5. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
to the Minister of Justice
Is it Government policy that issuing a press release, sending an email, or posting a letter should constitute publishing an election advertisement if those documents disagree or agree with anything any political party is associated with; if so, why?
If it is not Government policy that a person sending an email, posting a letter, or issuing a press release would be caught by the Electoral Finance Bill and become a “promoter”, then why is that in the bill put forward by the Government?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
The member, as usual, has missed the fact that other elements of the bill have to be read in conjunction with that definition within clause 4. The intention of the bill is quite clear. The kind of outrageous advertising on behalf of a political party, involving huge sums of money and not attributable, that was done by the Exclusive Brethren should not be allowed to happen in that kind of volume. The select committee will consider, of course, whether the exact wording of the bill meets the intentions in that regard.
Does that mean that the Minister of Justice does not understand his own bill, and that Labour, in its obsession with dealing to its critics in election year so that it has a free run at multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded campaigns, does not know that it has cast a drift-net that catches all political criticism in election year, and covers almost any political opinion?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
The net that has been cast is designed to catch predatory species that prey upon the political and democratic system in this country, as the Exclusive Brethren did last time—
Hon Dr Nick SmithHon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
—at one point a group that Dr Smith used to attack rather than cuddle up to and get kissed by, as he was at the last election. The select committee will consider whether the exact wording of the bill conforms to the intention in that respect. I have never seen a major bill come out of a select committee with the wording exactly the same as it was when it went in.
Why has the Government cast such a drift-net to catch the criticism of every group—ranging from the Littlies Lobby to anti - child abuse campaigners, to teacher unions, to Greenpeace, to Amnesty International, to the ratepayers associations in any small town—that wants its voice to be heard in election year?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
The member may continue to promote that somewhat paranoid view of the intentions of the Electoral Finance Bill. The select committee will ensure that the bill meets its intentions. It is designed to stop hypocritical, extreme groups who are not even prepared to sign their advertisements with whom they actually are—
Madam SPEAKERWe will have the question in silence, because it is becoming impossible to hear, and all members are entitled to hear the answer.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
—who use false and empty addresses as the means of contacting those groups, who claim not even to vote in the electoral system, and who spend hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars designed to secure the election of one political party, which claimed to know nothing about it at the time, and whose current leader knew so little that he claims to have remembered not opening the email that informed him about that campaign.
Can the Minister confirm that the people he is talking about broke the existing law; that the big problem with that was that the enforcement was left to the police, which failed to prosecute anyone; and that his Electoral Finance Bill repeats that weakness in our electoral law, in that there is no realistic enforcement of this drift-net against criticism?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
Now the member is trying to have it the other way in saying that the bill will achieve nothing in this respect, and that anybody will be able to say whatever he or she likes. Classically, the National Party now has two completely opposing points of view on this particular legislation. This legislation is designed to catch people who mount extraordinarily expensive campaigns on behalf of a political party, and who are not prepared to front up about whom they are and why they are doing it—pretending, in one case last time, that they do not even participate in voting—all so that they can hasten the coming of Armageddon and the end of the world, which was their stated purpose for electoral intervention.
Can the Minister confirm that the paranoia and contradiction are actually in the legislation of the Minister of Justice, which sets out a large number of very detailed requirements, which have the effect, for instance, that a person forwarding an email on a political proposition who has not seen a statutory declaration from the sender of that email will be committing an offence by forwarding the email, and that the enforcement of this bizarre and paranoid set of rules still falls with the police, who failed utterly last time to enforce the law?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN Link to this
The New Zealand Police is the appropriate agency to enforce the law in any circumstance. That is absolutely clear. It is equally clear that this legislation is before the select committee, which will ensure that it meets its objectives. In this area, as I am sure the member is very well aware, many highly intelligent minds spend time trying to find ways round it. It is second only to tax law in that respect.