Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) Link to this
I move, That the Parliamentary Service (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill be now read a second time. This bill empowers members of Parliament to incur expenditure in the exercise of their office. It is worth noting, in these times when there is quite a bit of interest in the expenses of members of Parliament, that those expenses relate entirely to the cost of the provision of services, inside electorates, predominantly. Members of Parliament themselves do not receive this funding. They are simply required to superintend expenditure in that regard. It is expenditure on simple matters, like the rental of an office space somewhere in the country, usually where that member has taken a representative position or is the elected member, and also in the course of ensuring that there are staff in those offices to meet constituents’ needs.
This bill came about because a previous decision was made to have another look at the issue, as a result of the Auditor-General’s discussions with Parliament and an inquiry into the expenditure incurred by the Parliamentary Service around the time of the 2005 general election. There are moves afoot to change the way in which parliamentary expenses for members of Parliament are reported. This bill is very much about the nuts and bolts of how the place operates, and it provides, as it states, for the continuation of an interim meaning in order that the Parliament might take more time, in a more public way, to deal with those matters. It is worth noting that although there is widespread support for this bill, it has been dealt with in a way that is quite usual for bills. There has been no attempt to railroad it through in any other way, and there is no personal advantage to any single MP in the passing of this bill. I want to stress that very, very strongly.
The National Government, of course, supports this bill. I understand it will receive widespread support this evening, and I commend it to the House.
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) Link to this
Labour supports the second reading of the Parliamentary Service (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. It is a pleasure to join the Leader of the House in his explanation of it. He gave a statesmanlike address on the bill, and I believe that he was a bit of a nation-builder in the speech he gave the House moments ago.
I was reminded of when the exact same bill was considered by the previous Parliament. The member for Ilam, Gerry Brownlee—and of course he is completely different from the person I have referred to, the Leader of the House—regarded the bill as utterly disgraceful, Mugabe-style legislation, which was quite an over-the-top reaction to a pretty simple bill. In his speech tonight he described this bill as a nuts and bolts bill, and of course nuts and bolts are his speciality, so we are taking his advice in that respect. We were very pleased to hear the way in which he described the bill tonight. He was topped in his language—surprisingly really— only by the much calmer Dr Nick Smith. He said that he knew of no time in his 17 years when he had seen legislation that would bring this Parliament into as much “disrespute” as this legislation does.
Hon Annette KingHon DARREN HUGHES Link to this
That is the exact word he used. That is a direct quote from that master of the English language.
Anyway, this is not a time for politics. This is a time for us to comment on what is a very small bill, as Mr Brownlee said. It received no submissions in the select committee. It was considered in the proper parliamentary way by a select committee. It has not been considered under urgency. It requires us to come up with a proper permanent definition of the term “funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes” by 31 December next year. Labour signalled at the first reading its desire to work with the Government to come up with such a definition, because this bill rolls over an interim meaning.
We support the bill. We believe that it deserves proper scrutiny. As Mr Brownlee rightly says, it is to formalise the arrangements we have for the service of our constituents and of the parties that are represented here in the House. We support the bill, and we welcome the much more moderate language being used in the consideration of its passage through the House.
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tātou. I do not intend to take too much of the House’s time tonight as it is close to 10 o’clock. But suffice to say that the Māori Party wishes to put on record our support for the Parliamentary Service (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill.
As other speakers have explained, the bill extends the interim meaning of the term “funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes” from the Parliamentary Service Act 2000 until 31 December 2010. The Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Act 2007 is due to expire as of 1 July 2009. Therefore an extension of the interim meaning of the term is needed to allow time for a permanent meaning to be considered and enacted, which will be done in the context of the Government’s review of electoral finance.
People may or may not know that funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes include funding for the performance by a member of his or her role and functions as an MP; funding for performance by the parliamentary party of its role and functions as a parliamentary party; provision of travel, accommodation, and attendance services to MPs and their families; of communications services; and other bits and pieces, here and there.
Suffice to say, we support this bill because it does fit with our previous practice. The Māori Party supported the Electoral Amendment Bill to repeal and review the Electoral Finance Act. The Māori Party voted to oppose the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Act because we disagreed on principle with the notion that MPs and political parties are able to validate their illegal spending, when no other citizens can do so. This House, as we know, has passed retrospective legislation to make legitimate what was illegal. The Māori Party also voted to oppose the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Act 2007 because we disagreed on principle with illegal overspending during the election by MPs and political parties being made lawful via the passage of legislation. The Māori Party supports the tikanga of accountability, transparency, and integrity, which give expression to things like rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga, and in that regard we are happy to support this legislation. Kia ora rā.
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) Link to this
I rise to take a brief call on the Parliamentary Service (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill.
I had a brief look at the speech I gave in the first reading of this bill.
It was this year, 2009. My speech in that debate went a little bit outside the scope of the bill, because it discussed the events that had occurred during the siege in Napier, and the shooting of Senior Constable Len Snee. In that speech I acknowledged the efforts of the police, and I want to allude back to that in this particular speech. We had a tournament in Napier and raised a raft of money. As a member of Parliament—
It relates to the Parliamentary Service, and the ability for us to be members of Parliament and to represent our constituents. I used the debate on the bill to acknowledge the efforts of the constables. I also want to acknowledge the recent efforts of the community in getting behind a massive fund-raising event in Hawke’s Bay to acknowledge the work of those fine men.
This is a short bill that provides an interim definition for the term “funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes”. The bill clarifies the principal duties of the Parliamentary Service when it considers whether an MP’s expenditure was used for parliamentary purposes or for the purposes of electioneering. The bill provides a very similar interim definition to the meaning set out in the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Act 2007, which was brought in under the previous Government, as members will be well aware.
Generally speaking, the bill maintains the legislative framework that has been in place since legislation was passed in 2006. The bill preserves the convention observed by members before 2006, which is that parliamentary publicity entitlements should not be used for electioneering. As a new member of Parliament in 2005 I thought that was the case. I guess I was a rather naive new candidate when I appeared on the hustings in 2005—
Hon Clayton CosgroveThank you, Mr Cosgrove. When I appeared in 2005 I was rather surprised to see a raft of advertising material turn up on the hustings, even though I had been counselled against using parliamentary expenditures for electioneering by Judy Kirk, the then President of the National Party. She castigated new candidates by saying that we must stay within the $20,000 spend, we must be very clear about the way we spend that money, and we must ensure that we have our campaign manager’s name on the election information. Then when I got to the hustings I found a raft of advertising.