1. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
to the Minister of Justice
Does he stand by his statement that the Electoral Finance Bill “will help promote participation in parliamentary democracy”; if so, why?
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) Link to this
Yes; because the intent of the bill is to close loopholes in the current legislation that were exploited by the National Party and its various secretive wealthy supporters, whose aim was to overwhelm the participation by ordinary New Zealanders in the parliamentary democracy, through their million-dollar campaigns in 2005 that were designed specifically to subvert electoral spending limits.
Is the Minister now ready and able to answer the questions I published this morning so that he would have notice, the first one being, is it the Government’s policy that a political journalist’s blog published on a commercial website but not in any newspaper should be considered to be election advertising; if not, why is such a blog captured by the bill’s definition of election advertising?
I take it that this sort of juvenile stunt is the member’s idea of constructive engagement. As I indicated to the member yesterday, there is an exemption for the news media, and it includes material that the news media disseminates on the Internet, such as an online newspaper or a journalist’s blog. That is the Government’s policy. I will be perfectly relaxed, of course, if, in light of submissions to the select committee, the existing exemptions for the news media need further refinement.
Hon Peter DunneWhose bright idea was it to include provisions in the bill to now require each individual candidate’s return of election expenditure to be signed not only by the candidate, as is the current practice, but also by the party’s secretary and the party’s financial agent, and in some cases to be subject to an independent audit, the cost of which has to be borne by the candidate, when there are already severe penalties in place for any candidate who files a false declaration of election expenditure and there is no evidence, at least in the 23 years I have been a member of Parliament, of declarations having been falsified; can he explain to the House why he has allowed that piece of daft bureaucracy gone mad to proceed to this point?
Madam SPEAKERThe member has asked a question in silence. He is not sitting close to the Minister. Would members please enable the Minister to respond in such a way that he will be heard.
That particular provision, to the best of my recollection, was drawn out of some of the international comparisons that were made across other jurisdictions, and is part of the overall provisions to provide greater accountability and transparency of the process.
Is it Government policy that if a political party is found to have exceeded its election spending cap, that party will not face any penalties or have to repay any money or pay any fine; if that is not Government policy, then why does the bill impose the penalties on one person only: the nominated financial agent?
Of course that is not the Government’s policy, because the nominated financial agent is the nominated financial agent for the party. If the member reads the bill properly, he will find that clause 119 quite clearly lays out the obligation and responsibilities that also fall on the secretary, on behalf of the party, if he or she knows about, or should reasonably have known about, any such expenditure. So the member has again got it wrong.
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
Can the Minister confirm that one reason for specifying clearly who is responsible is that one of the National Party’s excuses for not paying its money back was that it claimed it did not know who was responsible in the party?
That is precisely correct. There are also questions around some of the National Party’s friends and supporters, who managed to avoid accountability by having non-existent people at non-occupied addresses as the apparent sources of million-dollar advertising campaigns.
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
Are there greater requirements in this legislation for candidate electoral returns, given that a number of complaints were made in 2005 about grossly inadequate candidate electoral returns, yet the authorities failed in every case to act upon them; and would the Minister be interested to know which parties were rightly accused of having done just that?
The matter the member raises has indeed informed this process and has led to some of the refinements that have been included in this bill. Of course, I would welcome any further advice from the member in terms of specific parties.
Is it Government policy that a pledge card such as the one issued by the Labour Party before the 2005 election, paid for by taxpayers through the parliamentary leader’s fund, would, in the next election, not count against the election expenses ceiling, and would therefore be legal in the next election when it was illegal in the previous election?
It is clear that any qualifying election spending by any party counts towards the election spending cap. Costs legitimately incurred by electorate MPs who are going about legitimate parliamentary duties are not election spending. The former are dealt with by the Electoral Finance Bill; the latter are the province of the Parliamentary Service Act.
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
Does this legislation propose more stringent requirements than those that applied, for example, in the 1999 case of Mauri Pacific, which failed to file even one electoral return—not one?
Yes, the member is correct. The Electoral Finance Bill does indeed tighten up on the requirements. The very position that Mr English referred to in his earlier question is one of the consequences of earlier failings.
Can the Minister confirm rumours that the Labour Government is pushing for the Law Commission to be an adviser to the select committee process; is the Law Commission chaired by Geoffrey Palmer, and is that Geoffrey Palmer the same one who—
Hon Trevor MallardThe member will please be seated. The member was interjected on by members from his own party, then there were interjections from the other side of the House. Would members please control themselves and allow the member to ask his question.
Can the Minister confirm rumours that the Labour Government will push for Sir Geoffrey Palmer, as chair of the Law Commission, to be an adviser to the select committee on the Electoral Finance Bill, and is that the same Sir Geoffrey Palmer who donated $11,000 to the Labour Party in the last return of donations?
It is my understanding that at the select committee this morning, the appointment of the Law Commission as an adviser to the committee was agreed to. I am surprised that the member’s own colleagues have not given him that information. Perhaps if he had attended the committee, where meaningful engagement with regard to this issue takes place, rather than playing juvenile stunts with press statements, he would know what was going on.
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
Does the bill seek to proscribe the activities of an organisation that is chauvinist, racist, and elitist, an organisation that believes that Māori, for example, are the descendants of the children of Cain, and an organisation whose members would not eat with one member in this House, in order to prevent that organisation from having a free-for-all behind closed doors and subscribing to one political party’s campaign; is that what is designed to be proscribed in this legislation?
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. With the greatest of respect, you know that I can take it in this House, but the fact of the matter is that Tau Henare, the member for—well, he is not a member for any seat, and he never will be, apart from when I put him in here on an armchair ride. From the time I started speaking to the time I finished, he did not stop shouting. With respect, that is not a fair go. I could hardly hear my own self speak, which is really a great shame.
That is a matter of opinion. The member is right that all members have a right to ask their questions and to have those questions answered in a manner so that the member can be heard. I would ask members, however, when they are asking their questions and giving their answers, to do so succinctly and in a way that is not designed to provoke interjections.
I can confirm to the member that any such organisation would be required to engage openly and in the light of day, not secretively behind closed doors. The spending limits would be applied to such an organisation, and it would not be able to channel a million dollars of secret funding to its political cronies in the National Party.
How does the Minister think it looks, when both he and the Prime Minister have stood in this House and said that all of this mess can be sorted out by the select committee, and then in the select committee Labour uses its majority to appoint as one of the advisers to the committee the personal legal adviser to the Prime Minister, someone who is a substantial donor to the Labour Party; does that not look like trying to screw the scrum?
There are a number of points there. Firstly, the member completely misrepresented both my own comments and those of the Prime Minister. If that member disagrees with the notion that parliamentary select committees scrutinise, listen to submissions on, and add value to bills in Parliament, then we differ. I have always believed that parliamentary select committees have a useful role to play. Secondly, if Mr English, National’s current spokesperson on finance, thinks that four out of 13 constitutes a majority, then that explains a lot about why he lost the leadership.
Why does the Government think it could earn any goodwill at all on this legislation, when it has so deliberately decided in the select committee to appoint, as one of the committee’s advisers, a substantial donor to the Labour Party; someone—
What sort of goodwill does the Government think it is earning, when this bill goes to the select committee and the Labour Party, along with New Zealand First and the Greens, votes against the minority in the committee and appoints as a principal adviser to the committee someone who gives personal legal advice to the Prime Minister and who is on the public record as a substantial donor to the Labour Party; and will any other parties have the right to appoint donors to give advice to the select committee?
I see we are continuing the process of abuse of people of integrity and high standing in New Zealand. The president of the Law Commission—
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I could take exception to the term “abuse”. I just pointed out a fact, which is that Sir Geoffrey Palmer is listed as a substantial donor, of $11,000, to the Labour Party. None of the language I used was pejorative, none of it was personal, and none of it was abusive. So if the member uses that term again, I will take exception to it.
That was not a point of order; it was a matter of debate. But it does highlight that when asking questions and giving answers, one does that succinctly and without any added innuendo in either the questions or the answers. Would the Minister please address the question.
The committee determines, on its own behalf, such matters—[ Interruption] The member is not even interested in the answer, Madam Speaker. Firstly, the committee determines on its own behalf who its advisers are; not the Government. Secondly, it has decided the president of the Law Commission is a suitable appointee. Thirdly, Mr English, a former Prime Minister, was responsible in previous portfolios for the nomination and appointment of a former National Government Prime Minister who I am sure—but I do not know this, because it was not a relevant matter—is a substantial donor to the National Party. He was appointed on merit and suitability for the appointment. I assume that the majority—and I say to Mr English that this is how democracy works—of the members of the committee determined the president of the New Zealand Law Commission was a suitable appointee as an adviser to the select committee.
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
Would the Minister now seek from the National Party a full list of all the anonymous donors to that party in 2005—since I think its donors consist of about two trusts and that was it—so that the select committee can consider whether any of them are suitable for appointment as advisers to the committee, or, indeed, whether any of them are already making submissions to the committee as completely independent, impartial persons?
Heather RoyDoes the Minister really believe that the flaws in the Electoral Finance Bill can be fixed in the select committee, or was the New Zealand Law Journal editor, Bernard Robertson, right when he wrote in his editorial that the bill should be scrapped?
—sorry, ACT party writer; I do apologise. It is hard to tell the difference between them; they all look the same to me. Do I believe that with the benefit of a 13-member, cross-party select committee and the benefit of submissions from many fine New Zealanders, a good bill can be made better? Of course it can!
Can the Minister correct me if I am wrong: the intention of this bill, as stated regularly in this House, is to prevent any substantial donor from influencing the political process, and then, when the bill goes to the select committee to be fixed up so that it might do that, Labour appoints one of its substantial political donors to influence the political process?
I can confirm that a 13-member multiparty select committee has made a determination as to the appointment of an adviser. I can further advise, unlike many members, that an invitation has now been offered. No member of the select committee can be under any illusion as to that donation, unlike the donations of many others who may or may not be donors to the National Party. Who would know, because of the way in which those donations are hidden?