Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) : I move, That the Electoral Finance Bill, the Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 3), and the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This legislation has been contentious, with its passage marked by acrimonious debate and a campaign of misinformation. A major newspaper the New Zealand Herald devoted almost a month to attacking the legislation and the Government, in a campaign the like of which has not been seen since a Labour Government legislated to stop tobacco advertising. One cannot help but wonder whether the motives for the current campaign are not very similar to the last one.

Much has been said and written about the legislation. A letter to the editor in yesterday’s Dominion Post summed it up for many people when it said: “Democracy’s not one dollar, one vote”. An article in last week’s Otago Daily Times also made some relevant points: “As much as we like to imagine that freedom of speech is an absolute, it isn’t. There are several laws that proscribe it.” The article went on to say that a leading opponent of the legislation believed that an ideal democracy would let money be free to talk whenever and however loud it likes. The article stated further that the truth was that this man has “bags of money and no hesitation in using any amount of it to try to influence the course of our future democracy.” Freedom of speech and the freedom to buy speech are not the same things.

This legislation demonstrates the Government’s commitment to democratic and transparent elections. The Justice and Electoral Committee, the Government, and the Parliament, during the Committee stage, listened to the concerns about the Electoral Finance Bill and made a number of changes that improve the legislation considerably. This legislation is about creating a fair, transparent electoral system that puts all parties on a level playing field, with clearly defined rules and safeguards to protect the electoral system from abuse. We do not want to see the Americanisation of our electoral system. This legislation does not restrict free speech; it simply restricts the right to purchase speech through advertising. This is being done to safeguard our democracy by keeping to a minimum the undue influence of money in politics. That is what a level playing field means, and the Government believes that most New Zealanders understand and support this principle. The legislation makes changes that will help to bring New Zealand in line with other comparable democracies, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. These reforms are important, and are fair and transparent for our elections, and that is fundamental to our democracy.

This legislation has been debated extensively. The public engaged with it through the select committee process, and the committee sent the summary of its recommendations to the submitters. That was a suggestion made by the Human Rights Commission about further public consultation. Members of this House have also made important contributions to the discussions. During the Committee of the whole House the Government made a number of clarifications and amendments to the legislation, both to improve its workability and in response to matters raised following the select committee report. We have worked with the Chief Electoral Office, the Electoral Commission, the Law Commission, and the Crown Law Office to make this legislation work. There has been favourable feedback from many submitters who had concerns with the bill as it was introduced.

In addition, the Government carefully considered the changes proposed by Mr Christopher Finlayson in his Supplementary Order Papers. I thank the member for his considered proposals for amendments—some of which have been incorporated into the legislation. The most significant clarifications and amendments proposed by the Government include narrowing the definition of “published”, amending the cut-off date for listing as a third party, ensuring full disclosure when donations are made by trusts, and creating a mechanism for indexing expenditure limits. I will talk more about these in a moment.

One area received attention during the final stages of this debate—that is, the meaning of the phrase about an MP acting “in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament”. I realise from the debate that the view I expressed in my second reading speech about the interpretation of that phrase was too narrow. Although acting in our capacity as an MP clearly includes participation in the business of the House and electorate and other representational duties, work in our capacity as members of the Executive, and other party spokespeople, it clearly also includes the provision of information and critical analysis to the electorate on issues, policy options, and services. This is clearly not a strict definition and that would be undesirable. However, the lack of a strict definition does not mean there is not other guidance. MPs’ behaviour is also governed by the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Act 2007 and the Speaker’s directions and determinations.

Narrowing the definition of “publish”, particularly by removing the part of the definition that would have encompassed advertisements that were brought “to the notice of the public in any other manner”, has helped to remove many concerns. The amendment makes it clear that the definition captures only advertisements that are distributed to the general public, not door-knocking or speeches at public meetings and so on. In addition to these changes, the select committee ensured that the definition of an election advertisement does not affect the issues-based related advocacy that non-governmental organisations carry out. Alongside this amendment, a new and important change made during the debate has been a common-sense clarification that when a suspected offence is inconsequential, and there is no public interest in doing so, the Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Office have the discretion not to report the matter to the police.

A third substantive change to the legislation is the cut-off date by which a third party can list with the Electoral Commission. It will be a fixed date. Submitters, including the Human Rights Commission, were concerned that the period during which third parties were unable to list as a third party was too long and therefore created a restriction on the freedom of expression. The bill as introduced and reported back from the select committee had writ day as the day after which listing was prohibited—around 5 or 7 weeks before an election. This has been changed to 21 days before an election. The Human Rights Commission has said it is now largely happy with the legislation. The purpose of this change is to ensure that there is a balance between the date from which all participants in an election are known and the ability for people or groups to respond to issues that arise close to an election.

Another change to the legislation during the last stages is a new clause that will ensure that there is full disclosure when donations are received from secret trusts. The new clause ensures that a chain of trusts cannot be used to circumvent the legislation. If the recipient of the donation cannot identify the contributors of a trust donation, when the contribution is over $1,000, the whole donation will be sent back to the donors either for them to remove the contribution or to identify the contributors. Ultimately, greater transparency about the source of political funding will lead to increased public confidence in our democracy.

There are a number of other changes, including an indexation mechanism, whereby political party, candidate, or third-party expenditure limits will be increased by the rate of inflation. This will occur every 3 years by Order in Council and will come into force on 1 October in the year before a Parliament is due to expire. In the departmental report on the legislation, the Electoral Commission advised the Justice and Electoral Committee to adopt a proposal like this in relation to the election expenditure. The amendments I put forward did not index the donation thresholds in the legislation, but this was not something that the royal commission or the Electoral Commissioner recommended.

This legislation does not restrict free speech; it simply restricts the rights to purchase speech through advertising. This has been done to safeguard our democracy by keeping to a minimum the undue influence of money in politics. We want to protect the ability of all New Zealanders to participate in democracy. We must ensure that those with limited resources can realistically compete with those who have very deep pockets. I commend this legislation to the House.

JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) : “If you’re in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech precisely for the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.” They are not the words of a random right-winger. They are not the words of a former treasurer of the ACT party. They are not the words of the media, for whom Helen Clark no longer has any respect because, according to her, they are too young to understand history. They are the words of Noam Chomsky, a man who is not from the left but from the far left. He is somebody with whom Helen Clark probably used to agree, before she totally lost all objectivity.

Today Helen Clark, against the wishes of the majority of New Zealanders, is passing legislation that threatens our democracy. Years and years of bipartisan support of electoral reform will be sacrificed for one reason and one reason alone: so that Helen Clark can try to cling on to power. I say her actions cannot go unrecorded. They threaten the rights of New Zealanders to participate in elections while, at exactly the same time, extending the rights of those in a political party. This law is not designed to strengthen our democracy. It is deliberately designed by Helen Clark to weaken our democracy.

In much of New Zealand’s history we have enjoyed a full democracy—a democracy that has seen universal suffrage, where free and fair elections are held, where there is a freedom of association, and where there is freedom of speech. One of the key planks of our democracy is the freedom to participate—to speak out when one is in agreement with the Government and to speak out with abhorrence to the Government, to speak out when one agrees with the Opposition and to speak out with abhorrence to the Opposition. It is the freedom to make one’s case on the strength of one’s argument and to let others judge it for what it is worth. Our democracy is not weaker because of the scrutiny; it is stronger because of its democracy.

Healthy democracy does not tolerate dissenting voices, it demands them, because when they are silenced, slowly but surely we are all silenced. Democracy is about participation for everyone, but it comes at a price. We have to be prepared to hear opinions that we do not like from people we cannot stand, on topics we might not want to debate. That is what participation in a democracy is all about.

This legislation today is designed for one reason alone, and that is to silence democracy, reduce participation, and put a legalised gagging order on the people that Helen Clark and her travellers do not like. There can be no other explanation for a law that will see New Zealanders spending one-third of their adult life subject to a law that is so bureaucratic, where the hoops are so bad, and that is so muddled that the Prime Minister has told people to consult a lawyer if they want to try to understand it. The Government cannot explain the legislation. What sort of democracy are we creating in this country when we are creating law so muddled that the Electoral Commission is confused by it, the Law Society is against it, former Prime Ministers have come out speaking against it, and the Minister has said the only hope for it is to apply common sense to law that has no fundamental common sense in itself?

Helen Clark does not care. She does not care for one reason: for blatant self-interest she will pass this law, because she thinks nobody will notice. According to Helen Clark, when issues get tough they are inside the beltway and nobody notices. Well, I have news for Helen Clark. Everybody has noticed, and the vast, overwhelming majority are opposed to this legislation. The only thing Helen Clark has been able to hide behind throughout this entire debate is some sinister kind of plot that is all about big money.

If there is big money involved in New Zealand politics, it is the big money of the Labour Party. These are the people who spent $50 million through Government agencies in a non - election year but nearly $70 million when an election was under control. That is the reason they no longer care about neutrality of the Public Service. You see, with Labour and an election the role of a communications manager is a political appointment. That is why Madeleine Setchell’s face did not fit. That is why Clare Curran’s face did fit. That is why Erin Leigh was defamed in this House by a Minister who used advice for which that ministry has apologised, and for which he will not. That is the reason why. And this—the audacity of this—from a party that got caught in the last election flogging $800,000! It has the audacity to lecture New Zealanders about big money. Labour did not break the law once—

Jill Pettis: Pay back the GST!

JOHN KEY: Actually, I say to Jill Pettis, Labour broke the law twice. It broke the electoral cap, as well. If anyone is involved in big money, it is the Labour Party.

So there can be only two explanations for this legislation, and they are quite simple. One is desperation and the other is breathtaking arrogance. One of them is a good reason to boot Labour out; with both of them combined it is a necessity.

Let me say this to the people of New Zealand who are engaged in this debate and who are interested: National will repeal this legislation. We will go back to basics. We will go back to the way it was. We will ask independent people to go out there and come up with electoral law. You see, electoral law is not owned by the Labour Party for the benefit of the Labour Party. Electoral law is owned by the people of New Zealand so that we can have a democracy.

This is a sad day for New Zealand. It is the day the Labour Party admitted publicly, and through legislation, that it cannot win unless it changes the law. That is what happened today. National will repeal the law. We will go back to a bipartisan basis where independent people will come up with some recommendations. I say this, and this alone: history will mark this day. This is the day when Helen Clark arrogantly inflicted anti-democratic legislation upon the people of New Zealand, and when the collective voters of New Zealand know once and for all that it is time for a change.

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) : My experience in politics is that leaders who need standing ovations—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. This may well be the last sitting day for 2007, but no political party should be allowed to show the contempt for a parliamentary officer that the National Party members just did. You had asked them to come to order, and they decided to put on a stunt of clapping and applause. That is OK, but when you asked them to stop—[Interruption] There is Paula Bennett again, dressed up in her karate suit and shouting as though she is at a karate lesson.

Madam Speaker, my point is that when you asked those members to sit down, they paid no attention whatsoever; they just carried on. If we go into 2008 with that sort of behaviour, there will be problems in this House, because that is not a fair representation of the Standing Orders when it comes to members of Parliament.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member is quite right—that was excessive. Now, I am going to ask Paula Bennett to leave the Chamber. She has continually interrupted the member during his point of order, and she knows that that is out of order. Please leave.

• Paula Bennett withdrew from the Chamber.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think your ruling is perfectly appropriate, but there were about four other members who were talking at the same time. They know precisely who they are, and I suggest that if you ask them they will, no doubt, vacate as well.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I have asked one member to leave, and I think that is sufficient at this time.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you might tell us what Mr Peters’ point of order was and where we can refer to the matter in the Standing Orders that he brought to your attention.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member quite correctly raised a point of order about the order of the House. It was my call, and my call to order. He was properly speaking to that. Members should always resume their seats when the Speaker stands.

Hon JIM ANDERTON: My experience in politics is that leaders who need standing ovations are usually in big trouble.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I would like to challenge the member speaking to provide the Hansard that shows any occasion during any of the five party leaderships he has had when he has had a standing ovation, because, clearly, he has got into a lot of trouble without that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): As the member knows, that was not a point of order.

Hon JIM ANDERTON: I want to address this debate because I represent the only party in this House that did not breach the electoral expenditure rules and laws at the last election. It sticks in the throat a bit to hear so many people striking a high moral tone, when their own hands are not clean in this matter. National members cannot get up in this House and demurely claim they are interested only in democracy when they flouted the electoral laws at the last election. National cannot claim to be pure when it has a record showing it set aside the electoral laws that did not suit it.

Only one party did not flout the law, and I am leading it in this House. We did not use public money for our advertisements, we did not run a GST rort, and we did not try to use public money voted for one purpose to pay for our own purposes. Undoubtedly, the Progressives were disadvantaged when we opted to play within the rules. I have not come into this Chamber and trumpeted that we alone were obeying the laws, because we did only what was right. It sticks in the throat to hear the National Party pretending it cares about democracy, when its record is sleazy and opportunistic. I say to the National members that they should not get on their high horses about democracy until they have clean hands. This legislation makes a simple choice about our democracy. Who should own our democracy: big money or the people of New Zealand? We cannot have it both ways. Where the anonymous big money goes, the interests of the people come second.

I want to ask everyone who is opposed to this bill a question: why should anyone be allowed to do what the Exclusive Brethren did in my electorate in the last election? They came into my electorate on the Friday before the election, the day before that Saturday, and they bought a full page ad in the local newspaper. The ad told complete lies about my record in the electorate and my political position on policy matters. They distributed that false advertisement on that Friday night to every household in the electorate. The address given in the ad was fake and the people behind it tried to remain anonymous, but we found out that they were church people. That ad was published the day before the election when it was far too late to respond and reply. It was an attempt to buy an election with money instead of with truth and ideas. I want to know how fair that is. How is that democratic? How is it fair and democratic that people who do not identify themselves can spend as much as they like to sway the result of an election?

I support the Electoral Finance Bill because elections should not be decided by the largest wallet. I support the Electoral Finance Bill because it is about ensuring that no one can buy an election result. I support the Electoral Finance Bill because the best ideas should win, not the best-funded ones. I want to remind this House of what happened when money had its way in New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s. We saw a fire sale of our assets. Was it just a coincidence that the people who were buying those assets at knock-down, fire-sale prices were the same people who handed out tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to the political parties doing the selling? We saw the interests of New Zealand put in second place, and we are still paying the price for it.

Some of us sat in this Chamber right through that period. John Key might have been offered overseas cocktails parties with the donors he now wants to let buy as many votes as they can afford; some of us were not. We have not forgotten what was done to New Zealand and the enormous cost of it. What an amazing coincidence that the same people who bought the assets were the people who paid enormous sums of money to the political parties of the day. What a coincidence that whatever those donors wanted, they got. The interests of New Zealanders were relegated behind the interests of the companies of the rich buyers of our assets.

Even if one does not believe that the policy was bought, look at the perceptions that policy followed money. Look at the damage those perceptions did to the fabric of our democracy and to the respect for the political process. That sort of politics has no place in New Zealand. This legislation helps to erect a wall against the anti-democratic sale and purchase of electoral influence. The bill says that parties that take huge secret donations must tell us to whom they are in hock, whom they owe favours to, and what they are going to do in order to get the money.

When Deep Throat exposed Richard Nixon and Watergate, he told the reporters at the Washington Post to follow the money. This principle is as old as wisdom. We used to say: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” We want to know who is paying so that we might better understand what the electoral tune is. If Watergate had happened here, the New Zealand Herald would have praised the money that paid for the conspiracy. Instead of Woodward and Bernstein, we would have had editorials praising the President for protecting the rights of anyone to buy political favours. Instead of sending reporters out to expose the scandal, the New Zealand Herald’s editor would have sent out a sales team to ask for a cut.

I wish we could rely on an independent news media to expose the influence of big money in this country, but the record shows that we cannot. The record shows that newspapers take the money in advertising and then shut up about it. Look at the New Zealand Herald letting its greed get in the way of its objectivity. The New Zealand Herald campaigns to let anyone buy elections. The New Zealand Herald campaigns because it knows what side its bread is buttered on. It knows that it does not raise concerns when its pages are being used to buy votes. It does not object when its own pages are used unfairly. It takes 30 pieces of silver and sits compromised to the core of its soul. If members look at the editorials of the New Zealand Herald over 100 years, they will find exactly the same kind of stand as now. Members will find that the New Zealand Herald was wrong when it did it then and it is wrong when it does it now.

If newspapers will not do the job of making elections fair, someone else has to. We need to limit the role of big money, to protect our democracy. This bill puts a cap on the amount of money anyone can spend to lobby for their point of view. So it poses a question to opponents of this bill: how much money is too much to spend influencing an election? Is it $1 million? Is it $5 million? Is it $10 million? Is it $20 million? If there is no cap on the amount that should be spent, then we are saying our democracy should be for sale. If there is no cap, then we do not have a democracy; we have an auction. If there is no cap on election spending, then we might as well turn Parliament over to TradeMe. If we accept that there should be some limit on the amount people are spending, then we are merely debating the quantum.

Members cannot tell me that fundamental issues of democracy are not at stake here. If I say the limit should be $1 and those members say it should be $2, what is fundamental about that? No; the fundamental issue is whether there should be any cap, at all. I want National members to state plainly during this debate that they believe there should be no limit on anonymous donations—that there should be no limit to what can be bought with those sacks full of cash.

I wonder what the National members have in mind. It is no coincidence that National has only announced one policy for next year’s election—selling assets. Here we go again—unlimited money in our politics and an unlimited fire sale of the public’s family silver. The pigs are trying to get into the trough again. They cannot wait to get their noses into it. The National Party has already sold its policy. When National members say they will repeal this legislation, what do they mean? Do they mean that National will not have any electoral finance laws, at all? Do they mean that people will be able to spend as much as they like? Do they mean that anyone will be able to give any amount of cash to the National Party without declaring it? I wonder what the National Party wants. If National members are saying that there should not be some limit on the ability of anonymous people to buy elections, then—

Hon Maurice Williamson: Tell us about Mike Moore’s view.

Hon JIM ANDERTON: Yeah—think about it. Yes, I have heard Mike Moore. I was in this House when Mike Moore was here. I know about Mike Moore.

If National members are saying that people should be able to spend what they like in an election, then they are saying that people who spend more money should have more say. That is not democracy; that is a disgrace against the most fundamental ideas of civilised organisation. This bill should be supported by all members of this House.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) : Where is the leadership of the Labour Government, when it is under more pressure than it has been for 8 years? Where is Helen Clark, who should be backing the legislation that her Cabinet signed off? Where is the brave rising star, Phil Goff? Where is the ever-angry and principled Dr Cullen? It is typical of Helen Clark that the organ grinder has sent the monkey today to articulate the visceral disgust that Labour has of anyone who criticises it. I have never heard such vitriol about the media in this House—even from the former member for Tauranga. This vitriol came from a member whose party has accepted anonymous donations and who was president of the Labour Party that funded its 1987 campaign through all of the people he condemns today.

I advise the member Jim Anderton of one inconvenient fact. Today he talked about the fact that the Electoral Finance Bill stops anonymous donors buying elections. He sat in a Cabinet that approved the original draft of the bill that had no restrictions in it on anonymous donations—despite the fact that the National Party had said publicly for months that it supported restrictions on anonymous donations. That is a measure of how insincere Labour’s arguments are. It presented legislation with no restrictions on anonymous donations, and now it is using the restrictions forced on it by the Greens as being the sole reason for the legislation. That is why the Labour leadership will not front up to defend this legislation.

The member also talked about big money and buying votes. Well, who would be experts on that but Labour? He said $1 million was big money. Today the Government gave us a Budget update. It has $3.5 billion that it will use to buy the next election. So it does not matter which way we look at it: this legislation is all about entrenching the right of Government and the political establishment to use big public money to buy elections, and no one will be able to stop it. The Government can give hundreds of millions of dollars in tertiary funding, and it can use Government political advertising to promote this—as the Government will do next year. An MP has a big public budget and can say that he or she has the hundreds of millions of dollars for polytechs and universities. But if one wants to oppose it—

Shane Ardern: You can’t!

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, one can, but if one spends more than $12,000, one has to register as a third party and appoint a financial agent. One has to present returns of donations and returns of expenses, and one can be personally subject to a search warrant. If someone is suspected of spending more than $12,000—when the Government is spending $1 billion—the police can search that person’s house under this legislation. If someone broke the law, that person could be fined $100,000 or be locked up for 2 years.

So what will happen is that people who want to oppose this Government will ask their lawyers, and their lawyers will explain just the process I have explained. Well-meaning, well-intentioned people—like the people of my home province of Southland—will be worried. In this small democracy, this great democracy, the good citizens of Southland will be worried about whether they can legally hold a political opinion in an election year without facing the threat of imprisonment. The former member for Tauranga—the great radical, anti-establishment figure—is all in favour of that.

The other ridiculous thing about this legislation is that if I stand up in Southland, or if my colleague Eric Roy stands up, and we say “Vote Labour out. They are trying to shut down the Southern Institute of Technology.”, that will be legal. If Tim Shadbolt gets up and says it, it could be illegal and he could be arrested. That is how ridiculous this legislation is. It says that a private citizen or a community organisation faces tight rules and less money, but a politician or a Government has no rules and a lot more money. That is the ultimate arrogance.

You see, this is not about big money from the citizenship or from the community; this is about entrenching and defending the right of politicians to spend someone else’s money on influencing elections. If we listened to Jim Anderton, we would think that it had never occurred to a politician to use public money to influence an election, that politicians are purely motivated by the good of the country, and that everyone else is a rip-off merchant trying to do something secretly to influence people in corrupt ways. That is what New Zealand First and Labour believe. They believe that the people running the campaign from Southland about the Southern Institute of Technology are venal, self-interested, and probably trying to corrupt the system. They believe that the Minister who is flying up and down spending millions of dollars of public money is purely motivated, and that he or she should have more say. For every election that I have stood in, and the dozens that went before it, MPs and people—normal public people—were subject to the same law. For 3 months before the election it was one law for the politicians and the same law for everyone else, but Labour has decided to exempt MPs.

What a mess Annette King has made of this legislation. The public have trampled all over the Electoral Finance Bill, but the Electoral Finance Bill has trampled all over her reputation. To show the paranoia of the Labour Government, Annette King tried to define the use of public money in a way that would prevent the Opposition from telling the public what it would do after the election. And these are the people who say we have no policy! Labour was going to make having a policy almost illegal.

Here is another little pearler. [Interruption] The member who is yelling down the back there, Jill Pettis, got $9,500 of anonymous donations in the last election. This legislation tells us much more about the character of the Labour Government than it does about anything else. It shows that it cannot take criticism. It shows that it wants to extend its culture of bullying and manipulation in the civil service to the rest of the public. But it tells us something else that is very important. The Labour Party and Helen Clark cannot conceive of a public good that is separate from the good of the Labour Party. They cannot conceive of it. Their belief is that people who criticise them are against the Labour Government, and that is why they criticise them.

I want to tell Labour, from my experience in politics, that often one’s critics are right. Often they are advocating a public good that one cannot see oneself. I am sure that right now Labour members are saying that the people who run the Southern Institute of Technology spend all their time planning to get Labour. Well, actually they do not. It has a community interest in what happens to its own institutions, as communities right through the country do. That is the ultimate arrogance. Labour cannot see a public good that is separate from what is good for Labour. Well, this legislation is bad for Labour—that is obvious—but it is terrible for New Zealand. It is an anti-democratic drift-net. It will not do what Labour says it will do. We will repeal the legislation because it is a case of the Government using its constitutional majority for partisan advantage, and it has to go.

• Debate interrupted.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : The New Zealand First Party believes in capitalism as the best way, socially and economically, to organise the affairs of society. But when we talk about capitalism we talk about responsible capitalism of the type articulated by men like Benjamin Disraeli, and Keith Holyoake in the 1950s and 1960s in New Zealand. We do not talk about the elitism, the autocracy, the oligarchy, or the special interests that certain people in this Parliament represent today and nothing else. That is the modern National Party. It is light years away from what it used to be, and Mr English had the audacity to stand up here today repeating myths and shibboleths that are not true. He knows that they are absurd, but because he has an attentive audience from the foreign-owned principal media of this country, namely the Christchurch Press, the Dominion Post, and the New Zealand Herald, he knows he can get coverage.

Let me ask members this question. Did the New Zealand Herald complain back in 1993 when the National Party shut down another political party from advertising on any occasion in the campaign on radio or TV? Did the New Zealand Herald complain? Did the Dominion Post complain? Did that great doyen of the free and the faithful, the Christchurch Press, complain? Not a word, not a sound, not a mutter, not a murmur. That is what principle is about in this Parliament. This party over here got $1.4 million in the last campaign in secret trusts. Where did it come from? This party gets more than $7 million every year now. The taxpayer pays the National Party, above all other parties, $7 million - plus to prosecute its parliamentary business. Now tell me, why would a party want an uncapped fund after getting $7 million from the taxpayers?

What is mysterious about this whole campaign over the Electoral Finance Bill is this. We are trying to find out whose freedom of speech is going to be suppressed. Has anybody told members whose freedom of speech is going to be suppressed? Well, I have not heard. Here comes the second mystery. What do the opponents of the bill want to say from now until the next election, and why would they want to spend millions of dollars buying space to say it? What do the opponents of this bill want to say from now until the next election, and why would they want millions of dollars to say that?

R Doug Woolerton: They shouldn’t need it.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: They should not need it; that is exactly right. If National members’ attention span can manage it, they should think about this. There is so much free speech around that we are swamped with it. We hear it all the time, whether or not we want to listen. Listen to the talkback shows. There is enough free speech to keep a small town going 24 hours a day—there is so much hot air. Everybody has a view from the All Blacks to, dare I say it, Nicky Watson. Everybody has a view about everything. We have never had so much free speech in this country’s history. Why are we being warned every day by the National Party and its rich friends that this freedom of speech is to be taken away from us?

Charles Chauvel: Mendacious civil rights.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Mendacious civil rights? They still do not know what that means. They could be given millions in a campaign on literacy and they would still not be any wiser at the end of the process. But here is my point. What is it that has been taken away from New Zealanders that these paragons of democratic virtue—in the National Party of all parties—are seeking to defend? Bill English gets up in a right lather, posturing as he does, and giving his legal views, which are not worth the paper they are written on. They are wrong, they are false; nobody is going to be denied a chance to speak up at the next election.

I just want to say this to my friend Tim Shadbolt before he makes a mistake. It was a New Zealand First Treasurer who uncapped the funding to tertiary institutions in this country back in 1998. That is a fact. For the first time the funding was uncapped. He should read the fine print and he will not be so alarmed. But if he thinks he has a friend in the National Party he has lost it—he has lost his fine political instincts. If he thinks the National Party will help him, my poor friend Tim has lost his political touch, so I say to Tim: “Be careful.”

New Zealand First is happy for the National Party to have all the opportunity it needs for freedom of speech, because we just might hear a policy. Can I ask these questions? What is the National Party’s policy on Working for Families? What is its policy on medical care for all ages? What is its policy on the Reserve Bank legislation? What is its policy on, for example, KiwiSaver? What is its policy on tertiary education funding, or latchkey kids? What is its policy on asset sales? What is its policy on foreign banks price gouging New Zealanders? What is its policy on business taxes to come? The National Party does not have a policy. I have some little doubts about this, because I would like National to have enough money to sell its policies. But, of course, it will not cost much, because right now we have not heard one—on anything.

Hon Maurice Williamson: What does Garth McVicar think of this?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Let me tell the member that if Garth McVicar thinks he is helping the sensible sentencing cause by lining up with the National Party, then he has sold the cause down the drain.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, yes! I remember the National Party’s last policy on law and order. Do members know what it was? National spent $340 million on a computer called INCIS. That computer was such a brilliant piece of technology, it would go out and arrest all the lawless in our society! Garth McVicar should know that $340 million was the cost of the last law and order policy that the National Party put up before the country. Do members know what happened? The computer’s operators could not get it to work.

Hon Maurice Williamson: What does Grey Power say?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I was down at Nelson with Grey Power last Friday, and I say to Maurice Williamson that its members are still cheering.

Hon Maurice Williamson: Oh yeah?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: They are still cheering, because, for the first time, they heard the truth. Up until then they had been hearing the shibboleths from one Nick Smith. So we can see why they were confused. What is the National Party’s policy on Fonterra—come on—or on Television New Zealand—

Dr Wayne Mapp: What has this to do with the Electoral Finance Bill?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It has everything to do with it. I say to Dr Mapp that is why we want to know who is backing National, because we are not going to have the kind of covert money that is destroying democracy in some countries in the Pacific today. Oh yes! Dr Mapp from Auckland University used to understand this, at one time. Does he remember when the National Party was selling the BNZ?

Dr Wayne Mapp: Get back on the topic.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Does he remember that the National Party sold the BNZ? He was a councillor for the National Party, was he not? [Interruption] Yes he was. So the National Party sold the BNZ—

Hon Maurice Williamson: They did not “sell” the BNZ; they bailed it out.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, it did. It was 22 October 1992—do members not remember? The BNZ, 30 percent—[Interruption] No, no. Who sold it to the National Australia Bank? The sale of the BNZ to the National Australia Bank was effected by the National Party, yet the front bench of the National Party are denying it. There is Maurice Williamson, a front-bench member of the National Party, who cannot remember yesterday. What is its policy today? It is still the same old policy.

National says that if this law were only for the 3 months out from an election, it would be OK. What an amazing confession! If the law were only for the last 3 months of an election campaign, then National says it would be OK. So what is the issue here? The issue is that National could not spend all the money that it has been given, over and above the $7 million the taxpayer gives it every year. Can we imagine Holyoake worrying about this legislation? Can we imagine Marshall worrying about this legislation? Can we imagine Adam Hamilton worrying about the legislation? Can we even imagine Muldoon being concerned about this? Of course, he would not, because he would be out there doing some real campaigning at public meetings, not organising photo opportunities at the New Zealand Herald, and advertising, and DVDs, and stealing somebody else’s copyright on songs. That is what has happened here.

The National Party has lost it! It needs this money to disguise the inability of its front bench. It is the worst, most hopeless, untalented front bench the National Party has ever had. Come on! I ask Doug Woolerton, because he and I have been around a long time, we had been in the National Party for a long time—long before these current guys—whether that front bench is the worst he has ever seen.

R Doug Woolerton: Absolutely!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There you are; that is the voice of an expert. So we all agree.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : The Green Party is pleased with the changes that the House is making to the financing of election campaigns. The Greens respect the fact that there are good reasons for the boundaries this legislation places on the purchase of advertising and other campaign material. We are proud to have severely limited the anonymous donations that political parties can receive for electioneering purposes. We agree that such constraints are necessary in a free and democratic society that values a level playing field and fairer elections.

It is somewhat ironic that those who purport to be champions of individualism and freedom of speech are the ones opposing the bill, because they are opposing the very precepts on which this modern democratic system we participate in was built. They are opposing the principles of equality that their, and my, forebears sought to honour when they first arrived in this country. My ancestors, Susannah and Henry Hawes, arrived in Karamea, from the ship Michelangelo, which left Gravesend in 1874. Susannah was a pioneer of the West Coast. She came to this country to build a new life for herself and for her children. We can see in her writings, many of which have survived, that she had a great deal of hope and enthusiasm for her new life and her new country. She built her life here as part of a migration that sought to escape the inequality of the old country—the inequality of birth, wealth, and privilege.

When she arrived here the representative Government had been in place for about 22 years, and from the outset the potential for money to corrupt the political process in New Zealand had been both recognised and countered, and the need for restraints had begun to be incorporated into law. As early as 1858 a law was passed to prohibit treating, bribery of, and the undue influence of money on, our politicians. Politicians were not to be bought in our young New Zealand. In 1881, just a few years after Susannah’s arrival, the first rules to define campaign election spending were passed. They imposed caps on how much money candidates could spend on their campaign. In 1895 the cap was set at ₤200.

These early rules that constrained the ways that money would be allowed to influence politics and politicians, were integral to the new parliamentary system. Our ancestors knew exactly how the privilege of money and class could interfere with political expression, and they quickly created systems to prevent that interference. The clarity of our ancestors’ thinking on that score puts the current debate on this bill to shame. As new arrivals, they could have been forgiven for creating a utopian system of unfettered liberties; instead, they tried to ensure that their intention of building a new system came to pass—or at least they gave it their best shot. It was to be a system where money, class, the ownership of property, and accidents of gender were not left to become the iron determinants of political engagement. Instead, people built a system that elevated the place of opportunity and merit, that privileged openness and free speech and, above all, that sought to make fairness its distinguishing feature.

The Green Party is proud to uphold that principle. We are proud to have defended it against attacks on it by those who would interfere with its political expression through the privilege of wealth. Over the intervening years our rules have gradually been developed to take into account our growing nation and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The 1986 report from the Royal Commission on the Electoral System was a watershed report on the impacts of money on political campaigning. Its recommendations came 95 years after the first limits on campaign spending. The commission argued, and rightly I believe, that if there were one area where our community should reasonably tolerate some limitations on the freedom of expression, it would be in the systems of how we elect our Government.

This has been the defining question in the debate over the bill—the question of whether it limits freedom of speech. Yes, the bill limits how much can be spent on advertising, thus extending the laws that New Zealand has had in place for over a century. We have two interesting examples of the use of money in such a context. We have the current example of the Southern Institute of Technology and its campaign in its newspaper advertisements. Under this bill, the institute’s campaign advertisements are not electioneering; they are issues advertising so they are not covered by this bill.

We also have a changing political process. We have got rid of door-knocking now—that traditional practice. Instead, we have very expensive phone spamming by Canadian call centres, which will ring 70,000 households—just like that—in order to drum up support for a dying campaign. Yes, this legislation requires transparency by those who are engaged in the electioneering campaign, and the Greens are pleased we were able to expose the rort of 2005 before it could seriously contaminate the election process. This bill helps to protect us against that rort and that kind of corruption. We have obvious examples from other, similar jurisdictions overseas where corruption has infected the political system. US democracy has become a commodity that is routinely bought and sold.

Members should make no mistake: advertising works. In New Zealand the advertising industry is worth more than $2 billion a year. Nobody would spend that kind of money unless it was effective. Democracy in the US, in fact, relies on marketing for its very existence. Who can stand for election and whose message will prevail depends on the donors, and the ongoing flows of cash and donations have come to depend on the elective representatives remembering to pay the piper. It is a form of democracy that has virtually no life at all outside the classic examples, where donations determine who gets to stand and who gets to succeed.

So why do institutions and individuals donate? The driver is a hunger for money by political parties but, despite public funding in other comparable jurisdictions, the hunger explains the driver only in part, because donors want parties and, hopefully, Governments to be beholden to them and to be preferred over their business competitors. It is a neat, cosy arrangement and it grows more blatant. Parties in Australia now openly call for donations that provide access to the Prime Minister or Premier at rates of $10,000. It costs less to get to see a Minister. All of the donors want access, and, some would reasonably argue, favours.

In New Zealand we seem to have accepted that there is a situation of donations to political parties, provided that the donation, the giver, and the receiver are known—that is, disclosure is the key for us. The Greens, to the best extent we could negotiate, have ensured that we have severely restricted the capacity for anonymous donations to be made to political parties, so that the public can know more about who is funding their political representatives and their political campaigns, and can then assess their policy positions in response. We have exposed the secret trusts to the disinfectant of sunlight. We have exposed the rorts of the 2005 election and we do not want those rorts to happen again. We have closed those loopholes. For parties that are in Government, such public scrutiny of funders and policy preferences is critical, and the Greens have made that scrutiny by the public easier through the provisions in this legislation.

The Greens will continue to work for better campaign funding law. This legislation does not do everything right, and we need better work done. That is why we have advocated so strongly for a citizens’ assembly. A citizens’ assembly would comprise two people selected from each electorate, who would work together as a group with advisers and a secretariat to consider New Zealand’s historical situation and comparable jurisdictions. It would hold public hearings, and would work towards developing a new campaign funding law that is about the New Zealand situation. This is what we have been advocating for nearly a year. Such an assembly would enable the citizens of our country to devise election funding rules that meet the changing needs of a society that is sophisticated and technologically savvy, but that at heart upholds the founding principles of the parliamentary democracy our forebears brought to this country—principles of transparency, equality, and fairness. In short, we need Kiwi politicians with no strings attached.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. Over these last few months of intense and passionate debate about the Electoral Finance Bill, one email stood out for me, because it said a lot about who we are as a Māori Party. I paraphrase part of that email here: “We are not members of the Exclusive Brethren. We are not members of the ACT party. We are not members of the National Party. We are not members of John Boscawen’s team, as Helen Clark scathingly and incorrectly called those who marched in Auckland against this bill.”

We are the Māori Party, and I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight on our party’s position on this legislation. We are the Māori Party, and, contrary to the Government’s claims, this legislation is not being attacked only by those New Zealanders who are able to pour thousands of dollars into electioneering campaigns to buy influence in Government. We are the Māori Party, with nothing behind us save the tens of thousands of voters who put us here and our absolute commitment to the well-being of those voters, and I tell everyone now that we are opposed to the Electoral Finance Bill. We are the Māori Party with not a bean to our name—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There used to be a Standing Order in this Parliament, a Standing Order that I think still pertains. This is a debating chamber, and when someone brings a laptop down here, puts it on top of his desk, and reads out his or her speech from it word for word, then I think it diminishes this Parliament. It diminishes the whole debate, because it means that no matter what is said, we do not know whether it is the member’s view or the research office’s view. That is the point here.

What has happened to this Parliament when someone can get up in the House and read out his or her speech word for word from a laptop, particularly when that person is a Māori? Māori are meant to have oratorical skills. Why is a laptop needed? But here is the point: how does it help the debate? I think we should look seriously into what is going on here.

Rodney Hide: The Rt Hon Winston Peters is right, up to a point. Up until 1996 it was not possible for members to read out their speeches, but since then the Standing Orders have changed. I noticed that Mr Peters, throughout the delivery of his speech, made liberal use of papers in front of him. Indeed, it has been the case in this Parliament for well over 10 years that laptops have been able to be brought into the House and used in delivering speeches. I commend the Māori Party for being up with the times and making use of a laptop. Reading a speech from a laptop in this way is no different from reading out speeches written and printed off for a member by a researcher, as in Mr Peters’ case.

Ron Mark: It is very well and fine for Mr Hide to raise a point of order, but he knew the inaccuracies he was making as he articulated them. That can be proven by tabling both the Hansard of the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ speech and a copy of the document he was holding while he was speaking. Mr Hide would then see that they do not match at all.

But the point here is that we have heard a lot in this debate about the waste of taxpayers’ money. The member on his feet is a man who is paid $130,000 to come here and speak, and to stand up here and read out from a laptop the words that a researcher has put before him is not actually to do his job; it is simply to read out what the researcher has given him to read out

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I will rule on this point of order. The Standing Orders have been—

HONE HARAWIRA: I take exception to what the member just said.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Wait on, I am just dealing with the point of order that has been raised, specifically. I ask that there be silence while we are dealing with it. The Standing Orders have been changed. The member is allowed to do what he was doing. Furthermore, instructions from the Speaker on 15 August 2007 on the use of laptops and mobile devices in the Chamber state that these may be used after question time. The member is allowed to use a laptop.

HONE HARAWIRA: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I would like to confirm, for the benefit of those members from New Zealand First, that I wrote this speech myself, completely.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): No, that is not an issue, at all. It is not a point of order. Was that the member’s point of order?

HONE HARAWIRA: Yes.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): OK, that is fine. Please continue.

HONE HARAWIRA: I hope this has not affected my time, Madam Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): No, it has not.

HONE HARAWIRA: Hei kōreroanō, mēnā e hiahiaana a Winitana Pita kia kōreroMāorimāua, ka pai tērā; engari, e kore ia e mōhioana ki taku reo.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[In addition, should Winston Peters want us two to converse in Māori, that is fine; but he will not understand my language.]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): That was not a—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. First of all, the principal language this Parliament uses is English. The second thing I want to say is that if I wanted to consult an expert in te reo, I would not be consulting Hone Harawira; I would consult someone who is qualified.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): That was not really a point of order, either.

HONE HARAWIRA: I want to make the point that if I wish to speak in Māori at any time, I will do so.

We are the Māori Party, with not a bean to our name, but we still turned down $250,000 rather than compromise our independence, and for the same reasons we are opposed to this bill. We are the Māori Party, and we were angry with both the divisive “Iwi/Kiwi” campaign run by National and the nasty “a vote for the Māori Party is a vote for National” campaign run by Labour, because we did not have the wherewithal to counteract either. Yet still we are opposed to this bill. We are the Māori Party, with not a bean to our name, but we stand free in this House, answerable to no one but our own people, uncompromised by shady deals with either of the major parties, and we are proud to say that we are opposed to this electoral finance legislation.

Yes, like most New Zealanders we were horrified at the revelations of secret trust accounts and the millions of dollars being spent by other groups in support of the campaigns of both Labour and National. And, yes, we agree that Parliament should pass laws to prevent the undue influence that lobbyists can have on our electoral process. But, unlike Labour, our focus is not only on the rich, the very rich, and the obscenely rich. We also saw unions spending heaps of money to undermine us at the last election. It was a classic third-party attack to try to link Māori Party votes with National, when in fact our voting pattern has always been more in line with that of the Greens. And I am proud to say that regardless of all the big money offered to us, and the nasty underhand tactics used against us, the Māori Party stands by its kaupapa of opposing corruption, opposing illegality, and opposing the abuse of power in all its forms.

And, yes, the Exclusive Brethren’s million-dollar anti-Labour - anti-Greens campaign was beyond the pale, but I cannot help but smell the filthy stench of hypocrisy from the Labour Party in its attack on the Brethren—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): No, the member must withdraw that comment. He cannot accuse a person or a party of hypocrisy. Please withdraw.

HONE HARAWIRA: I withdraw—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Thank you.

HONE HARAWIRA: And apologise?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Yes, thank you.

HONE HARAWIRA: I am happy to apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Thank you.

HONE HARAWIRA: It was not the Exclusive Brethren on whom the police had prima facie evidence of electoral finance mismanagement, was it? Heck, no—it was the Labour Party. Does everybody remember that? The cops said that they had a prima facie case of electoral mismanagement against the Prime Minister’s very own private secretary, but they did not want to press charges against an individual for what was clearly the work of a group of people. And it was that very same Labour Party that then set up a special deal with its mates to rewrite the law to let the party keep doing what it did last time, while gagging the voices of the Opposition.

Members should make no mistake: the Māori Party stands firmly against the kind of overwhelming financial firepower that only parties like National can boast of. But as we sit here and listen to all the doomsayers from Labour prattle on about the destructive power of overseas influence, let me just point out to anyone who does not think that our Governments are not already controlled by overseas interests, that they need only look at the Waihopai spy base to realise that our nation’s security—indeed, our nation’s very sovereignty—is already compromised by the existence of a super-secret operation to spy on the people of the Pacific, right here on New Zealand soil, and controlled not from Wellington but from Washington.

To those people who think that money wins elections, I say to take a look at the good old US of A, where 3 years ago billionaire Democrat Norman Lear and his mates spent more than $15 million to try to push George Bush out of office and buy the election for John Kerry. Well, that did not work too well, did it? George Bush is now President Bush and John Kerry is “John Who?”. What about the senior Republican senator who spent $42 million on his election race, and still came second?

Yes, folks—money talks. But nothing talks quite like the truth, and the truth about this bill is that it is nothing but an arrogant dismissal by this Labour-led Government to deny the citizens of Aotearoa - New Zealand the right to participate in one of the fundamental rights of any so-called democratic society: how we elect our Government. And, no, we will not be fobbed off by any talk that this legislation is only about election finances, because it ain’t. If this were only about election finances, then why did this Labour Government push through special legislation to validate its $800,000 overspend at the last election rather than let the legal process take its natural course? If this were only about election finances, then why did this Labour Government not ask the Auditor-General and the Electoral Commission to present a range of options for public consideration, and for presentation to this House? If this were only about election finances, then why does the Human Rights Commission say that this bill is a dramatic assault on fundamental human rights, freedom of expression, and the right to participate in the electoral process?

R Doug Woolerton: Not in the second letter, they didn’t.

HONE HARAWIRA: That is right; they did not. If this were only about election finances, then why did the Human Rights Commission say that even this rewritten, flea-bitten, revised, patched-up, and unrecognised version should still have been given back to the public for full discussion and debate? I will tell the House why. Because this legislation is not just about election finances; it is about the sweet scent of power and the lust for control. It is about the decadence of corruption, the stench of deceit, and the refusal to accept the reality of impending defeat.

Yes, there have been amendments—hell, we even voted for one of them. But, given the constitutional importance of legislation that will play a critical role in determining how the next election will be fought, stitching up this deal behind closed doors and then adding a veneer of democracy through a select committee process is nothing but a sick joke. Mind you, this Government’s denying the people of Aotearoa the right to open a public debate on the process by which we manage the next election, is right up there with its changing the law to bypass any serious questioning of its expenditure at the last election.

The Māori Party will not be party to legislation that is clearly aimed at restricting freedom of speech. We will not be party to this desperate attempt by Labour to stay in power, at the expense of the fundamental human rights of the citizens of this country. We will not be party to legislation designed to put fear into those who would speak their mind, by forcing them to run the gauntlet of registration, audit, notification, financial agency, monitoring, reporting, scrutiny, and penalty. And we will not be party to a bill that slams the door on Opposition spending, while it allows the Government to continue to spend millions on promoting its own policies and programmes.

The Māori Party was born out of Māoridom’s absolute rejection of this Labour Government’s arrogant denial of our basic human rights to the foreshore and seabed, and with the same vigour and determination we will reject this legislation that rewrites the law to allow this Government to stay in power. Money is not what drives people to vote; it is truth. I sincerely hope and pray that those who have sacrificed truth for the delusion of power that overwhelms this decadent and depraved legislation will come to see the folly of their ways when the people reject this sham, come election 2008. Kia ora tātou.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) : United Future supported the introduction and development of the Electoral Finance Bill because we believed that it was important to tidy up the excesses of the last election in order to ensure that New Zealand continued to have a fair and open electoral system into the future. We still do believe that, which is why we have worked in the select committee and elsewhere to improve the legislation and to remove its most obnoxious features. We believe that that has been achieved, and we have continued to support the legislation through its second reading and the Committee of the whole House, despite our very deep concerns about the partisan way in which it has been developed. We would have strongly preferred there to be a genuine multi-party involvement in the development of this legislation, given that there was—at least, initially—a measure of common ground apparent on some of the issues it was likely to cover.

Over recent weeks, partly but not solely in response to a well-orchestrated campaign, it has become clear that many New Zealanders have deep unease about the legislation and its provisions as they perceive them. Many hundreds of people have contacted me through letters, emails, our party website, and other sources to let me know what they think about this legislation and, contrary to what some may think, I have read personally every item of communication delivered to me.

Although some of those measures have contained the usual outpourings of abuse and partisanship, which I have properly disregarded, and others have been plainly misinformed, many have also come from people within my electorate and around the country whose views I genuinely respect. In particular, I have been struck by the messages from individuals with no special political axe to grind, who genuinely fear that this legislation will limit their right to freedom of speech and expression. I am not talking about lobby interest groups that have a vested interest to pursue, but about average citizens who feel affronted by what they consider to be an attack on the essential freedoms they enjoy as New Zealanders. Various efforts made by me and others to persuade them that this is not the case have not succeeded, and it is pointless to continue attempting to do so.

All of this brings me to the legislation itself. No matter what it states, or how well it has been crafted, or what official interpretations are placed upon it, the court of public opinion is holding it to be a self-serving attack on the freedom of our electoral process. That perception has become the new reality, whatever we in this House may think of it. So the dilemma we as a party and I as an individual legislator face is this: should we continue to put in place legislation that we know is failing the test of public credibility? The answer we have come to is that we should not.

During the life of a Parliament there are likely to be many pieces of legislation passed that are unpopular, and this legislation could be just another one of those. There will be those who say that members of Parliament need to be able to stand against the public pressure on these matters, in the wider interests of doing what is right. We are elected here to lead our country, not to blow aimlessly like straws in the wind, they would argue, and that is so. That is why United Future works constructively and cooperatively with the Labour-led Government, through our confidence and supply agreement, to achieve the policies we believe are in the best interests of the country, and that is why we remain committed to doing so for at least the balance of this parliamentary term.

However, this legislation is not just another piece of unpopular legislation. Because of its nature and its content, it goes far beyond that. There comes an occasional time when a blind adherence to leading the country gives way to what some might see as a form of arrogance, and where the perception of being a straw in the wind is outweighed by the necessity of being seen to listen to what the people are saying. This legislation has become one of those occasions.

The blunt truth is that New Zealanders have gone beyond caring about its content; they simply mistrust it. I immediately acknowledge the rich ironies here. Many of the same people were, and remain, properly horrified at the antics of the last election, and they would be appalled if our election process ever became subverted by big money. They do not want to know what secrets parties have; they do want to know who is pulling the party strings. But their mistrust has developed because, those views notwithstanding, they do not see this legislation so much as a genuine attempt to resolve those problems as more a case of political utu. Legislation perceived in that way cannot succeed. A more robust and transparent process of independent review of all aspects of election funding—including the provisions of this legislation and vexed issues such as the State funding of political parties and maybe even a fixed election date—is a far better way to proceed. United Future has listened carefully to the views and feelings of New Zealanders. Consequently, we have come to the conclusion that we can no longer support the passage of the legislation.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I commend Mr Peter Dunne and United Future for the stand they have taken today and for saying that in their view the law is OK but public perception is against it and that, therefore, they will vote against this legislation.

What we have had here, irrespective of one’s view of this legislation, is a very poor process by which it has been developed. I think that the poor process is at the heart of the concern that Mr Dunne has identified. I look across to the Labour members, I look across to New Zealand First, and I look to the Greens—

Jill Pettis: We looked for you once, but you were dancing.

RODNEY HIDE: —and I would say to them that if we are to develop an electoral system, a donation regime for political parties, and a set of rules the citizens of New Zealand can follow that will stand the test of time, then we need a proper process. We need a process that is independent of the political parties, that engages with the public, and that then comes back to this Parliament for Parliament to consider.

We have here a mixture of revenge, envy, political partisanship, and political opportunism—the worst possible process that we could have for developing our electoral law. The result of it, whatever we may think of the legislation, is a bad outcome from the point of view of public perception. We have already had the major Opposition party say that it will repeal it, so it will not last if there should be a change of Government. That is not the way to be developing electoral law in this country.

Ron Mark: Who’s going to help them?

RODNEY HIDE: Let me turn here, I say to Mr Mark—and I would tell Ms Pettis to listen to this—to why the ACT party opposes this legislation. We oppose this legislation not only because of the process but also because of the law itself. I cannot believe that Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Party would be passing, on the last day of the parliamentary year, a law of State censorship of New Zealanders’ right to speak out to criticise a Government, a political party, or a policy. That is a fundamental right of every New Zealander.

Jill Pettis: You lot just want to buy an election. Is it OK to buy an election?

RODNEY HIDE: I say to Ms Pettis that it is not about the financing of political parties; it is about the right of New Zealanders to speak out against a Government, against a political party, and against a policy that they oppose. It should be a free right of all New Zealanders to be able to speak out—not just on talkback and by door-knocking but by spending their own money on organising, and by spending their own money on pamphlets. That should be the fundamental right of every New Zealander.

It may be that the Labour Party, the National Party, or the ACT party do not like the criticism, but each and every one of us in this Parliament should be standing up for the right of New Zealanders to express their political opinions. Regardless of whether we believe it is right, whether we believe it is wrong, or whether we believe it is true or untrue, we should be defending the right of New Zealanders to have their political views.

Jill Pettis: So how come you didn’t say anything when National closed off the rolls a month before the election in 1993? How come you didn’t say anything then?

RODNEY HIDE: I can understand why Jill Pettis is against that, having listened to her yell and scream, and try to shut down the debate even in this House.

I say to the Labour Party, New Zealand First, and to the Green Party that for me it has been a sad day to sit in this House and listen to the partisan views, and to hear the attacks on the New Zealand media when those members say the media is wrong because they do not agree with this legislation. I have listened to the attacks made on Mr John Boscawen, a citizen who stood up against this legislation, and on everyone who stands up against this legislation as though somehow those people are wrong or badly motivated.

I say that it is a sad day when the Prime Minister of New Zealand cannot be here, on this day, to debate this most vicious attack on New Zealanders’ ability to express a political view. Why can New Zealanders not stand up, say what they believe about politics, and spend their own money doing so? What does Labour have to fear? What does New Zealand have to fear? What does the Green Party have to fear? Why is it that if a New Zealander wants to have a political view, he or she now has to register with the Government? How is it possible that we have to register with the Government to express a political view, and to spend our own money? That is what we are doing here, and we are capping what people can spend.

I say that the confusion on this legislation is simple. Somehow we have confused two great principles—the principle of free speech and the principle of democracy. The principle of democracy is one person, one vote. That is the principle of a democratic country—one person, one vote. That is what we should be standing up for here. There is another principle, and it is called the principle of free speech. That means that we should be able to speak our own minds. [Interruption] I say to Mr Mark that that also means we should be able to spend our own money. That is what those members hate. We should be able to spend our own money on printing a pamphlet that gives expression to our political views.

I say that under this law all the great campaigns of history would have to be registered with the Government. That is what this Government is doing to New Zealanders. It is saying that the campaigns to free the slaves, to abolish slavery, and to give women the vote would have to be registered with the Government before they could be run. Campaigns against apartheid would have to be registered with the Government. Campaigns against unpopular wars would have to be registered with the Government. I say that our forebears did not fight and die in wars so that we could live in a free country where to campaign for a political view we would have to register with the Government and have a cap on what we could do and what we could spend. I say that Mr Peter Dunne has listened to the people of New Zealand. Why does New Zealand First not do so? Why do the Greens not do so? Why does Labour not do so? Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

ANNE TOLLEY (Senior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A number of Labour members of Parliament have moved from their seats and have been constantly barracking throughout a number of speeches. I just draw that to your attention. I did not want to interrupt the previous speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Pettis has been rather vocal. I have tried to caution her, but she is sitting in her right seat. She is replacing the senior whip. But in the position of senior whip she should set an example, which is to enable orderly debate.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I am happy for Ms Pettis to be calling out. It is the only opportunity Labour gives her in this House.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister for Economic Development) : It seems to me that this House has come almost to the point of a headless chicken phase. We have a man who has just given a speech about things he apparently believes, in which he says that if this legislation had been passed earlier the abolition of slavery in the US would not have happened, and the universal suffrage movement might not have happened. He gave that speech with passion, so either he believed it, in which case he is deeply in trouble, or he did not believe it, in which case he ought not to have given it.

I say to a previous speaker, my colleague Hone Harawira from the Māori Party, that his assessment of history around electoral law is a different history from mine. I will give him my truth on what electoral law history is. Actually, our colleague MetiriaTurei began it when she reminded us that over a hundred years ago our forebears put limits upon themselves as to what they might expend when they went for public office, simply because the culture of that moment, and the culture that persists today, is that we cannot buy public office in this land—we cannot buy it. We can argue for it, we can cajole, and we can campaign, but we may not directly purchase public office in this land. We can purchase whatever else we wish. We can purchase an offshore island, a 14th motorcar, a third farm; we can purchase whatever we like in this market economy. But we may not purchase public office.

The member from the ACT party, Rodney Hide, said “one person, one vote”, when he was arguing in the opposite direction. He was arguing for “one millionaire, one seat in public office”. You see, the point is that the whole idea of one person, one vote is that we are equal—I go down and cast a vote, the member goes down and casts a vote, the millionaire goes down and casts a vote, and the pauper goes down and casts a vote—yet the member opposes this legislation.

Let us take a little step back in history. First of all, a hundred years ago £200 was the limit, and it progressed. We got to the 1950s and we worked out how to draw boundaries fairly. We missed the gerrymandering season that infested all of the United States and still infests Australia to an extent, especially at State level; we missed that. We decided to do it properly, and the criteria we laid down in 1956 still prevails. Some of us have spent a bit of time on electoral law select committees. I have done 9 years, and a number of people around this House have done a similar amount of time and have a bit of experience, so they will support this history to date.

Then we move to the point where we decided we would go for MMP. In 1993 we put law in front of the House, the third reading was given, and the assent was carried by the people in the 1993 election. They said “We want MMP.” Not only did they say that but they said “We want MMP even though Peter Shirtcliffe has spent a lot of money on trying to dissuade us.” We did not react then; we did not react as a Parliament. We said “We understand that the electoral coalition has to raffle chooks, and that Peter Shirtcliffe has to go and see his rough mates, but even then we will not react—even then we don’t mind a bit of money having a bit of a say.”

So we went through to 2005, and everything changed. In 2005 not only was there big money but the money came not from within but from without. Not only was it big money from without but it was big money that was covert and not overt. This was an attempt to buy an election anonymously. Peter Shirtcliffe put his head on the block and said “I’m doing this, and I’m proud to be doing it.”, and he went and spent all of his big money. We said “That’s OK.” But along came the Exclusive Brethren and said “We are not the Exclusive Brethren. We are not doing this. We have not spoken to the National Party. We have not gone to see the electoral law folk to see how we can get around the rules. We have done none of that. We are simply a group of business people.” But the Greens outed them. Then, as the months went by—in fact, as the weeks went by—in the course of the election campaign 2005 Gerry Brownlee, who was being noisy a few minutes ago, went on radio and said that he knew nothing about it. He went on radio and said “I don’t know.” Don Brash went on radio and said “I don’t know, either.” Then he said “I only know a little bit.” Then he said “I only met them once.” Then he said “I only met them once at a time. I might have met them more than once.” And John Key said “I don’t know anything about it.”

But, yes, they did. You see, it was a collusion. It was not a coincidence, it was not a bit of happy circumstance, and it was not serendipity; it was a planned collusion around the electoral law of this land. For more than a hundred years we did not try to put limits on third parties. We saw no reason to do that. Whoever had an interest—be they the SPCA, the Chambers of Commerce, the unions, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Grey Power, or Māori—could take part in the quest for the offices of the land, and could do so without any regulation, at all. All the while, through the first of our centuries, that was the way it was until the National Party’s secret mates came along. If National members want to know why we are standing here in the third reading debate passing this law, I will tell them that they are the reason. National members did not say to the Exclusive Brethren “This is a step too far.” They did not say “Can you try to make it a quarter of a million instead of a million and a bit.” They did not say “Don’t go trying overtly to get around the electoral law.” And they did not tell the Brethren to out themselves. They did the opposite; they colluded. This was collusion in an attempt to win office. That is going too far; that is not tolerable.

So we must join other Western democracies—although we have not until now—and start to regulate, more in sadness than in anger, I have to say. I do not think our country is better off for needing this regulation. But, given that we need it, we sure as hell are going to have it—just as Canada and the UK do. They have had to go down this path. I am sure they have done it more in sadness than in anger, too.

I will summarise. This country spent more than a hundred years not regulating third parties at all, but regulating only candidates. It always regulated candidates but never anyone else, and we got along OK. We got along with everyone’s little or medium-sized campaigns. We got along with Mr Shirtcliffe’s rich but overt, open, and out-there campaign. But the National Party decided that it would covertly use $1.2 million of someone else’s money offshore to try to help itself into office. The National Party needs to understand that that is beyond the culture of New Zealand’s electoral history.

I ask my colleague from the Māori Party to hear that version of history and to understand it. I think his version of history is at variance with mine, but that is how I see it. I do not think it is OK for this country ever to go to the point where we Americanise our politics and put our offices up for sale in some way or other.

Mr Hide said that the truth will always out. Well, I ask Mr Hide how an ordinary person, a humble person, or a modest person can have free speech when the airwaves are full with capitalists’ noise. That is what we were dealing with. Capitalism has its place because our market economy depends on it, but we cannot use the riches of capitalism to buy a place in Parliament. At that point, we have privatised the most public thing there is, which is public office. So the line must be drawn.

Bill English’s contribution, which was a series of deliberate misinterpretations of the Electoral Act, took us no further, and John Key, who opened this debate with the high moral pitch, ended up sounding like a 13-year-old trying to read Shakespeare. It did not work. He got the round of applause that was pre-arranged, but I could tell that the guy had not written the speech. He did not know how to pronounce “auspicious” and a few other words along the way. The truth of the matter is that these guys have to front up to the fact that they are the authors of their own misfortune. That is the truth of it. If it had not been for the Exclusive Brethren covertly attempting to buy office in New Zealand, then we would not have had to be here. We have not been here until now.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs) : I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I did not want to interrupt my colleague but I bring your attention to an intervention made by the member who is about to take a call, Christopher Finlayson. He cast a comment to the Minister suggesting that he was a grandfather. The last time that sort of comment was ruled out of order in this House, Sonja Davies had been abused by an Opposition member in a human rights debate. The member had said: “Go on, Granny. Have a go.” That was ruled as being offensive. I urge you to ask the member to withdraw and apologise. Apart from anything else, the comment is ageist, and I believe that the member is probably older than the Minister he was trying to insult by calling him a grandfather.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I think that the Standing Orders actually require Mr Hodgson to be upset. I am sure he is actually quite flattered by his great success.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you are right, but I thank the Hon Judith Tizard for raising the matter. I do not think the comment is offensive to the House. It does not help matters in the House, but the person who is the subject of the comment is the right person to raise an objection to it if he or she wishes. Of course, Ms Tizard, you finished off almost in the same vein as Mr Finlayson, by casting a reflection as to age.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs) : Mine was not a reflection of age; it was merely a comment. The member’s reflection was intended to be insulting and derogatory to older people.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I accept that. Thank you for raising the matter.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I am pleased the previous speaker mentioned Shakespeare, because if ever there was a King Lear rave upon the heath without descending to the detail of legislation—as one should do in a third reading speech—it was that speech made by Mr Hodgson. In my speech I will look at the Committee stage of the legislation, say something about what emerged from that, and emphasise what my leader and deputy leader have said about the commitment of the National Party to repeal this odious legislation as soon as we gain office. I will not dwell this afternoon on the failure of the Attorney-General to provide a report under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. He is a person who puts loyalty to party ahead of loyalty to country. His failings are well known.

The system has failed. The safeguards one expects to work have not worked. If the select committee process was hopeless, then the Committee stage of the legislation was simply a disgrace. If ever there was legislation that required a clause by clause analysis it was this. But instead of focusing on the workability of the legislation, the Labour, New Zealand First, and Green members took calls on various parts of the legislation and had generalised raves about the last election.

The Prime Minister’s response to our careful analysis was revealing. She criticised Mr English and me for nit-picking. She does not seem to understand that when inevitably there is litigation on this legislation next year, judges will need to grapple with the words of a particular section to ascertain what the section means. I can predict one thing: Annette King’s law of common sense will not assist; nor will it be possible for the courts to receive any assistance by looking at Hansard. Were they to do so they would see that National members had tried hard to look at the difficult issues, but that all Labour members, including, notably—I say for Mr Woolerton’s benefit—the Minister of Justice, could only go on about the Exclusive Brethren. I predict there will be a great deal of litigation next year. This legislation contains so many uncertainties that litigation is inevitable.

Secondly, let us take a look at how the legislation emerged from the debate in the Committee stage. The National Party put forward a number of serious amendments—some were principled, others were technical, but very few of the latter category were accepted by the Government. I predict there will be another amendment bill next year and that some of my proposed amendments will have to be adopted then, because the legislation that we are about to pass is unworkable. What about the regulated period provided for in clause 4?

This legislation will shortly be signed into law and will take effect from 1 January. For 1 year out of 3, political discourse in New Zealand will be regulated. How does that further the interests of democracy, whether one looks at it from the point of view of the political class or, more important, from the point of view of the public? The new Labour candidate for Wellington Central has already distributed a brochure introducing himself, and he has done so to avoid the consequences of the regulated period and the cap that will apply after 1 January. Out in the field even the Labour Party is looking for ways to get around its own law.

The supporters of this legislation have long said that it is designed to right the wrongs of 2005. That would be a noble goal if it was carried out with any sincerity, but sincerity, like public consultation during the select committee deliberations, has been lacking. Instead, this Government has chosen to be selective in the matters it has dealt with. It has conveniently ignored many of the wrongs that fell on its side of the ledger in 2005. The police decided they could not prosecute Heather Simpson because it would be unfair to tar an individual for a crime committed by a group. I proposed an amendment to the legislation that would have seen party liability introduced. Not only was this opposed by Labour, but it was not even referred to by its own speakers. The police showed themselves to be out of their depth in dealing with matters of electoral law, so we proposed the position of a chief electoral prosecutor who would be independent and who would have expertise to deal with this mess. Not only did Labour oppose this proposal, it vetoed any debate on it on the grounds it thought it would cost $3 million. Labour never wanted to debate the merits of a sound proposal, which was backed by many of the independent organisations that provided submissions.

Finally, at the very least, we thought that if it was to be left up to the police to prosecute, then they would need a reasonable amount of time to consider any prosecutions. The current version of the legislation says that prosecutions have to be undertaken within 6 months. We proposed an amendment that would give the police 2 years. But, again, Labour opposed this and, again, it failed to give us one single reason why it was a bad idea. The cynicism of this move to prevent any meaningful prosecutions under the new legislation would be extraordinary in itself, if it was not overwhelmed by the nature of the process through which the legislation has been so cynically pushed. On the three big issues that were raised by this legislation—the position of third parties, the regulated period, and the definition of candidate advertisement—there have been no improvements.

There is a donations regime in the legislation, lauded by New Zealand First, but it is muddled. It was hastily drafted in the latter stages of the select committee’s deliberations. If the Government had accepted the offer made by Mr English 12 months ago to talk about transparency and a sensible donations regime, this legislation could have been greatly improved.

This afternoon I pay tribute to Mr Dunne. I am pleased to see he has looked at the issue carefully and has listened to the concerns of members of the public. Clearly he has now read clause 5(1)(a)(ii). He now recognises that that subclause will shut down debate next year. But I am not quite so impressed by the Greens and the New Zealand First Party. The Greens like to portray themselves as innocents abroad, but they too have been active participants in this shabby affair. They are as cynical and as unprincipled on this issue as Labour. They do not care about the damage this legislation will cause to our constitution. Let us look at the members of New Zealand First. Fresh from their Starship Children’s Health stunt, they are now ignoring the message from their supporters in Tauranga, who correctly see the threat that is posed by this legislation.

The National Party has been accused of focusing too much on the interests of politicians, but that is wrong. Take, for example, the phrase “third party”. We have said time and time again that that terminology is offensive. The people are the principals in the democratic process; the politicians are the servants. People may not want to join political parties as much as they did in earlier years, but they may want to contribute to the political process by joining organisations like the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society and Greenpeace. The National Party recognises this. We did not want the term “third party”. We preferred the term “interested party”, but that was voted down.

So where to from here? Both my leader and deputy leader have given a commitment that National will repeal the legislation. The Labour Party has breached a well-established convention that electoral law should, so far as possible, be bipartisan or multipartisan. It will not be easy to reconstruct that convention but the National Party will do so, because it is in the public interest that we go back to a situation where there is proper discussion between all parties on these very important issues.

This has been a very sorry incident in New Zealand’s political history. The legislation will not endure. It will be repealed before the end of 2008, because the National Party will do the right thing in the public good and in the national interest. Much as one is tempted to exercise a little utu, there will be no utu. The distinctions between the two major parties in this country are obvious. Under the leadership of Helen Clark, Labour has become utterly negative. It likes banning things or people for its own sake. Its motto is: “Accentuate the negative; ban; boycott; embargo; exclude; vilify; blacklist; close down; shut up; silence; censure; hate; sneer.” But these are the things that come so naturally to Helen Clark and the other Labour Party wreckers and haters. They are the only things they know. As my leader said, it is time for a change.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) : It is a pleasure to stand to speak in support of the three bills arising from the Electoral Finance Bill. I thank the Justice and Electoral Committee members from Labour, the Green Party, and New Zealand First for the constructive role that they played. Not only was it a constructive role but also they turned up to the committee meetings—they were there steadily. They did not have all and sundry there to represent their parties. They were consistent, they turned up, and they worked on the legislation. I also thank the staff and the advisers for all the hard work they did. It is very much appreciated.

This legislation is a necessary response to an unprecedented abuse of our democratic processes. Prior to the 2005 election the National Party and its allies led a campaign designed to find loopholes in the rules—or simply to breach them—and to seek to overwhelm the election outcome with money. National introduced the continuous campaign to politics in this country, seeking by enormous expenditure to expose the public to its paid message everywhere. Such behaviour put democracy in New Zealand at risk. Big anonymous money can never be permitted to shape thought in a democracy. This legislation allows the public to have confidence that the covert campaign to buy persuasion and influence will be very difficult to repeat.

As documented by Nicky Hager, the National Party accepted the support of and colluded with the Exclusive Brethren. It behaved in a similar fashion with the Maxim Institute, with the so-called Fair Tax lobby, and with extremely wealthy members of the Auckland business community. By accepting their contributions and colluding in the planning of campaigns and advertisements, National subverted the spirit of our dearly held laws. It gained massive advantage over those parties that sought to campaign in the fair, open, and democratic manner that New Zealand citizens expect and deserve. Mercifully, National failed to steal the election.

This legislation regulates the role of third parties, in that it requires them, if they seek to campaign for or against candidates, parties, or combinations of both, to be open about doing so. If they do campaign, they are capped in their advertising expenditure at $120,000. As part of National’s strategy, trusts were used to cover up donations over the limit of $10,000 at which they would otherwise have to be disclosed. This legislation regulates the use of trusts. Although those donations are not completely outlawed, undue influence and abuse are countered by the introduction of caps on them. With this regime in place, the public can be confident that influence is not for sale via donations. By extending the regulated period to the year of an election campaign, the insidious influence of the continuous campaign, which became a feature—a shameful feature—of our political landscape during the last election cycle, can be avoided and a level playing field established. In order to prevent undue influence from outside New Zealand, overseas donations are also regulated. We are a small democracy in a globalised world. Our elections should not be for sale to the highest foreign bidder.

In summary, this legislation provides solutions that further the cause of democracy through enhancing transparency and accountability. It enhances democracy by preventing the abuse of the democratic process. It takes a strong stand against the undue influence of money in politics. I am proud to stand with my colleagues in the Labour Party, and with the Progressive party, the Greens, and New Zealand First in giving this legislation my strong support.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) : I would like to join my friend and colleague Lynne Pillay, the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee who so ably steered this legislation through the select committee process, in commending the merits of the legislation to the House. I praise her chairing; it was excellent chairing in the face of extremely provocative behaviour. I would also like to add my thanks to the officials who worked very hard to advise the committee to ensure that what came to the House as a result of the committee process was good legislation. In that regard I particularly thank Helena Catt, and Michael Petherick from the Ministry of Justice.

In my brief contribution to this third reading I want to look ahead. I have said that I endorse all the comments made by my colleague, but I observe that this bill is clearly not the last step in the need to provide for a system that prevents abuses and upholds democracy. This is recognised in that from the outset the previous Minister of Justice, the Hon Mark Burton—in a call that has been continued by the current Minister, Annette King—was very clear that a review group ought to be commissioned to consider the matters that remain outside the scope of this legislation. Paramount amongst those matters must be the public funding of political parties. As the Wallace Commission found so many years ago, this is an essential element in maintaining democracy in a country such as ours. Australia, Canada, and now even the UK—thanks to the work being done by Sir Haydon Phillips—have taken steps to implement such a system. We run the grave risk of exchanging our democracy for a plutocracy every moment that we continue to delay implementing a system of public funding for political parties. I sincerely hope that the review group to be established, which has been called for along with this legislation right from the start, will very clearly call for the public funding of parties, repeating the call made by the Wallace Commission back in the 1980s.

Absolute transparency is the other matter that the review group must address. Any participants in politics must be open about their participation in it. It is just too risky in the long term and in a globalised business environment to continue to tolerate anonymity on either the supply or the demand side of politics—whether from parties, donors, or other actors. No donor and no spender seeking to influence the outcome of an election should ever be allowed to hide its true identity from the public. Strict caps on spending—always under review for their adequacy—and ensuring that undue barriers to entry into the process do not exist are required.

I hope that the review group also looks at incentives to a broad participation in politics. We need civics education in our schools. People should be empowered to be more conscious of their rights and obligations in and to our society. Elected public service is a virtue and it should be seen as such, not denigrated by cynical actors in the political or media processes. The best people in our society should be proud to put themselves forward to contribute to the political process or in the campaigns of those who do. Wider and deeper participation in political parties and groups that support civil society can only enrich our nation. We fail to promote this at our ongoing peril.

Finally, strong enforcement of clear rules is vital. I look forward to the day when one single powerful independent agency administers all the aspects of New Zealand’s electoral law. It should determine electoral boundaries, it should register all the participants in elections, and it should monitor their activities for compliance, including donations, spending, and decisions concerning breaches of the law. It should also have carriage of the rules relating to political broadcasting.

Christopher Finlayson: Where were you at the select committee?

CHARLES CHAUVEL: Unlike the member who has just interjected, I was not moonlighting making court appearances; I was at the select committee. I sincerely believe that this legislation is an important step on the way to a better democracy, and the review of our electoral system is another one. If it is to be a success, it must address the issues I have mentioned in this speech. I hope it will do so.