GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
This is the part of the proceedings when the bill is discussed part by part. Really, I am imploring you, Mr Chairman, to ensure that the part by part debate is a genuine clause by clause analysis of this bill. I say at the outset that the National Party has put a considerable amount of time into the preparation of amendments, which will be tabled first thing in the morning, for consideration by the Committee. We thought we might supply those amendments ahead of time in order that the Labour Party might be able to consider them, but then we thought that if the Labour Party was not considerate enough to give us the bill ahead of time, then why would we be particularly concerned about doing that? Having said that, I point out that a large bundle of papers has just been put on the Table. They are some of the amendments that will be delivered to the Table as we proceed through this bill over the next short while, because this bill is one that needs a great deal of work.
The first part of that work must surely start in the purposes clause. It is interesting to read that the purposes of the bill include doing everything that the Labour Party has been saying we should do, such as validate the appropriation and follow the instructions of the Auditor-General, except that the Labour Party, with one hand tied behind its back, has limped into the House today having to follow this particular course of action. We know that the purpose of the bill is to validate illegal activity done by the Government. The purpose of this bill is, on the one hand, to make legitimate the extreme over-expenditure of the Labour Party last year, and, on the other hand, to make legitimate the dipping into of the taxpayers’ fund—the Parliamentary Service fund—to fund the pledge card and, it would seem, a great deal of advertising in the electorates of sitting Labour members. So we must amend the purposes to reflect just that.
This is the “Get the Government Supporters Out of Trouble Bill”. This is the bill that New Zealand First members sit smugly over there happily awaiting, because they know that their leader, Winston Peters—who is running up and down the country saying: “I’m going to court to sort this matter out.”—is going to shove up his hand at the third reading to vote for the bill, knowing that he then will not have to go anywhere near a court because of the actions he took having been made legal. I am not sure exactly how the Committee will end up wording the purposes clause to this extent, but the National Party most certainly will be giving people an opportunity to amend it.
The next bit in this part of the bill is clause 4, “Interpretation”, containing the interpretations. Here we can see some extremely creative work from the Government. A number of things are described, one of them being “expenditure”. “Expenditure” in this bill is very, very tightly defined. The clause states that expenditure “(a) includes the spending of public money and the incurring of any expense or cost; but (b) excludes any expenses incurred on or after the day on which this Act comes into force.”
At some stage the Minister of Finance will explain to us what that means. He laughs, but, you see, we are aware of the Tamihere warning, which is that Michael Cullen, with just the slight shift of a word here and there, is able to pull the wool over the eyes of the New Zealand people. Everyone would have to agree now that that is absolutely right, because that is what Labour members did at the time of the last election. It is what they did in 2002. It is what they did in 1999. The former Labour Party president who ran those campaigns stood up here today and said: “It wasn’t a problem in the past, so why should it be a problem now?”. Well, in case that new member did not notice, this bill actually goes way back. It recognises that there was a problem way back in those years—in fact, all the way back some 17 years, from the time that Sir Geoffrey Palmer first introduced the legislation to put the Parliamentary Service into effect.
I know that a large number of National Party members want to have a say on this bill. They have been denied a say on the Parliamentary Service Commission so far, therefore they have every right to speak.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) Link to this
First of all, I will deal with that extraordinary assertion that Mr Brownlee—or maybe it is not an extraordinary assertion in his case—does not understand what is meant by: “includes the spending of public money … but (b) excludes any expenses incurred on or after the day on which this Act comes into force.” That means we are validating expenditure up to the point the Act comes into force. I will come to the reason in a moment. Moving forward, we come to Part 2, which is why Part 2 comes straight after that line of the bill. Part 2 provides definitions for expenditure moving forward. So there is no need to provide validation for that.
Why is that so? I invite the member to turn to paragraph 32 of the Speaker’s report: “While the 2006 report deals only with advertising expenditure, it is clear that the principles articulated by the Auditor-General will have general application to all expenditure under Vote Parliamentary Service appropriations at all times and not only in relation to the three months prior to a general election.” Then there are examples of where various activities occur that are funded from Vote Parliamentary Service. They are standard activities, such as research staff proving background information for a speech about one’s own party’s achievements in some kind of public meeting—the kind that Mr Key frequently holds in his electorate to a dazzled audience of three or four. Those are matters that, under the current Auditor-General’s rulings, would potentially be tainted by electioneering and, therefore, unlawful.
The reason clause 3 states “May”—and I notice a rather cute amendment to something else—is that we simply do not know, going back to 1989-90, what might or might not be included within that. The Auditor-General’s report gives us no clear guidance around that point at all. All we know is that in some vague way, expenditure used for a range of purposes, such as public meetings, newsletters to one’s electorate, or flying off to sign up a member for the National Party, could be tainted by electioneering.
What is more, there is the former Solicitor-General’s legal opinion about the entire expenditure in that area. For example, did any of the members opposite at any point talk on their cellphones to members of the Exclusive Brethren about the funding the Exclusive Brethren was engaged in, or, for example, the polling they were carrying out in electorates? [Interruption] Oh, I am supposed to believe that Mr Foss—oh, he was not an MP at the time, but that none of those members who were MPs ever called up anybody about those matters on their phones? So all the meetings were face to face. I thank the member for that confirmation. We now know that all the meetings were face to face. But was any money expended on getting to any of those meetings?
John KeyHon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
Oh, they did not have any meetings? Mr Key had no meetings with the Exclusive Brethren. He would like to put on the record right now, would he, that he had no meetings with the Exclusive Brethren? So who were the shadow-faced people on television that Mr Key was meeting? But the point does not matter. Dr Brash finally admitted, after denying it, that he did have meetings with the Exclusive Brethren, and if the Parliamentary Service paid, in any shape or form, for the travel, then I am afraid the whole thing was out of order and tainted by electioneering, and the expenditure was unlawful and needs to be validated—unlike the payment of GST by the members opposite, where all they want validation for is to avoid conviction and a fine.