Electoral Finance Bill

Hon ANNETTE KING Link to this

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I went back to honour that promise that was made, and that is what Labour is doing with the Electoral Finance Bill, which is before this Committee today. We promised to bring in a fairer, more transparent election financing approach, to do away with the sneaky approach and the backroom deals we have seen in the past, and to stop the National Party members from screwing the scrum—and they are old scrum-screwers from a long way back. There is not a trick that they have not tried. The latest one—in an effort to get themselves a few more votes before this bill is in place—is to bring out a shonky DVD that breaches copyright. We want to shine the light on those who believe that money can buy anything, including democracy. We want to give clearer rules.

What members have heard are the protests from the self-interested. National Party members have shamelessly used organisations like the Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission in their adverts and in their speeches, and not once have they acknowledged that the Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission have said that changes made to this bill have considerably improved it and that they support most of this bill. Those members never mention that. That is how dishonest they have been. How could anyone trust them to bring in such a bill? I have been very disappointed with what I have heard in this debate today as I travelled around. The debate has not been about the bill, except, perhaps, for Christopher Finlayson’s speech. It has been about making political points.

We are discussing Part 2, which deals with election campaigns. It contains the financial rules proposed for candidates, political parties, and third parties. It contains the key definitions and general provisions relating to the disclosure of donations. It establishes a new regime for protected disclosures, which enables donations over $1,000 to be made to political parties or third parties via the Electoral Commission. It sets out general rules relating to all election advertisements, whether published by candidates, political parties, or third parties. Part 2 sets out the regime for election expenses of candidates, political parties, and third parties. The Justice and Electoral Committee made some very important and far-sighted changes to the donation regime. The overwhelming message in the submissions to the select committee was that the public wanted stricter rules in this area. That is what the public said they wanted.

I listened to Nicky Wagner tonight. She said that we need to have people power. She said we need to listen to what the public say. Well, the public said they wanted stricter rules in this area. Why is the National Party opposing stricter rules in this area? If it really believes in people power and in listening to the public, why does it not listen to those submissions on this bill? The public wanted greater transparency about the source of political funding. Being transparent about where one gets one’s money from must be an absolutely basic element in a decent and proper democracy. Why would we not want people to know where our money comes from? Why would people want to hide where they got their money from, unless they have something to hide?

Members of the select committee listened to submissions and increased the threshold for those who are listing as a third party, from $5,000 to $12,000. People do not need to list if they want to spend under $12,000 in the campaign. So if a person wants to spend less than $12,000 promoting a particular party, he or she is able to do so without listing as a third party. A third party can also be a lobby group. It can be an individual. It can campaign for an individual member or on behalf of a party and it can spend up to $120,000. Every member of a family could be an individual who could spend money, if that individual wanted to, as a third party.

Part 2 also deals with anonymous donations. There were a large number of submissions around anonymous donations. The candidates wanted anonymous donations dealt with—anonymous donations to candidates, to political parties, and to third parties. Do members know what they said? They said they should be capped at low levels. That is what the people power said. That is what the public said. They wanted anonymous donations capped at low levels. Why do the National Party members not want to listen to the people? Why do they not want to have an anonymous donations regime in the bill? They do not want it because that is where they got most of their money from, and they do not want any fetter on their ability to buy the next election.

Part 2 also deals with the issue of Government advertising. Some submitters raised concerns that Government departments would engage in election advertising. It is very clear now in this bill that they cannot.

I want to mention clause 80(d), which covers a member acting in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament. The Electoral Commission has asked Parliament to give it some clarification as to how we interpret that. We are not going to put it in law; the commission has asked for an interpretation. That is what it has asked for—it wants an interpretation.

Well, I gave my view 2 weeks ago. I gave my view, and my view, I have to stress, is my view. But what the Electoral Commission is interested in is what this Parliament thinks, what the members of this Parliament think, and it wants to be guided. The Electoral Commission said that it wants to be guided by what this Parliament says. I am prepared to say that my interpretation could be wrong. I might be wrong. In fact, I am prepared to admit that I could be wrong. I read the comments of Bill English today in a question to the House. He might be right in terms of that interpretation.

What this Parliament needs to do now, in the Committee stage of this bill, is to give its views, which will be listened to. Of course, Bill English is very worried. He said, about the interpretation I gave, that political parties would be suspicious of my definition because it would mean that Government members will be allowed to talk about what the Government is doing, but Opposition members will not be allowed to talk about what they would like to do if they become the Government. He said: “How ridiculous is that?”

I am prepared to listen to the views of this House. Of course, the members opposite do not want to listen to anyone else’s view, but I am prepared to listen—and not only to the noisy National Party. I welcome comments, because there are other parties in this House and they deserve to have a say as well.

I also want to mention an amendment to clause 22A. This is a National Party amendment, because this clause will make it clear that one has to include one’s GST. Which party did not pay its GST? The National Party. It has squirmed and wormed its way around that issue. It did not pay its GST, and it is very clear that it will not be able to blame it on the publishing company, or the publicity agent, because it is in the bill—National pays GST just like everybody else.

These are important amendments in this bill. Part 2 is an important part, and I look forward to the debate on it.

GERRY BROWNLEE Link to this

Could he stay there for life? Well, by a narrow margin he was prevented from doing that. But the interesting thing is that, in this country, if this bill was about whether the Labour Party could stay in Government forever, the margins that we are seeing in the votes tonight would be enough to carry it through. There are no constitutional thresholds in this country. We simply have the tyranny of the majority. It is a disgrace for Helen Clark to be exercising that principle on a bill like this.

We see the member over there exiting the Chamber, screaming at the top of his voice. I do not doubt that he is off to circumvent the provisions of this part of the bill by picking up another brown paper bag full of cash over a lovely tea of fish and chips with one of that party’s great funders.

A number of things in this bill are utterly ridiculous. We know through the political process that many people in this country have interests that prevent them from expressing a political view in a public way—hundreds of people. We are a small country. We have recently seen a debacle over the State Services Commission and the horrible politicisation of Government departments. We know and accept that many people who do good work for a Government have a view that is politically different from that of the Government of the day. But this bill makes it clear that they cannot exercise their right as a citizen in this country to make any sort of substantial donation to a political party, without their name coming into the public arena.

We see the provision for anonymous donations. The word “anonymous” means that no one knows. Someone might anonymously choose to go along to the Labour Party, perhaps to Mr Owen Glenn, and say to him: “Owen, I want to support the Labour Party. I want to support Helen Clark.” Actually it would be a very short queue; none the less, it is possible. He or she goes along to Owen Glenn and says: “I want to make an anonymous donation.” He will now be required to say: “Well, thank you for your money. I’m going to have to record your name, I’m going to have to record your address, and I’m going to have to record the amount that has been given to the Labour Party, and I’m going to have to put that into the mix, so that a number of people know about it.” I would ask this simple question: if no New Zealander goes to the ballot box having to declare how he or she votes, why should any New Zealander have to say what small amount he or she wants to give to any particular political party?

GERRY BROWNLEE Link to this

I have a question for that member: “What about the unions?”. [ Interruption] The brains trust from Wanganui says: “Well, the unions have to declare who they are.” So we see the Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union up there, and apparently that gets past the anonymity thing. Well, I do not know, and no one in this Chamber knows, where that union gets its money from. No one knows that. No one dives in behind that union and says “We want to know where you got your dough.” Well, hang on, here we go.

GERRY BROWNLEE Link to this

Mrs Pettis says that it got it from the members. I apologise for the damage I have done to the walls in impersonating Mrs Pettis. She says that it comes from the members. Well, what is wrong with individual people, unnamed, as union members are, making a donation to a trust? Oh, here she goes.

GERRY BROWNLEE Link to this

The outgoing member for Waitakere has just said “What about your cake stalls?”. The classic example was given in the select committee of a cake stall that raised $1,800. That member said: “Oh my goodness. How does anybody raise $1,800 from a cake stall?”. That is the sort of anonymous money we are trying to get to.

Tonight we see a bill before the Committee that is driven by the paranoia of the Labour Party. It is not paranoia about where the money comes from, but paranoia and fear that Labour may be tipped out of Government at the next election. There is no doubt that that is where it is heading. Mrs King said: “What about people power?”. I tell her to go and look at the opinion polls, go and look at what the focus groups are telling the Labour Party about this bill. No one likes it. No one in this country likes the idea that any single politician is going to create advantage for himself or herself through the laws of this country. That is what this bill does.

The members on the other side talk about wanting to stop wealth from being a big factor in the coming election. What about the wealth of New Zealanders that the Labour Government is going to put its hands on to promote its programmes, quite legally, if this bill passes, to convince New Zealanders that they should vote for it? Does anyone in this Chamber think that New Zealanders will be happy that $15 million of taxpayers’ money is used to promote Labour Party policies?

Hon TONY RYALL Link to this

—plus the big union money. But she stood up in this Parliament and said such donations buy influence, and that all that money has to be controlled because it buys influence. Well, she was a Cabinet Minister; she was the Minister for the Environment. So what about the money that the big forestry companies donated to the Labour Party? Did she change her actions as the Minister for the Environment because of the money that forestry companies donated? Did she do that? Oh, there is silence from that member. So that is the question. Marian Hobbs can stand up and say that people are bought because of donations, but she was a Minister, so let us hear her explanation of the $800,000 of anonymous donations that Helen Clark pocketed at the 1999 election in order to get herself elected—$800,000 from what New Zealand First says are the secret manipulators of New Zealand politics.

The Labour Party received $800,000 of anonymous donations, yet we sat for days in the Justice and Electoral Committee as Labour members tried to say that people knew who the anonymous donators were. It was amazing. Lynne Pillay would sit in the select committee and say that we needed to make sure that people really knew they were anonymous. Well, Mike Smith, general secretary of the Labour Party, signed off that the $800,000 of anonymous donations that Helen Clark received in 1999 were completely anonymous, and once we had pointed that out to Labour members, they never said a word again about that—never said a word again.

Let us also talk about the really “honest” Labour Party, and ask about the “Owen Glenn clause”. It is clause 25C(1)(a). Into the select committee those members came on their little ponies, being really tough and saying they were going to stop foreigners donating to political parties. They were going to stop foreigners donating to political parties, said Lynne Pillay, Charles Chauvel, David Benson-Pope, and the rest of the lefties on that select committee. So they proposed an amendment they brought forward that said any individual who is not a registered voter in New Zealand may not donate money—that every person who lives overseas and who is not a New Zealand - registered voter may not donate. Do members remember that the whole debate centred on Chris Finlayson’s brother in Germany, and whether he could make a donation? So those members decided that anybody who is not registered as a New Zealand voter would not be able to donate to parties.

Then we asked how that left Owen Glenn, the man who has donated over half a million dollars to the Labour Party.

Hon TONY RYALL Link to this

Well, I ask Mrs Collins what he gets in return for that, because Marian Hobbs says that if people donate to political parties, they expect something for that. Let me tell members about the “Owen Glenn amendment”. Mrs Pillay and her friends came into the select committee, and said they would stop foreigners donating money. They said that because foreigners were not on the electoral roll, they could not donate to parties. Then we said: “Well, what about Owen Glenn?” Within minutes a coffee break was announced. Those members said they would just break the committee and deal with that.

Fifteen minutes later came the announcement that some amendments would have to be made to that provision.

Hon TONY RYALL Link to this

Every member opposite on that committee knows that is exactly what went on. All of a sudden, what happened? Well, the Labour members must have gone to check on the residency status of Owen Glenn, because what came back was the wording that an overseas person is “an individual who—(i) resides outside New Zealand;”. That is Owen Glenn. He lives in Australia, and he gave the Labour Party half a million dollars. I do not know whether he gave it any of the $800,000 of anonymous donations in 1999. Here is the “Owen Glenn clause”: “and (ii) is not a New Zealand citizen or registered as an elector”. Everyone knows that Owen Glenn is a New Zealand citizen, so that provision will allow him to make his big donation to the Labour Party again, even though Labour’s original proposal would not have allowed him to do that.

So I tell members opposite not to give us the high and mighty stuff from Marian Hobbs about Labour not wanting there to be any money in politics. The fact is that Labour Party members wanted the big money when they were trying to get elected in 1999 and Helen Clark pocketed $840,000 of anonymous donations. It was $340,000 at the next election. Hundreds of thousands of dollars came from Owen Glenn. So let us not start all that nonsense about what Labour is trying to do.

The fact is that this legislation is all about skewing the playing field in favour of the Labour Party, to give it every advantage in the run-up to the next election. It is absolute hypocrisy for anyone to stand up and say the things that have been said by Labour Party supporters, not only in this House but around the country, about this issue. This bill is an abomination. It is a breach of democratic principles in this country. It is based on the political manoeuvrings and scheming of the Labour Party, because if it really did want to stop anonymous donations it would have prevented Owen Glenn from giving it another half a million dollars. And if those members opposite really wanted to stop anonymous donations, they would have made other movements.

In fact, did members hear the Minister of Justice say that Labour wanted to stop anonymous donations? The bill as introduced was silent on anonymous donations; there was not a word in it on anonymous donations. Labour members decided they wanted to put a provision about anonymous donations in the bill because someone else pointed that issue out to them. There was not a word in the bill about anonymous donations when it was introduced, but they subsequently decided they wanted to put a provision about anonymous donations into the bill because someone else pointed that issue out to them. Although there was not a word about it in the bill as introduced, they brought amendments to the select committee, and now in the Committee of the whole House they have come in with another 150 amendments.

The failed Minister of Health, who is the short-term Minister of Justice, came into the Chamber not half an hour ago and announced that what she gave to the House 2 weeks ago was absolutely wrong, and that the judges should ignore it. That is what she said—that the judges should ignore it. That is simply no way for a Minister of Justice to treat the House.

Hon BILL ENGLISH Link to this

There are only 97 in this part of the bill. The Government had 2 years; why could it not come up with 197? Then at least it would have something to show for it.

I am going to be selfish; I am going to talk about the effort that MPs have made to understand how they can comply with this part. If they do not, there is a $40,000 fine.