3. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
to the Minister of Justice
What is the Government’s policy on State funding for political parties?
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) Link to this
This Government is in favour of State funding for political parties. This is something that is opposed by National because it wants to be able to spend the millions it has salted away in its numerous trust accounts, without any public accountability, just like its use of parliamentary funding, which is hidden.
Can the Minister confirm that the Labour-led Cabinet signed off on a system in March that would have allocated $2 for every vote, up to 20 percent of the vote, and $1 for every vote from there up to 30 percent, and can she confirm that this would have meant that for the 2008 election campaign Labour was about to allocate itself around $1.1 million of taxpayers’ money for the administration of the Labour Party and the campaign?
This is not some secret tape-recording or some leak that the member is trying to say he has. This is in official documents released to him on the work that was done by the Labour Party when looking at State funding—something that was not introduced in the bill—and funding that the Labour Party would have received through State funding. Interestingly enough, Bill English does not mention what the National Party would have received, because it was State funding for all political parties.
Why then did Cabinet, on 14 May, rescind its previous decision to introduce State funding, given the fact that the Budget bid for the money to be included in the Budget just 2 weeks later had been approved and the $3.1 million of funding for all political parties had been signed off?
Because there was insufficient support for State funding at that stage. The National Party did not want it; it wanted to be able to spend the millions it had salted away in the Waitemata Trust, the Ruahine Trust, the trust called the Holland Memorial Trust, and other trusts. National members were ready to spend those funds and did not want State funding. That would have stopped them using their money.
Can the Minister confirm that, having abandoned State funding of political parties after Cabinet had confirmed it and it had been put in last year’s Budget, Labour set about covertly using State funding—as confirmed by the Electoral Commission, which last week made a decision that the Budget pamphlet put out by the Prime Minister’s office is an election advertisement and will have to count as an election expense—and that therefore Labour has achieved its objective, which is to make the pledge card legal?
I do not think the member knows the meaning of covert, because what he is talking about is a document about the Budget that everybody, we hope, has read, so it can hardly be covert. The document has an authorisation on it, and a parliamentary crest—as has the Green Times, which is allowed, and as has the ACT document. It is not covert; it is open. What is covert—and Bill English knows this because he is part of it—is the spending of parliamentary money for Crosby/Textor, for National’s consultants, and for the 36 people who work in Mr Key’s office and outside Parliament. None of that is accountable to the taxpayers, but every penny of it is parliamentary money.
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
Can the Minister confirm that the National Party gets more than $7 million from Parliamentary Service; second, that Mr Key has more people in his office—38—than the entire staff for New Zealand First in this Parliament and outside of it; third, that National will take the lion’s share of the broadcasting moneys this year for the election campaign; and what does she call that?
Unfortunately I cannot tell the member what I would call that, but I can confirm that the National Party does not get $7 million; it gets more than that. It spends about 82 percent of what parliamentary money it gets. National spends more money than everybody else but not a penny of it has to be accounted for, because its members are not transparent.
Dr Russel NormanDoes the Minister agree that when the Green Party initiates citizens’ forum meetings to consider issues of election funding, they, as a group of impartial citizens, will be free to consider election funding issues without being beholden to political parties, fishing and racing interests, expatriate billionaires, and mysterious trusts?
Can the Minister confirm that all four parties that supported the Electoral Finance Act have been found in breach of it, that three parties are going to be investigated by the police, that at least two parties that supported the Act to bring transparency to donations took large donations from a foreign billionaire—
Well, that’s a fact—and can she now confirm that the Prime Minister’s office is using her parliamentary money—
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. For the umpteenth time, that member is making an allegation that is totally false; I know that, the people involved know that, yet the member repeats it—like some members of the media who cannot get their heads around simple facts. New Zealand First did not get 1c from the so-called billionaire whom the member speaks about.
Madam SPEAKER
Gerry BrownleeI raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. If Mr Peters has never made it quite so clear in the House before, does he now wish to inform the House that he personally received it by way of a bill. It should have—
Can the Minister now confirm that the four parties that supported the Electoral Finance Act have been found to have breached the law—that is, they could not reach the standard they set for everybody else—and that two of the parties that campaigned so hard against large business donations—[ Interruption] In the case of Labour, it took a large donation from a foreign billionaire and, in the case of New Zealand First, it is still a mystery what happened to the money; and can she now confirm the Prime Minister is using her parliamentary budget of taxpayers’ money for Labour’s election advertisements?
What I can confirm is that there is only one party in this Parliament that has not honoured the undertakings to pay back its money after the 2005 election, and that is the National Party. It ripped off the taxpayers for over $100,000 of GST that it did not pay back to the taxpayers of New Zealand. It still has not paid it back, and National members opposite sit there, holier-than-thou, pointing the finger at every other party. Well, there is a name for that, and one day I think somebody is probably going to say it.
Hon Peter DunneWhen the proposals for State funding of political parties were being developed, did she consult with all parties in this House about what the content of a State-funding regime might be; if she did not, why not?
Hon Dr Nick SmithWell, it is the truth, and the member is never going to be the Minister of Justice. He is never going to be, so his big “Aw!”—
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister is quite right. She was not the Minister of Justice at the time, but there was a Minister of Justice, and the responsibility the question implies rests with the position, not with the person. So I think that a more complete answer could have been forthcoming.