. The cost of wedge politics is always paid by the innocent. This time it was paid by the people, young and old, of Rūātoki and Tūhoe and those who have dared to challenge it. The question is who will be next.

DIANNE YATES (Labour) Link to this

I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. I welcome this bill, and I am very, very pleased. I am a person who, in elections, is extremely careful. I have always been very careful to comply with the provision of the existing Act that sets out the four things that I as a member of this House have always been very careful about. We do not put out anything under parliamentary expenses, or using parliamentary money, that says “vote for me”, “vote for my party”, “give us money”, or “become a member of our party”. That was drummed into me, and if ever I have been unclear I have rung Parliamentary Service, or, in the case of an election, the Chief Electoral Office. This bill spells the rules out even more clearly than does the existing Act. The rules are absolutely clear and there is no room for interpretation. I have a great deal of sympathy for what Peter Brown said earlier in this debate, and most of us in this House have been extremely careful to abide by these rules.

I have in front of me a piece of information sent out by the National Party in 2002, and I understand that Bill English authorised it.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this

It is a shame that this debate has come to such a level of deliberate ignorance. When I listen to the Government speakers they do not explain, because they cannot bear to, the context in which this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill arises. I want to make a couple of particular points about that.

The first is that we do not need this bill. Parliament has wasted its time for weeks on this bill and its predecessor legislation. We have this bill before us only because of the petulance of Dr Cullen, who can never be wrong. Dr Cullen and Helen Clark got caught out by the Auditor-General for breaking the rules. They broke all the rules, particularly by breaching the electoral expense cap, but the police could not be bothered to investigate—in fact, they could not even find the right section of the Act to apply. Dr Cullen and Helen Clark got caught out, and then they said: “Well, the Auditor-General, who caught us out, is just trying to smear the Labour Party.”, as if that is all he ever did. The Auditor-General, they think, wakes up in the morning thinking about one thing—the Labour Party. Actually, he does not. He wakes up in the morning thinking about good and proper process, and how to enforce the rules that he has laid out.

That is why we have this bill, because Labour said: “If the Auditor-General says we’re wrong, he must be wrong. And if he says we’re wrong, then everyone must be wrong, and that is why we need validating legislation.” So they passed validating legislation to validate what we always knew were the rules, which we had all kept—generally—except the Labour Party. This bill is just an extension of it. Helen Clark could not stand being wrong, because she believes that the Labour Party is always right; that whenever it comes to anything to do with politics, the centre of the world is the Labour Party. Our constitutional conventions mean nothing; our electoral law means nothing; and our Auditor-General is on some cheap political smear, just because Labour got caught out.

This bill is a waste of time. It is unnecessary; it is before the House because Michael Cullen and Helen Clark cannot be wrong. That is why National has opposed the bill. It is nothing to do with what is required to run fair and free elections. At least the Government has admitted that the bill just re-enacts the rules, as we already had them. That is the first point.

The second point is that the Labour Party cannot understand the significance for this legislation of changing the regulated period. The laws around electoral finance are always going to have to be a balance between politicians, who are dead keen to get their message out, the public, who must have a role in influencing an election, the careful use of public money—all these things have to be balanced alongside common-sense intuitions about the public’s interest in elections and when it really matters. For decades New Zealand has had a law that balanced those out, with pretty minor changes, supported by all the parties. The core of it was this: for a 3-month period before the election everything could be counted as an electoral expense, including that which was spent by MPs.

What effect did that have on MPs? Well, we never quite knew when “3 months before the election” was, but it did mean we had to be very careful to meet not only the parliamentary hurdle for the kind of material the member opposite is displaying but the hurdle put down by the Electoral Act. That was a tougher test. So things that we did in March or April, we did not do in September or October because that was close to the election, that was when the definition of “election expenses” counted, and if we broke those rules, we were in serious trouble. For 30 years—maybe longer, I do not know—that has worked.

What has changed now is that although the definition for what MPs can spend remains unchanged from what it was traditionally, there is now no constraint from the Electoral Act on what MPs do. So we have the ridiculous situation that Tony Ryall pointed out where a document published by a Labour MP that sets out Labour’s policy will be legal, during the regulated period—that is, all next year—but the same document published by a Labour candidate will be illegal. That means one law for the candidate and one law for the politicians. That is what is at the heart of the dispute about this bill. Parliament is passing this definition of what MPs can spend money on, and alongside the Electoral Finance Bill it means that the politicians will have more money, fewer rules, and more say but the general public will have a lot less money, much tighter rules, and much less say in the election. That is what is going to happen.

The Labour Party, of course, wants one law for Labour and one rule for everybody else. Let us see just how different these definitions are, so that people can understand how this whole collection of legislation—the Electoral Finance Bill and this appropriation bill—is all about Labour. Helen Clark cannot stand being wrong, so she has fixed that. She is trying to pass this appropriation bill. It makes no practical difference to anything; it just proves that it was the Auditor-General who was wrong, not Helen Clark. She did not like people criticising the pledge card, so she is passing this bill to make the card legal; she has fixed that. She does not like the idea that people might raise money to attack the Labour Party, so she is passing the Electoral Finance Bill; she has fixed that. She does not like the idea that MPs’ spending might be tested by the same law that every other citizen of New Zealand is subject to. She does not like that, so she has fixed that. She has passed the legislation to make sure that MPs’ spending is subject just to our own rules—not to the rules that the rest of the country will have to adhere to.

Let us look at these definitions, so that people understand the legislation. The definition in the appropriation bill is the one we are used to for MPs. It is pretty clear and we all know what it is. We can put out almost anything, as long as it does not seek support for the election of a particular person or party, does not ask for money—we all know that; we cannot send out a parliamentary letter asking for a subscription to a party—and does not encourage someone to become a member. We cannot send out a membership recruitment letter on parliamentary money. That is how politicians see it. They see the rule as being that we can do almost everything except those things.

The Electoral Finance Bill, which is the rule for everybody else, is absolutely different. It basically states that we cannot do anything much, in case—can members feel the difference—it might encourage a voter to vote or not vote for a party or candidate. It also states—and this is the new bit, which the Minister of Justice does not know about because she has not read the bill; what happened to the competent Minister of everything—that we cannot do anything that encourages a voter to vote for a party or a type of party that is indicated by views, positions, or policies. That is almost anything. I say to the Government that if it believes that that should be the rule for the public, then it should put it in this bill. The Government should put it in the appropriation bill. Why did the Government not put in the appropriation bill that an MP cannot send out anything on public money if it will encourage a voter to vote by reference to views, positions, or policies? We know why. It is because that would rule out most of what MPs put out. That is why it is not there.

Parliament will pass this legislation with a low level for MPs and real problems for the public. That shows us just how Labour thinks it is the centre of the world. During the last couple of elections it introduced the “waka jumping” bill. What has happened to that innovative constitutional arrangement? It has gone because it could not stand the scrutiny. But it served Helen Clark’s needs for one election. When it really mattered it worked. Labour does not care about waka jumping now. It is the same with this bill. It is designed to serve one need, which is to get Labour re-elected. Everyone else can be damned.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

I rise to support the third reading of the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. I rise without any of the noise and angst of some of the previous speakers and, in my final months in this House, also without the personalisation of attack, which is something I will not miss when I leave this House.

This is a very simple bill. The current legislative framework governing spending by parliamentary parties expires on 31 December this year. This bill extends that expiry date until 1 July 2009. Extending the current framework will ensure certainty and transparency for all parties. If the legislation lapses, then we will return to the uncertain, unclear situation that followed the report of the Controller and Auditor-General last year. This legislation relates to the legislative framework in which rules relating to parliamentary spending are set. The legislation does not set out all the rules of parliamentary spending. The details are set out in the determinations and directions issued by the Speaker. New determinations and directions were issued only last month. They received praise even from the Office of the Auditor-General. That is the clarity we are seeking as we move forward.

The proximity of the election made it impossible to reach agreement among parties on an enduring legislative framework. That is sad. For that very reason, it is essential that we extend the current interim framework until 2009, when the tempers will be down and people are able to work together. This will allow parties to work together outside the heat of an election campaign and come up with some enduring rules that we can all agree on.

This legislation is about providing clear, transparent, and fair rules so that all MPs can do their job—which continues right up to the election—and nothing else. I have just heard Bill English get up and say that we do not need this legislation. Colin Espiner wrote: “The second thing to point out is that Labour has no choice but to bring the companion piece of legislation”—the bill we have in front of us—“before Parliament. That is because to allow it to lapse would basically mean that all political parties would once again be breaking the law in the way they use parliamentary funding.”

Like my colleague Dianne Yates, I have tried very hard to keep to those rules. In the 2005 election I used to run an advertisement in the local Rialto Cinema, which stated my name and phone number and invited people to come to me to tackle Government departments and roads—and God knows what else. I rang Parliamentary Service and asked whether I could keep doing that. It said that of course I could because I was not asking for money or votes but was doing my services as an MP, which I continued to do. I ran that advertisement right the way up to the election. I therefore support very strongly this legislation, which allows us to continue doing our work. For somebody like me, who is not seeking re-election but who wants to make his or her services available right to the bitter end in order to help constituents, this bill makes the rules very clear. Thank you.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a short call in support of the earlier speaker—my colleague who is soon to leave the House—Marian Hobbs on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. This bill will pass. This bill has been subject to a great deal of haranguing and misinformation. This bill is a very simple bill. All it does is ensure that established practices, which unfortunately have not been allowed to proceed as a consequence of politicking from the other side of the House, can continue under the cloak of legitimacy given by this House. It is disappointing that many of the points made in relation to this bill have become embroiled in debates and misunderstandings pertaining to electoral finance matters. Of course, the Electoral Finance Bill, which is soon to reach us, will no doubt pass, as well.

A few things need to be pointed out, in relation to this appropriation bill, so that those New Zealanders who have not already been put to sleep by contributions from the other side of the House are possessed of the necessary facts. Firstly, all parties in the House were consulted on this bill. Secondly, all parties were prepared to work together in a genuine attempt to reach consensus. However, it is very saddening—but accurate—to say that our friends in the National Party on the other side of the House decided to play a game of pettifogging and turn this into a petulant set of outbursts designed to score political points rather than to establish and continue a very well-tried system of funding the genuine activities of MPs.

It needs to be pointed out that all legitimate contributions that were designed to get us over a point of consensus were tried. In early September this year, the Government’s representatives were informed by the National Party’s negotiators that rather than supporting a substantive amendment, the National Party would be prepared to support only an extension of the current rules. They also admitted that these rules were working well. Mr Brownlee—my fellow traveller to the United States—said also that National was happy for a rollover, provided it would lead to a much shorter election period. So it remains to be said that the Opposition is purely opportunistic. That is to be expected in adversarial politics; however, it is not a decision that has been arrived at by Dr Smith and others on the basis of some lofty political principle but rather on trivial, miscalculated, tactical, point-scoring exercises in the House. That is to be expected.

It is important that we bear in mind that the larger debate looms in front of us as to what is to pass through this House as a reasonable attempt to ensure that money spent in the pursuit of electoral victory is premised on the principles of transparency, and that people who do contribute are required to do so in such a way that they do not undermine the political process that we have every election, as we saw in the last election. It is very difficult for the public, actually, to understand what is really happening in this short, relatively inconsequential amendment represented in this bill, which will pass. It is unfortunate that it has become embroiled in another set of issues. But members can rest assured; we look forward to that debate, as well.

This bill is regularising what both parties could have committed to had it not been for the main Opposition party seeing this as being a petty opportunity to score political points. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) Link to this

The gentleman who spoke previously talked about a history lesson; I would like to speak to this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill’s history by going back to 30 August 2005. There is a note of a telephone conversation that David Henry, the then Chief Electoral Officer, had with the New Zealand Labour Party general secretary, Mike Smith, where he raised with him the matter of a piece of propaganda that was being distributed to letterboxes nationwide. He asked whether it was being paid for by the Parliamentary Service, and he made a note that he said whoever paid for this piece of propaganda did not matter and that it did not need to call specifically for a party vote.

I then go on to a letter dated 2 September, in which the Chief Electoral Officer, David Henry, referred Mike Smith, the general secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party, to that same piece of advertising. The section was quoted from the Electoral Act, and the Labour Party was told that the advertising, in the view of the Chief Electoral Officer, did breach that section of the Electoral Act. He stated that in his view the statements made in the advertising encouraged or persuaded, or appeared to encourage or persuade, voters to vote for the Labour Party. The advertising was therefore subject to the provisions of section 221. At that stage in history anyone would ask whether the Labour Party stopped issuing electioneering propaganda, and the answer is here, in history, in writing: no; in fact, it did not. Quite to the contrary, Labour put out another piece of electioneering that quite clearly breached that same section of the Electoral Act, after Labour had had it in writing from the Chief Electoral Officer that that was the case.

Finally in this correspondence we see the Labour Party accepting that it was breaking the law, and saying that the party would pay for it out of its funds and declare it as part of its electioneering campaign. But we found out that after the election Labour members changed their minds and were happy to stand, having broken the electoral law.

That is the rort that has us on the path of this legislation in front of the House tonight, because Labour members had to then blackguard the Auditor-General’s decisions and make their illegal behaviour legal. They did that by introducing validating legislation. They validated, in retrospect, the illegal activity they had knowingly taken part in, despite being warned in writing by the Chief Electoral Officer. Most New Zealanders, after having broken the law, after having been told they had broken the law, and after having been caught, would change their behaviour. Most New Zealanders, if they were warned that they would break the law if they continued their behaviour, would change their behaviour, but not this Government. This Government passes legislation to make its illegal activity legal. This was activity that those members were told in writing was illegal, and for which, by all that is right and just, they should have been prosecuted for doing because that contributed to their stealing the election.

Those members changed the law to make their behaviour legal, but that legislation is due to run out at the end of this year, 31 December. So we would have thought that Labour, after having come down this road, would now make every effort to reach a cross-party agreement. In fact, around the table at the Parliamentary Service Commission back in May of this year, the previous Minister of Justice started talking about this validation legislation running out at the end of the year. He talked about it in June of this year and again in July of this year. Did he do anything about it? No, he did not. He just counted on the fact that the Labour Government would push through whatever it wanted, when it wanted, and in the way it wanted, because it could buy the support of the minor parties and get the majority it needed in the House. The Government had done it before with the validating legislation, so why would it not be able to do it again? And at the end of September the first discussions took place about the Government maybe having cross-party agreement.

But by that stage Labour had introduced the Electoral Finance Bill, which is Draconian legislation designed to shut down free speech in this country. But the National Party said that we had to look at both pieces of legislation together because they were both part of the same construction. They are both part of the same equation, and we do have to look at them together. We were quite happy to discuss the two of them together, but in order to do that we said that if Labour wanted to roll over that validating legislation for a couple of months, then that was OK and we would support it, but on the proviso that we were looking at the whole scenario—the two pieces of legislation going hand in hand. They are the facts, that is the history, and this is all quite clearly supported in writing.

So here we are tonight, discussing a bill that sets up one set of regulations for members of Parliament and for political parties in Parliament that have been bought by the generous finance in this bill before the House tonight in order to get votes, and we are discussing another set of rules in the Electoral Finance Bill, which will come before the House on Thursday, for everyone else. That is why we are talking about corruption. This is a Government, led by Labour, designing law that suits it and nobody else.

I will talk about a couple of pieces of propaganda I have here, which were put out by Labour and which are quite OK this year. There is absolutely no problem with these pamphlets this year; the distribution time is not in the regulated period and under the old law would have been quite fine until 3 months before the election. No one could have queried that the distribution of these pamphlets did not fit the regulations. That is fine, but this Government has said that it is OK for parliamentarians to put such pamphlets out in the regulated period next year. If I am an MP, then I can put them out. But if I am a candidate, then, under the regulations being passed by this Labour Government, doing that will be electioneering and it will have to count in my candidate’s $20,000. That is not fair, that is not right, and that is not just.

It is a very simple thing to understand. I suggest that those members opposite go away, put aside their research notes, read the bills, and then try telling National members that they are wrong, because members opposite will find that National members are not wrong; they are right. These pamphlets, if put out by a Labour Party candidate in the regulated period next year, will be counted as electioneering. But if they are put out by an MP, they will not be so counted. MPs will be able to do that without any problem, at all. If Labour members would listen and read the bill, then they would understand that.

This bill in front of the House tonight is a travesty of democracy. This bill is appalling legislation. Its support has been bought by the minor parties for what is essentially State funding in drag. On behalf of the National Party, I say that we will not support this legislation. It is appalling legislation and Labour members should hang their heads in shame.