Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : Before everybody starts to practise fake outrage again, I make one very, very simple point. It is that nobody in the National Party has so far managed to cite any words in the Auditor-General’s report for 2005 that say the interpretation that everybody had followed up to that point was wrong and that parties should not follow it during the period up to the 2005 election. They cannot find it because it is not there. Once that is found to be so, then the entire case that the National Party has tried to make collapses. The real attempt to steal that election was the $1.2 million that came from the flaky fruitcakes in the Exclusive Brethren, who do not vote but want to choose a Government, and who will not fight but want to defend the country.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) : I start by alerting the people who are listening to this debate about the rules on election spending. The rules on election spending down at the electorate level are incredibly strict. They state that if candidates knowingly spend more than $20,000, they have committed a corrupt practice and they are gone from Parliament. That happened in the Wairarapa in the 1987 election, when a candidate for Labour called Reg Boorman was found to have knowingly spent more than the limit. I think in those days the figure was $10,000, because electorates were smaller and it was a smaller limit; in fact, it was probably not even stated in dollars but might have been in pounds back then. Reg Boorman was found to have done that, and he was gone from Parliament.

I would say the public think that is a particularly good regime to have. I think the public—more than anything—have been gobsmacked of recent times to find that whereas those very strict rules apply to each MP down at the local electorate level, they do not apply to an overall political party that does exactly the same thing as that: it knowingly spends more than its limit.

Hon Tony Ryall: Did the Deputy Prime Minister know?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: My colleague Tony Ryall asked whether the Deputy Prime Minister knew at the time. I guess the answer hinges on the word “knowingly”.

Now I want to explore just one thing, and I would be very keen for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, to respond to it. I have heard—and he can confirm this or not—that the former Chief Electoral Officer, David Henry—he is now gone, but he was the Chief Electoral Officer back in September of last year—wrote a letter. Not only did he do that, but he started off with a phone call. The phone call and the letter both told the Labour Party that if it went ahead with the pledge card and distributed it, then that would be accountable election expenditure and Labour would be over the limit. If David Henry did not write such a letter, I want the Minister in the chair to tell us—

Hon Tony Ryall: Did he send the letter?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well, I do not know. The Minister has a good chance to tell us.

Bob Clarkson went under the blowtorch for his expenditure in Tauranga. Fortunately, he was like most of us, who always leave a little bit of leeway so that we never spend an amount quite close to 20 grand, in case we are in trouble. I always make sure I am way under that, so I cannot be caught. That is what we have to do in order to stay in compliance with the law.

But if the Chief Electoral Officer wrote to the Labour Party in early September and said that if the party put out that pledge card—even if we forget about the fact that it was funded by the taxpayers, which is another outrage—then it would breach the cap, I say that makes this Government an illegitimate Government. It is an illegitimate Government if, by breaching the spending cap, it broke the law of the land—and for an illegitimate Government to be now trying to legitimise itself in Parliament would make Robert Mugabe happy. That is what this legislation would do. If members got here by false pretences and they now use the false mandate they acquired in order to make themselves the legitimate Government of the land, it would be laughable in any despotic regime in the Horn of Africa. Someone such as Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlins would have pulled off that sort of trick in order to make himself part of a legitimate Government.

So the central question that this Parliament needs to know the answer to today is whether Labour was informed in advance that if it spent the money on the pledge card, it would be accountable, because that would take it to over its limit and it would breach the spending cap that applies to political parties.

Bob Clarkson: They’re crooks!

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: If Labour members did know that in advance—my colleague Mr Clarkson calls out that they are crooks—in my view they are guilty of a corrupt practice, because that is the term the Electoral Act uses. I am not trying to get into pejorative terms or nasty words; I am trying to explain what the Act actually states, which is that that is a corrupt practice. If that is not the case and the Labour Party says it does not care about the spending cap—that it will spend whatever it likes, then face the consequences afterwards—then let us just get rid of any spending limitations and let the situation be a free-for-all. Would Labour be prepared to do that? No, it would not. It would want the strict limits to be enforced on everybody else.

But David Henry is the key to this issue. The Chief Electoral Officer wrote to the party—not after the event, not after the election, not some time later—and then it went: “Oh dear, these are the rules. Maybe they have changed, and maybe we have been caught out.” No sirree, he wrote to Labour before the election and it ignored him.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : This legislation would have to be one of the most cynical bits of chicanery that this Parliament has seen for many years. Why do I say that? The Government had choices. It could have, for instance, validated just 3 months, but what has it done? It has tried to pretend that for 17 years this Parliament and the Parliamentary Service have participated in illegality. That is a completely cynical manoeuvre. They know it is not true. They know that is a lie, but they are trying to perpetrate—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I just want to point out that this is going to be a robust debate, and I accept that, but there are still limits and the member just transgressed beyond that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Yes, I think I heard the member say what you indicated, Dr Cullen. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I withdraw and apologise. Labour members know that that is the most cynical manipulation of the law that this country has seen. What is more, they expect to be able to just wipe the proceedings from our courts as if they never mattered.

One of the most important things we have in this country is independent courts—courts that examine what Governments do. People in the House and in this country can cite decisions of the courts from over the years—Fitzgerald v Muldoon, the New Zealand Maori Council case. These are cardinal decisions. They set out the rules for the future, they set out the limits of parliamentary power. I have no doubt that in the case of , the court would have made a declaration that the spending was fundamentally unlawful. It would have set out the limits of parliamentary power. That is how democracy works. On the one hand we have Parliament, which makes the law, but on the other hand we have the courts, which set out the limitations on parliamentary power.

This Government wants to completely overturn those fundamental constitutional principles. It wants to set itself up as the complete arbiter of all the law. It is as if it thinks it has papal infallibility. It wants to pretend that the unlawful becomes lawful—as if it never was unlawful. That is a cynical manipulation of the public, and the public sees it exactly for what it is. I want to point out to the former Attorney-General that this is a view shared by the editor of the New Zealand Law Journal. For instance, in September this year he said that there were two severe threats for the future of our democracy. One was the State funding of political parties; the other was retrospective legislation validating Labour’s chicanery at the last election.

So what are we seeing here today? We are seeing a Government shoving this bill through in urgency with no consultation with the public, and using a cynical manipulation of parliamentary procedures to put through retrospective legislation validating its thievery at the election. I find that abhorrent.

I find it appalling, firstly, that we are spending this time in this Parliament today in the pretence that every single party for the last 16 years has done something unlawful, when that is not true. The Auditor-General focused only on 3 months. He made that perfectly clear. The second thing I find reprehensible is this Government’s cavalier approach of removing the right of citizens to have its cases heard in the courts and to have judges declare what the law of the country is and how it should be interpreted, so that we now have a Parliament that places itself effectively above the law. That is wrong, and that will be judged harshly by the public in the future.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) : I have a couple of questions this morning in this debate for the Minister in the chair, Dr Cullen, and I would love him to address them. The first question is whether he has spoken to Winston Peters about the Government’s strategy to kill off this issue through retrospective legislation. I heard the Minister Winston Peters on the radio this morning, and he said to the interviewer: “Everybody knows, and New Zealand First knows, that the Labour Party’s pledge card was electioneering. Everybody knows that.” That is what Winston Peters said. He then went on to say: “But we’re different.”

We would expect that from Winston Peters. He gave all sorts of reasons why New Zealand First has not broken any rules, why it can challenge the Auditor-General’s ruling, and why, apparently, it is whiter than snow. But Winston Peters, a Minister outside Dr Cullen’s Cabinet, said that Labour knew that the election pledge card was, in fact, electioneering.

Mr Peters went on with an entirely different strategy than that of this Government and of Dr Cullen. This morning he tried killing the truth off through a death of a thousand cuts, and went on to dance on the head of a pin. He gave every possible red herring to the interviewer to avoid the very fact that he has no intention of paying the money back.

Winston Peters raised issues such as New Zealand First’s use of taxpayers’ money on publications that it would use after the campaign, not just before it. He said that the Auditor-General never spoke to him about his report. Winston Peters said that he was shacked up in hospital after a bite by an insect and that he knew nothing about the details of the Auditor-General’s report. He said that he had just had a knee operation and did not know the details. Winston Peters pulls every red herring he can out of the pile—

Dr Wayne Mapp: Did he mention his bunion?

PHIL HEATLEY:—he did not mention his bunion—so that he can avoid the bottom line the public is asking for, which is for him to pay back the money. Winston should just pay back the money! He is dancing on the head of a pin. That is New Zealand First’s strategy.

The Minister outside Cabinet clearly has not spoken to Dr Cullen. Dr Cullen’s idea of killing off the truth is not through a thousand cuts and diversions—Labour has tried lots of diversions over the last 6 months and has failed—but through one thrust of the knife. This retrospective legislation will make legal what is illegal, so Dr Cullen thinks he can walk out of this Chamber whiter than snow. But it is not working, because Dr Cullen, Helen Clark, and the Labour Party have already been tried in the court of public opinion and found wanting.

Hon Maurice Williamson: Guilty!

PHIL HEATLEY: They are guilty in the court of public opinion—absolutely found wanting.

I have another question for Minister Cullen: how much did he know about this pledge card being developed, being delivered before the election, and being used during the campaign? I can guarantee that he would have had very close contact with the campaign committee. Clearly, one would not have Pete Hodgson going out there on the campaign committee by himself, without someone holding his hand. How much did Dr Cullen know about Heather Simpson and Helen Clark’s decision to use taxpayer funding for this electioneering expense—$450,000 worth? I ask that question, because Dover Samuels has to write out a cheque for $10,000, and he never made the decision. Mita Ririnui has to write out a $10,000 cheque, and he never knew the decision. Dr Ashraf Choudhary—the member opposite who abstains—would have abstained from the decision about using the pledge card. But he still has to write out a $6,000 cheque.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I want to focus, initially, on clause 3 of Part 1 of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, which sets out the purposes of this legislation. The first purpose is to validate expenditure, but we all know that validation of expenditure goes beyond the appropriations found to be unlawful by the Auditor-General. The second part of that purpose clause is to provide an interim meaning of the term “funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes”. But, again, we all know that it is unnecessary to use legislation to change the rules in the interim; all that needs to happen is for the Speaker to issue new directions that substitute new definitions of parliamentary purposes and electioneering. So this legislation, quite apart from the fact that it is shabby, is unnecessary.

I propose in the Committee to move an amendment to clause 3, because the key issues that the people of New Zealand are interested in are, first, that the moneys are going to be repaid and, second, that there is an adequate reporting mechanism so that they know the moneys can be paid.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise sincerely to the honourable member for interrupting his speech, and I hope it does not break his pattern. But I have to take this point of order as per the Standing Orders; if I have a point of order, I know I have to raise it as quickly as possible, and I have just come down from my office. I have heard some absolute—I cannot use the word “lie”, can I, Mr Chairperson?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, you cannot.

Ron Mark: Then I will not. I have heard some untrue statements made by Phil Heatley. I seek the leave of the Committee to table the transcript of the interview between John Banks and Winston Peters this morning, to prove that Mr Peters did not say he was laid up in hospital from a spider bite, so did not get to hear the Auditor-General’s comments or meet with him, and to prove that he did not say—

• Document not tabled.

Ron Mark: Sort him out, whip!

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will now come back to his seat and withdraw and apologise.

Ron Mark: What am I apologising for, Mr Chairperson?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): For the context and the threat he threw across the Chamber, I ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

Ron Mark: Well, Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

Ron Mark: I apologise for saying “Sort him out.”

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Mark. That is all that is necessary.

Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. After the member apologised, he again said: “Sort it out.”, as he walked out of the Chamber. That is a challenge to the Chair, and you should bring him back and then kick him out for the rest of the day. That sort of behaviour is unacceptable. It degrades the character of this House and its members. I ask you to take action now against that member.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I have some sympathy with the point made by the member, and if you do that, Mr Chairperson, it will be a very important signal to a number of members opposite not to issue threats to the person in the Chair, which I think is actually the offence that Mr Mark committed by telling you to do something. It is happening far too often in the Chamber that people are trying to give orders to the Speaker, or to the Chairman in Committee.

Pita Paraone: The comments the Opposition has referred to were solicited only as a result of the behaviour of members opposite. So there are two sides to the story. If you decide to make the decision that has been suggested to you, Mr Chairman, I hope you take into consideration the exchanges that give rise to this sort of situation.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have heard enough. I know this is a rather heated debate with a lot of ill feeling on all sides of the Chamber. I also recognise that members make statements out of frustration that they might not do in normal circumstances. In this particular instance, I am going to ask the member concerned to come back to the Chamber and apologise for the manner in which he conducted himself. I am prepared to be tolerant in recognising the complexity in which we are conducting this debate.

Ron Mark: Mr Chairman, out of respect to you and the office you hold, I withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Mark. I appreciate that, Mr Mark.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Can you give the Committee some guidance by stating the Standing Order that allows me to seek redress when a member knowingly and wilfully stands up and says something in this Chamber, on the record, that clearly is not true, and will be proven to be untrue by the documents I have sought access to and sought leave to table? What can we do when a member dares to do such a thing and brings this Committee into dishonour?

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: The first thing that would be helpful is for us to try to lower the temperature. Mr Mark’s point is one that should not be raised by a point of order. He is actually raising an issue of a breach of privilege, and that is dealt with by means of a letter to the Speaker.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): That is right. Thank you very much.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: As I was saying, I have proposed a number of amendments to clause 3, the purpose clause, which foreshadow further amendments that will be introduced when we debate Part 2. The first of those amendments is to provide, in the purpose clause, that any expenditure the Auditor-General has found was unauthorised must be repaid. The second issue of concern to the public is dealt with in paragraph (d) of my proposed clause 3, which provides a reporting mechanism to ensure that members of the public can be satisfied that any party that has incurred any unauthorised expenditure has repaid that expenditure, because the Parliamentary Service Commission, as we know, is not subject to the Official Information Act.

So these are mechanisms that I seek to introduce, and I foreshadow ones in Part 2, to try to address the real concerns of the public, because at the moment there is no obligation to repay. Mr Copeland, in his second reading speech yesterday, said there was a moral obligation. That is not good enough. We want a legal obligation, and expenditure that is unauthorised should be repaid with interest and penalties, if not paid on time. It is interesting to hear the kinds of things the Inland Revenue Department is proposing to do to miscreants who do not pay their tax. There will be heavy penalties. In the interests, as the Attorney-General said, of lowering the temperature and conducting the debate in a seemly way, I am proposing that interest not be paid at Inland Revenue Department rates but pursuant to the interest provisions of the Judicature Act—a mere 7.5 percent—which I think is very generous.

Perhaps the most odious aspect of this legislation is that it removes litigation rights, and the litigation rights of those who have commenced a proceeding in the High Court. As Dr Mapp said, in Fitzgerald v Muldoon the Government changed the law after the litigation was concluded. Even Dr Cullen, as Minister of Finance when the Ngāti Apa case was decided, changed the law after the Court of Appeal decision had come out. But here in the Darnton case the litigation has not even been determined in the High Court, let alone at the appellate level. That is why I support amendments, which my friend Dr Mapp will be introducing shortly, to say that the High Court case of Darnton is not to be affected by the passage of this litigation. Litigation rights should be preserved.

This legislation is an abuse of parliamentary sovereignty, and I venture to suggest that it is so odious that were Lord Cooke still sitting in the Court of Appeal today, he would be sorely tempted to pick up the words he said in Taylor v New Zealand Poultry Board and have it struck down, because it is an affront to democracy and it is an affront to the rule of law.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Judicial activism.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It is called decency and common sense in a democracy, I say to Dr Cullen—something that his Government does not seem to know too much about. The Attorney-General and his cohorts are people who are staring into the abyss; they are people who are led by a Prime Minister who increasingly suffers from delusions of decency; and this legislation is proof, if proof be needed, that changes need to be made.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : I am happy to follow that speaker, because now we have heard something very interesting in this debate. We have heard the National Party spokesperson on legal matters arguing that the court should have the right to strike down Acts of Parliament.

Christopher Finlayson: No, I didn’t say that.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Oh yes, he just said precisely that. I thought sooner or later he would fall into that trap in this House—

Christopher Finlayson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The Attorney-General must learn to listen very carefully. I said that if Lord Cooke were alive today, he would be sorely tempted to pick up words he said in Taylor v New Zealand Poultry Board. I did not say that that is what we are in favour of. He should learn to listen.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Please be seated. Mr Finlayson, that is what we call misrepresentation. You cannot raise that while Dr Cullen is on his feet. When his speech is finished, under the misrepresentation provisions in the Standing Orders and in Speakers’ Rulings you can rise, say what you said, and say that what the other member said was incorrect. You cannot do it now.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: So what we have is a member who fully supports—obviously, from the tone of his voice, from the dripping sincerity that came forth—that Lord Cooke would have struck down this bill, but he himself did not support that. Well, why on earth did he make the statement? What was the point of making the statement in that respect? What a silly, foolish, prissy little statement to make in this Committee, if he did not actually mean that he thinks courts are able to strike down Acts of Parliament—which would get us into the awful mess that jurisdictions of the United States are in, in that regard.

Let me come back to the point I was making right at the start. There is so much fake sincere anger on the opposite side that it is almost impossible to believe. I am waiting, yet again, for a lecture on morality from Mr McCully. What else did we have? We had a lecture on the rule of law from Dr Nick Smith. The only person in this House to be convicted of contempt of court comes and lectures us on respect for the rule of law. [Interruption] Now we hear Sandra Goudie speaking, who last week gave, I think, the funniest point of order I have ever heard in this House in my 25 years in the place. She seemed to have a brain that was completely disconnected from her vocal chords at that particular point.

Let us come back to a very simple point. What the National Party cannot demonstrate, in trying to justify the position taken by the Auditor-General, is that there is a single sentence in the 2005 report that says the then assumed interpretation of the spending rules was wrong. It is nowhere in that report. All that happened is that a year later the Auditor-General said that he had said something like that. But he did not. All he said in that report was that the rules are unclear and need to be clarified after the election, and people should obey the rules as they were. It was like a referee during a game of rugby saying what the going-over-the-top rule is, then, after the game, pinging somebody and saying he had breached the rule, although no explanation was given at the time. That is what the Auditor-General has done.

The entire case actually rests upon that point. National Party members are trying to say—and I want to get this very clear—that they are the only party in the House that knew that the interpretation of the rules had changed. Clearly, nobody else did. Yet they went ahead and broke the rules as they understood them—the only party to do so. What every other party has said is that the rules were such that the spending was legitimate, and the Auditor-General has changed the interpretation of those rules.

This bill takes us back to the status quo ante in terms of the interpretation of the rules. That is a totally different issue; the issue before this Committee has nothing to do with it. The issue before this Committee is what the rules should be. National Party members say they deliberately broke the rules, just as they deliberately broke the GST rules on broadcasting expenditure, but they happened not to have—believe it or not—a written contract with their advertising agency for nearly a million dollars worth of expenditure, so nothing was traceable. There are no fingerprints because there are no documents—so there could be no fingerprints. I say to Mr Finlayson: “How about that for proper legal procedure?”.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Finlayson, you can say what the previous speaker claimed you said, then give the correct version.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I think I have more or less traversed the arguments in my earlier point of order. The Attorney-General was reduced to saying that he thought, from the tone of my voice, that I was supporting what the late Lord Cooke said. His comments are clearly wrong, and, by the way in which he picked up the statement after the point of order, they come perilously close to breaching Standing Order 400(b).

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am delighted to speak, following the rather poor previous speaker—

Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Dr Cullen is interjecting and his microphone is on, and that is not fair on our members. During previous debates Dr Cullen also interjected when the microphone was on.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I apologise, Mr Chairman. In light of the fact that Mrs Goudie is speaking, I will withdraw.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It is a longstanding convention that during the Committee stage members in charge of legislation shall not take unfair advantage of the use of a live microphone by way of interjection. It is good conduct and common courtesy not to do so. Courtesy is contagious; we will all prosper if we keep within the spirit of our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings.

SANDRA GOUDIE: The actions of Dr Cullen do not surprise me, but I am surprised by some of the comments made by the previous speaker to this debate.

I want to say a few words about the Auditor-General’s comments. The Auditor-General’s report stated: “Some MPs and parliamentary parties have said that I have acted unfairly by ‘changing the rules’ after the event. I have not changed any rules.” The proposition that has been touted is that the Auditor-General’s report indicates that millions of dollars have been misspent since 1989, and that this spending needs to be validated. That is absolutely false. The Auditor-General, as Labour members have repeatedly pointed out, has already signed off the annual accounts from 1989 right through until 2003-04. Therefore, there is nothing illegal to validate.

If we look at the purpose of this legislation, we see that it is a validation bill. But there is nothing to validate, other than what Labour has got itself caught up in with regard to its pledge card. What makes it even worse is that if this legislation is passed, Labour will more than likely be free to indulge once again in spending $800,000 or more on similar pledge cards using taxpayers’ money. It is nothing more than a con job on a grand scale.

This validation is not required; all it does is make legal the spending Labour has indulged in—and, yes, Labour has claimed it will pay it back, but will it really do so—so that Labour can come along and say: “Hey, we didn’t do anything illegal anyway. That has already been identified by the fact that we have put legislation through the House.” So Labour is putting legislation through that it has a pecuniary interest in. It means that Labour’s spending is legal, and it then does not have to pay it back, in spite of the fact it said it would. It is nothing more than a con job on the New Zealand public, and Labour is playing fast and loose with taxpayers’ money.

I bring everybody’s attention to a report by Roger Kerr from the New Zealand Business Roundtable. He comments that some politicians—and I would certainly say this applies to those members in the current Labour Party—do not know how hard taxpayers work for the money they have to pass to Government, to be spent in an appropriate, efficient, and effective manner. Taxpayers would prefer their money to be spent only when they cannot spend it better themselves. We have to ask how taxpayers can have any confidence in a Government that passes legislation to protect the wasteful expenditure of their money.

There is absolutely no way that the majority of the New Zealand public will see this legislation as being anything other than a con job. The New Zealand public are not silly. They know what is going on here. They know that the legislation is designed to get members of the Government, the Labour Party, and Helen Clark off the hook. How many times has Helen Clark been in situations where she has got off the hook? It is no wonder the New Zealand public are becoming increasingly cynical about Parliament, when we have a Government and a leadership that is bringing it into disrepute constantly. It is a never-ending battle.

If we look at Part 1 of the bill, “Preliminary provisions”, we see that it is called a validation bill, but we know that it is not a validation bill—it is worse than that. The New Zealand public do not realise the further con that has been perpetrated here. A question needs to be asked about whether this legislation will also open the door to State-funded and taxpayer-funded election spending—and it does.

The New Zealand public need to stand up and say that enough is enough. They need to beat their chests, to beat their drums, to get on those talkback radio programmes, and to get in touch with all their media outlets. They need to talk to all their members of Parliament, and to talk to whomever they can talk to—and get out on the street with a megaphone—in order to say they are not putting up with this. And they need to do it today. Why? It is because the Government—this Labour Party and Helen Clark—is rushing through this legislation, under urgency, and ignoring what the New Zealand public and the taxpayers of this country feel about that. Those Labour members do not care what the public feels about that. They do not care that members of the public cannot have some input into this legislation.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) : Tēnā koe, Mr Chairman; thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate. In my time in this House I have certainly heard a lot of debates, and I have heard a lot of reasons for those debates. I have enjoyed some of the quality aspects of debates, and I have also enjoyed the cut and thrust of many debates. The last speaker just said the New Zealand public is not silly. I actually concur with that. I believe that the majority of people are aware of what is going on in this Parliament. Unfortunately, we can say a lot of things in this Chamber—[Interruption]; if members will stop and listen, and learn—and a lot of members do, but they are not accountable to anybody. There is no accountability outside. Those members can say anything and make a lot of allegations.

I want to raise an issue. I am not a lawyer or an academic but I have been around a long while, and I just say, in terms of the perception of the New Zealand public, that the question that has to be asked and answered is fundamental. In the last election, did the National Party overspend, or did it not?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We didn’t.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: Taihoa, taihoa. Did you overspend, or did you not? That is the question.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): You are bringing the Chairman into the debate.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: That is exactly the issue. Did you overspend—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, no. I did not.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: I am addressing this to the National Party. Did the National Party overspend, or did it not? That is the question that should be asked. Did the National Party overspend, or did it not? Come on! Members can say anything in this Chamber. Did the National Party overspend, or did it not? If it did not overspend, then why did it pay the money back? Come on! Tell the truth. Address the facts. Did the National Party overspend, or did it not? If it did not overspend, then there would have been no need to pay back any money. It is very simple. If the National Party did not overspend, then why did it pay back some money? This is what the public is asking. Why did the National Party pay it back? The simple reason is that it did overspend. That is the simple reason. These are the facts. The National Party did overspend.

Then the question remains as to what extent it overspent. Yes, it did not overspend as much as any other party but it still committed the offence. It did still overspend. Simply paying the money back does not exonerate the National Party from having committed the offence. It still committed the offence, and the New Zealand is aware of and awake to all the shenanigans, the excuses, and the talk and rubbish about its taking the moral high ground. What a lot of bullshit! Absolute bullshit!

Lindsay Tisch: Point of order, Mr Chairman—

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: This is what the New Zealand public understands—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Both members will be seated. Point of order—

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: I withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. I was going to ask the member to withdraw and apologise. He has done so. I call the member to order. Please continue.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: What I am trying to reiterate is that ordinary New Zealanders out there know that the National Party overspent. Does simply paying back the money mean that all of a sudden it becomes holy? Those members opposite sling abuse at every other party and say they committed an offence but National did not. That is total humbug, and the New Zealand public knows it. I will come back to the point again, because this is really the crux of it. Did the National Party overspend, or did it not? It did. It overspent. So there has been absolute hypocrisy in this Chamber on the part of the National Party.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: I withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: I come back to the point—a point that is very valid and basic to this argument. If the Labour Party overspent and the National Party overspent, then the principle is exactly the same. The National Party is saying that it is whiter than white. It committed the offence.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : Let me nail the point that Dover Samuels has just raised. Let us make the analogy with the issue of a speeding ticket, because the extent of Labour’s offending is 88 times greater. Let us take the analogy. If someone in an urban street was travelling at 51 kilometres an hour, would the average common-sense citizen say that that was a huge offence? Whereas, Labour would be travelling at 138 kilometres an hour in a 50 kilometre-an-hour area. I ask a common-sense member like Dover Samuels whether he is really saying to the public that travelling at 138 kilometres an hour in a 50 kilometre-per-hour zone is the same offence as travelling in that zone at 51 kilometres per hour. Of course it is not!

But what is even more serious is why this Government chooses to break two of the most basic principles on which our democracy is founded. If we go all the way back to the Magna Carta, we see that there are two important principles. The first of those is that no one is above the law. But these Labour Government members say that they are above the law. If they break the law they say they will just pass a bill to fix it up. The second important principle of the Magna Carta is the issue of public money not belonging to the king—one cannot help oneself to money unlawfully. This Government has torn up those two fundamental principles of our society, and it has made this country look like a joke.

But the situation is even more serious than that. What this bill proposes to do is to completely overrule what the Auditor-General quite sensibly determined as to what was appropriate expenditure. What Mr Samuels and his colleagues are saying is: “We don’t give a stuff what the Auditor-General decides—we will spend public money as we will!”, and the most shocking feature of this bill is that the pledge card could be done again tomorrow. A party could bring out that pledge card tomorrow, I say to Mr Samuels. I ask him whether he has asked his constituents whether they think it was appropriate? Does he think the New Zealand public thinks it is appropriate to fund a pledge card in an election campaign with public money? The public have said no, the Auditor-General has said no, the Solicitor-General has said no, and the Chief Electoral Officer has said no, but this bill, being rammed through under urgency, says yes, and I say to Mr Samuels that that is an outrage.

I say to Labour members opposite that their desperate efforts to cling on to power by breaking any law and any convention bring this Parliament into disrepute. If they cannot understand that, they are not fit to sit in this House of Representatives. We have a duty here to act in the public interest, and that public interest is being completely ignored with this gross bill that we are being asked to pass under urgency. I say to members opposite that they are an illegitimate Government. They did not cheat by just a little bit. Do members opposite understand that this amounts to a breach of—

Hon Dover Samuels: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I take offence at someone calling me illegitimate. That member may be illegitimate but I am certainly not. I am a member of this Government.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member has taken the comment as a personal reflection. Would the member on his feet withdraw the comment please.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I withdraw and apologise. This Government is an illegitimate Government. Let me explain why to Mr Samuels. The extent of the Government’s overspend amounts to about $14,000 per electorate. Does he know how hard it is for party volunteers, with their raffles and with all the work that goes on, to raise that little bit of money? And the Labour Party cheated by $14,000 per electorate! Members opposite say it is OK because they will pay the money back. Well, it is still a rort, and I will tell members why. They are being asked to pay back only $800,000 but they have benefited by over $2 million from their rort.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) : I want to pick up on the point the Hon Nick Smith made about the illegitimacy of this Government. The fact is that those members opposite are in Government today only because they spent three-quarters of a million dollars over the legal spending limit. The last election was a knife-edge election—every doorknock counted, every pamphlet counted, and every dollar counted—and the Labour Party used so much public money in addition to what it was legally allowed to use that it stole the election. It stole the election, and those members sit opposite today, completely illegitimate and without any right to sit in those positions. They used three-quarters of a million dollars over the legal spending limit to secure an election.

If we read about a country in the Caribbean or on the African continent where the Government broke the legal spending limits then passed legislation to legalise its fraud, this Parliament would be outraged. Well, what is the difference between that and what this Government has done? It knowingly spent more money than it was legally entitled to. That money made a difference. Labour spent $14,000 over what it was legally entitled to in each electorate. It stole the election; it is an illegitimate Government. Helen Clark and Michael Cullen sit there atop Government in New Zealand through an electoral fraud. Any other country in the world where a political party used taxpayers’ money over the legal limit to which it was entitled to spend in an election campaign would outrage this Parliament—and that is what the Labour Party did.

I want to hear today in this Committee how much Michael Cullen knew about this overspending. How much did Helen Clark know? I think she knew everything because I read that Mike Williams said that Heather Simpson does not do anything without Helen Clark ticking it off. Well, Heather Simpson is the person who signed off on all the electoral spending—she made the decisions, along with Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, that see Labour in this position. I have to ask the members opposite what they think about Heather Simpson’s involvement in this. Will Heather Simpson pay $15,000 of her fat salary because of her and Helen Clark’s mistake? Dover Samuels has to pay, George Hawkins has to pay—what will Heather Simpson have to pay? She, along with Helen Clark, Michael Cullen, and the rest of the Labour Party campaign committee, has now put that party in Government through illegitimate electoral fraud.

If a party breaks the spending limit, that is a corrupt practice. Dr Brash has produced evidence in this Chamber that makes it crystal clear that Labour knew that spending that extra money on the pledge cards and brochures would be a breach of the spending cap. When a party breaches the spending cap, that is a corrupt practice, and that is what this debate is all about. This Government sits atop politics in New Zealand through an electoral fraud. It is illegitimate. It has no right to be in that seat, because it spent more on the election than it was legally entitled to—$14,000 more in each electorate. It was a knife-edge election—every dollar counted, every doorknock counted, every hand shaken counted, and Labour stole the election by spending $14,000 extra per electorate than what the law allowed.

What does the Prime Minister do? She sits there and says: “Oh, nothing to do with me!”. That is what she said, but she was right in there with Heather Simpson. I want to hear from each of those Labour front-benchers, and particularly from the Labour Party strategist, Pete Hodgson. Who actually decided he was the Labour Party strategist, by the way? Helen Clark?

Hon Members: He did!

Hon TONY RYALL: He did? I see all the chuckles from the Labour members opposite—the heads are nodding, they wonder about that, too. But we want to know how much each of those front-benchers knew about this electoral fraud. This Government has no legitimacy. It stole the election and does not deserve to be there.

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) : Did the contribution of Tony Ryall not show to members what the problem with the National Party is? All he could talk about was the fact—

Hon Murray McCully: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. During the last contribution to the Committee I watched with some interest as the Hon Dover Samuels interjected loudly, continuously, and at length throughout the speech. I make some allowance for the fact that he has probably had one of his regular meetings with the Prime Minister where she asks him, again, to retire, but I do not make allowances for you, Mr Chairperson, because I would have expected a presiding officer to intervene in this matter. I simply ask for consistency in this regard, and I want to know whether you are giving a ruling that there is some new low standard being applied by the Chair today, because—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you Mr McCully, you have made your point. Please be seated. Mr Samuels was called several times and he desisted when I called him.

DARREN HUGHES: The National Party needs Part 1 of this legislation to be passed. The National Party expended appropriations in the last Parliament before the last general election that were unlawful. The National Party spent about $10,000 that it should not have, and by passing Part 1 of this bill, the legislation will validate that.

I support the legislation because all political parties in the Parliament—with the exception of the Progressive party—operated under a set of rules that the Auditor-General’s report brought down last Thursday has changed. It is necessary for this legislation to validate the spending of all political parties in Parliament because all parties have been found—apart from one, the Progressive party—to have actually been outside the scope. This bill is therefore necessary for that.

It is very unusual to hear the yelling, screaming, and fake false sincerity from the National Party members as though this is some sort of huge issue of principle for them to stand on. They come into the Chamber yelling and screaming as though they are members of the purest political party ever to have existed in political party history. If that is the case, why did they overspend their own budget in the 3 months before the last election? There is silence from National Party members for the first time this morning in the Chamber as not one of the screamers can explain to us why they overspent and why they misspent their budget before the last election. Why was that? Why was that money misspent? They cannot tell us why and that is why we need Part 1.

We need Part 1 of this bill to make sure that the spending has been validated. In addition to that, another thing has happened that has nothing to do with the bill—that is, parties have said they will refund the money. The Labour Party is committed to refunding money and the National Party has said it will refund the money and has paid its $10,000. But that does not change the fact that law is needed to validate the spending. Let me ask National Party members this question. Did they misuse any of their spending at the 2002 election? There is silence again. For the 2002 election, did the National Party use any of its funding in a way that was outside what the Auditor-General ruled last week? There is no answer to that. In the 1999 election, did the National Party use any of its money in a way that the Auditor-General, based on his ruling last Thursday, would have found to be inappropriate? There is no answer to that, as well.

So the National members are now telling us that for three general elections in a row, they needed Part 1 of this bill to validate their spending. So I think that pretty much cuts to the chase quickly; National members have no idea why they are opposing Part 1, apart from the fact they see some sort of political game in throwing around words like “corruption” and “Zimbabwe” and a whole lot of stuff that is really stupid to say and silly and way outside the way anything happens in New Zealand. But that is what they have come to Parliament to try to do, because it is about their raw politics.

Let us turn to the politics. Mr Ryall just asked us whether the Labour Party had overspent because of the spending return that we had put in to the Chief Electoral Office at the last election. What did we do? We included the money that was spent promoting a Labour-led Government by organisations like the unions. That was included in the return that the Labour Party put in. Let me ask the National Party this. If not breaching an electoral spending cap is so important, why does the National Party not include the Exclusive Brethren money spent in its support? [Interruption] One of the members said they did not need to. The Labour Party did not need to include the union spending as part of our return, either. We did not need to do that; there was no legal reason to do it. But we did it because the money was spent in support of a Labour Government.

So let me ask the National members why the Exclusive Brethren money was not used in the same regard. There is silence again. There has been a lot of noise in Parliament in the last few days and the last few hours, but whenever National members are asked a question, there is silence because the paucity of their argument is clear for everybody to see. They have no idea why they are opposing Part 1. Part 1 helps the National Party. Part 1 validates what their own leaders did. Most of the noise is coming from new members of Parliament who were not here in the 3 months before the last election. That is why they have the most to say about it, even though they cannot answer any questions about it at all. They have nothing else to do, which is why they are sitting down here yelling and screaming.

Let me ask the National members this. If they had $10,000 of misspending in the 3 months before the election, how much would it have been if the Auditor-General had gone back 4 months? What is so special about 3 months before the election, from the point of view of Parliamentary Service spending? What is special about that? There is nothing. What if we had gone back 4 months? Where would the National Party have been then? I want to know why the National Party did not include the money from the Exclusive Brethren, when the Labour Party included money that was spent in its support.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I say to Darren Hughes that that was the greatest mimicking of Steve Maharey I have ever seen, right down to the hand gestures and even the colour of his face. As they talk for 5 minutes their faces becomes redder and redder. Do members know why? It is because they are not telling the real story.

Part 1 is about telling the real story. It states: “appropriation means any of the appropriations under Vote Parliamentary Service”. Why is it not just the money that those people across the Chamber stole out of the cookie jar, misappropriated out of the cookie jar, corruptly took out of the cookie jar, and used to steal the election? People around the world will be thinking, when they look at that group over there, that this is a banana republic like no other. The Prime Minister prattles on about Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but she should look in the mirror and see how she stole the election, and how Heather Simpson stole the election. It is absolutely appalling.

When we saw the accounts from the Labour Party it said they included union donations. What about the money it stole off the Service and Food Workers Union? What about the money it stole off the members of a union without the union members actually saying: “Here’s a donation for your election campaign.”? How much was it? It was $400,000. That is what it is all about. This is a banana republic. Labour stole the election, that is it, eat that, end of story. That is it, it is all over.

But it is not really all over because poor old Dover has to fork out $10,000. Helen Clark has to fork out $18,000. But who is the real culprit here?

Paula Bennett: “H2”!

Hon TAU HENARE: It is “H2”—Heather Simpson. What will Heather Simpson pay? If I had done this when I was working at the Kōhanga Reo National Trust or for Newstalk ZB—that fine radio station—I would have been slung out on my ears. This is nothing but a rort that no business person in his or her right mind would stand for.

Dr Jackie Blue: It’s a con.

Hon TAU HENARE: It is a con, that is what it is. This bill should be called “The Sting Bill”, “The Con Bill”, or the “Cover Your Tracks Bill”, because that is what it is all about. There is nothing in here that needs to be done today—nothing at all. We should be able to sit here for 6 months talking about how we are going to improve the system, because systems always need to be improved, and that is what they say this will do, but it will not.

There is something sinister in this bill. It is a sinister attempt by some people so that at the close of play today, when this bill goes through—well, hopefully, it will not go through. The Greens are going to abstain. They are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to come here and vote, but what do they do? They turn up, eat their lunch, and do not even vote, for goodness’ sake! What a have they are. [Interruption] Marian Hobbs should be quiet. She is one of those who rorted the system before. For goodness’ sake, the Government benches are full of them! The front bench is full of people who know how to rort the system, and rort the system they do.

Phil Heatley: What did Marian do?

Hon TAU HENARE: I do not know, she bought some curtains or stayed outside her area somewhere and then claimed expenses—I do not know, it was something like that. But it does not really matter, we are not really talking about Marian, we are talking about a thieving Government. It is a Government that stole the election from the rightful winners.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) : After the great performance from the “King of Waka Jumpers”, I thought I should take a short call. I am one of the members of this Parliament who do not suffer from amnesia. I remember very well the history of that member. He said that Labour stole the election. That is the garbage that comes across from members on the other side of the waka. The “King of Waka Jumpers” has just delivered the most prominent speech he has ever delivered in this Chamber. This is the garbage that comes across to us from the other side of the Chamber.

I want to share with members what I think the New Zealand public thinks about that comment. At the end of the day, they are the ones who elected this Government to Parliament. At the end of the day, we went through a democratic election process—

Phil Heatley: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. With Dover Samuels berating members on this side of the Chamber and us responding to him—and I acknowledge that—I think there would be more calmness, less heckling, and less shouting from this side of the Chamber if Dover Samuels would simply table his cheque. I seek leave for Dover Samuels to table his $10,000 cheque.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, the member will be seated. That is a frivolous point of order. It is out of order, and the member is warned about that.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: It is amazing that some members of the Opposition do not want to hear the facts. The fact is that we won the election. What I am hearing from members on the other side of the Chamber is that they think the people of this country are bonkers—that they are stupid. You are talking about public integrity. It was the public of New Zealand who elected this Government to lead this country. You know what that was based on? It was based on the very clear policies put forward by the Labour Party.

The National Party had its chance and the Labour Party had its chance, but now that we have become the Government, those members are crying sooky bubba. You are using all those findings and all those tactics—and do you know what you are doing? The National Party is undermining the public of this country. They were the ones who went to the ballot box. Now you are saying that the election was a stolen election—that, in fact, somebody stole something. So if you are saying that, are you saying that the public of New Zealand are dummies? Are you saying they are stupid? That is the implication of your comments. Are you saying they are stupid? Do you think they were rorted? Do you think they are stupid? Is that what the National Party is saying?

We went through a public election. We went through a proper democratic process. The Labour Party won, we are the Government, and you do not like it. So you get up in the Chamber, and you throw all that rubbish across the Chamber about us being thieves—

Hon Murray McCully: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Reluctant though I am to spring to your defence, I tell you that the member who was on his feet has been using the word “you” and following that with some accusations that are colourful but not very seemly. I suggest to you that it is unseemly for him to bring the Chair into the debate in that way. I am surprised you have not pulled him up on that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr McCully, for drawing that to my attention. I did raise that issue with Mr Samuels several times before, and, given the nature of this debate and my realisation of the temperature in the Chamber, I have chosen to ignore Mr Samuels on that particular issue. But now that it has been drawn to my attention, I ask the member to please not bring the Chair into the debate.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I will refer to the National Party as the parties with the Tories in it.

Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Your ruling puts the rest of us in an interesting position. Presumably, it means that the standards around bringing you into the debate have now been relaxed, and that during the remainder of the Committee stage and in the third reading members of this side of the Chamber will not be pulled up in the same way that the Standing Orders would otherwise have anticipated, because the discretion you have extended to the Hon Dover Samuels will now be extended to other members.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, that will not be the case. The reason is that a presiding officer looks at the context that the word is used in and also at the way that a debate is going. Just because I have previously overlooked Mr Samuels’ use of that word, that does not mean it will happen all the time. I appreciate the fact that the member has drawn that matter to my attention, and I will listen with a great deal of interest to hear whether Mr Samuels continues to use “you” in the debate. He will be ruled out of order if he brings me into it again, and so will other members.

Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Now we have a further variation on the ruling, because you are now telling the Committee that the matter of whether an individual member can bring the presiding officer into the debate is one of context and of the nature of the debate. That just cannot be right, because the Standing Orders make it very clear than under no circumstances are the Chair or the Speaker to be brought into the debate. If you are now widening that ruling to include a wider contextual element, I suggest, if I may, that you do so in a formal way that gives a clear ruling to the rest of us as to how the standard, which until this point has been very clear in the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings, is being relaxed.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, the ruling will not be relaxed, Mr Power, and the presiding officer is never to be brought into the debate. The reality in this place, as the member well knows, is that members on both the Opposition and Government sides of the Chamber often bring Chairs of Committee and Speakers into debates. Sometimes, if you like, because of the context and the state of order in the Chamber at the time, we do not pull people up for that. If we pulled everybody up all the time, we would continually be doing that. So we have to use our judgment on those matters. I appreciate what Mr Samuels said, and I will certainly be very intent and listen to what he says, because it is not the job of members to bring the presiding officer into the debate, and the rule on that has not been changed.

Hon Murray McCully: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I understand the point you make, and I understand the need for you to exercise discretion. I simply ask for your undertaking that in exercising your discretion, you will seek to be absolutely fair to members on both sides of the Chamber. It is important to us that we have that undertaking.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): You always have that undertaking when I am in the Chair, Mr McCully.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: I thank Murray McCully for suggesting that I am making a colourful contribution to the debate. I thank that member for giving me credit for that. But I think we all understand that this debate has been colourful. The colour has come from both sides of the colour spectrum. It would be unfortunate if this Parliament allowed colourful debate to come from only one side of the Chamber and not the other, because there have certainly been a lot of accusations. A lot of colourful adjectives have been slung from the Opposition side of the Chamber. Unfortunately, those members do not like to take; they like to give.

Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I ask for some guidance from you, because when my colleague the Hon Tau Henare was speaking earlier, I saw you pick up the bill and wave it at him as an indication that you wanted him to speak on the part that was before the Committee. I have been listening to the Government member, and I have not heard him once refer to the Committee stage that we are in, nor have I heard or seen you pull him into line at all.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Ms Bennett. I will now indicate the bill to Mr Samuels.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS: If that member had been listening, she would have heard some of the statements made by members on her side of the Chamber. It is incumbent upon those of us who are on the Government side of the Chamber to respond to those statements, and that is exactly what I am doing. Earlier in my speech, I raised the fact that Mr McCully was talking about the colourful contribution that is coming from me as an MP. My response to that is to say that a number of colourful contributions have come from all sides of the Chamber. There have been some mischievous contributions, and some adjectives have been used that, in my view, have not been complimentary to the debate.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : Today we are debating the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill. I will start by looking at what New Zealand First members have been saying. They are here.

Simon Power: What a surprise!

DAVID BENNETT: Why would I start on them? Let us not let them get away with another day off. There is a reason why New Zealand First members are doing what they are doing. It is because they know they will be out of this place in 3 years’ time, and they will leave a $150,000 debt with the public. That debt will be all tied up in the courts for the following 2 years, and they will never pay it back. This is all part of their strategy—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will please be seated. I say to members that the practice of members engaging in a constant barrage of interjections amounts to heckling, and it is entirely intolerable in the debating chamber. I am trying to listen to the honourable member on my left. There is a lot of noise, and I am having difficulty listening to him. I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but I ask members to give him a fair go.

DAVID BENNETT: Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. New Zealand First has no objection to the member reciting exactly what we said, but if he is going to distort the truth we will interrupt him with points of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to Mr Brown that we have dealt with a similar issue this morning. The correct procedure for that situation is privilege, and the member knows how to handle those situations.

Chris Auchinvole: Why are they so sensitive?

DAVID BENNETT: Those members are sensitive because they have an exit strategy out of this House. Their leader has a new job. What will they do? They will leave the taxpayers with a $150,000 debt. These are the people who said they would be honest and stand up for the ordinary New Zealander. Well, what have they done? They have stolen from the ordinary New Zealander, and they have not even had the decency to pay the money back.

Chris Auchinvole: Will they pay it back?

DAVID BENNETT: No, it is disgusting. On the other hand, Labour will actually pay the money back, by the looks of things. Labour is having the great whip-round, as we can see on TradeMe. People can buy a Labour Party deck of cards—“Labour is trumps”—that is sold by the New Zealand Labour Party. On the TradeMe website it says that no one has traded with the New Zealand Labour Party yet, and it has been a member of TradeMe since October 2006. No address is verified, but the seller allows pick-ups.

What does the website say about the chances of getting a Labour Party deck of cards? It says: “they’re still wrapped in cellophane and in mint condition.”—never been used. The description continues: “If you prefer not to unwrap them they’d surely also make a fabulous addition to any mantelpiece.” That is what Labour Party voters have on their mantelpieces—a pack of Labour Party cards that has never been opened!

There is also a Labour pledge card on TradeMe—as new. This is quite possibly the most expensive piece of cardboard for sale on TradeMe; it is an absolute collector’s item—it is brilliant stuff! Or do members want a Labour Party autograph book—“1st Labour Govt, 1936”—that will be a good one, will it not? The description states: “You are bidding on a genuine New Zealand Labour Party autograph book …”. It continues: “Keep them in Power and New Zealand is safe.” Yeah, right! This item was also put up by the New Zealand Labour Party, but no one has traded with it yet. There is another item—the New Zealand Labour Party journal. It is described as a large, soft cover book, but the book’s state is “fair to good”—certainly not worth trading on.

Members should look at what the public has been saying about Labour’s trading; these remarks are quite interesting. In regard to the pledge card a question states: “No i was asking if they are the only ones stupid enough to pay for it twice. Considering its been paid for already”. The answer to that question states: “I think Labour MPs will be paying for it twice. Firstly with stolen money and now, very reluctantly, with their own.” That is the truth of the matter.

Someone else asked: “can I pay you in april 2008—with a pack of chewing gum?”. The answer to that question is: “Try bubble gum. That effort will have to be inflated quite a lot for anyone to go for it.” This is the stuff that the public has been thinking about what Labour has been doing to them. Other questions include: “What happened to my bid? That was deadly serious.” The answer to that question states: “Your bid was retrospectively legislated against. Just pretend it never happened.” That is the reality of what people have been thinking.

Another question on the website asks: “Is the signature authentic?”. The answer to that question states: “Art experts disagree. It’s a difficult question because if the signature is real, then the card may be fake. Politics is all about integrity.” These are beautiful comments, are they not? Another question asks: “Is this card used? Or just tarnished?”. The answer states: “This card is not only used, it’s been heavily abused.” Finally, a question asks: “Are these the same tired old promises, and are these pledges ever likely to be fulfilled?”. The answer states: “The promises are not worth the paper they’re written on. Rest assured though that the paper they’re printed on was very expensive.”

That is what the public of New Zealand think. They are sick and tired of this Government taking advantage of Government money and using it in this way. This Government stole the last election. Members of that party would not be in this Parliament if they did not have that $14,000 per electorate. That is theft.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I took a point of order a few moments ago. I did not want to interrupt the member’s speech again, but shortly after I sat down he accused New Zealand First of stealing money. I take offence at that remark, and I ask the member to withdraw.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member has taken offence. Will the member withdraw and apologise.

David Bennett: Yes, OK.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I beg your pardon?

David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Thank you.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) : I listened to the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Finance, earlier on as he explained, in relation to Part 1 of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, how the Government felt that it had been ambushed by the Auditor-General. He told his tale of woe, and I sat, and I listened, and I asked myself how that man could do that with a straight face. How could Michael Cullen stand in this Chamber and complain that he did not know that it was coming? Because everybody who took any interest in New Zealand politics knew that the Auditor-General was expressing concern about this Government’s practice of spending taxpayers’ money unlawfully.

I will remind the Committee today precisely how that happened, and tell the Committee about the Treasury report released by Mr Cullen—belatedly, of course. The Opposition asked for it in advance of the bill; we got it on the eve of the bill being introduced. Mr Cullen claims that in bringing this bill to the House, under urgency, seeking retrospective validation, he is acting upon officials’ advice. This Treasury report shows that claim is absolutely and utterly wrong.

This report shows that Mr Cullen has officials’ support for one proposition, and one proposition only. I quote from the report: “…we recommend that these expenses be validated.” So he does have the endorsement of his officials for the proposition of validation. Treasury goes on: “As a matter of course, unappropriated expenditure occurs every year in a number of votes. The validation of such expenditure is a usual part of the overall budget legislative cycle. For instance, last year’s Financial Review Bill included validation for the $309.843 million in relation to the recognition of the forecast liability under the Kyoto Protocol.” What this report states is very simple: this process should work according to the normal Budget cycle. The example provided is for the normal Budget cycle being followed in respect of the Kyoto overspends, and the financial review bill of last year being utilised as the vehicle. That $309 million is a lot more money than we have at stake here on the table, and the remedy is that the Government should use the proper bill as part of the legislative process—that is, a financial review bill, which, from time to time, will come before the House.

But that is not what we have here. We have a special bill to deal with the Labour Party’s unlawful expenditure. It is being dealt with under urgency. It is not being subject to public scrutiny, to the select committee process, or to any of the other normal procedures of the House, because it is being dealt with outside the normal Budget cycle. The Minister’s officials have told him, in black and white, that he should validate the expenditure but to use the normal legislative vehicle—use the normal Budget cycle. But the Minister of Finance has done the absolute opposite, and had the barefaced cheek to come to the House, in respect of Part 1, and say that he was doing what his officials had recommended that he should do. That is very far from the truth, indeed.

I remind the Minister of Finance, who claims to have not known the Auditor-General’s report was coming, that this is what the Auditor-General had to say in his report in June 2004: “It is a generally held principle that taxpayers do not pay for political parties’ publicity, except to support a party’s parliamentary activities or the conduct of ministerial business. This is broadly consistent with the accepted position in New Zealand that the State does not fund political parties.” That is what the Auditor-General stated, in black and white.

To make his point, on 28 April last year, he wrote to the Prime Minister of the country and said that he would like to talk to her about that report, which says that we do not allow political parties to be funded by the taxpayer of New Zealand. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, having received a request from an independent officer of the Parliament—the Auditor-General, no less—told him to go and take a running jump. The Prime Minister of New Zealand told Mr Brady to get lost, and that she was not going to meet with him. The reason for that was that she already knew the pledge card was going to be paid for with public money.

TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) : Part 1 of this bill is very much cobbled-together legislation. I delved into it, wondering what on earth prompted it. We have seen Labour suddenly burst forth with validating legislation. Was it really just Treasury having a word in the ear of the Minister of Finance, to which immediately he gave an electrifying response, straightaway, with no delay? Such a response must have impressed Treasury—such a change from considering commentaries from Treasury as an expulsion of wind, which is what that Minister has done previously. But no, Treasury has stated that we must have validating legislation, so the Minister of Finance has rushed a bill into the House, and called for urgency to put it through.

I think, however, along with most of the population, there is far more to that than this. So what is it that is driving Labour? Is it a sudden sense of guilt? Dover Samuels’ speech today would leave any 8-year-old child with an impression of that. Is there a sudden realisation that Labour’s action is, in some way, unethical? Well, that would be right, but Labour has the order of correcting it wrong. This is one of the major problems that this Government has: it does not understand—from the Prime Minister down, in my view—how to right things when it gets them wrong. The public are increasingly aware of that.

Members should think of it this way. In this case, Labour is seeking absolution without any of the prior conditions of acknowledging what has gone before. Perhaps, in an abstract sort of way, Labour feels that giving itself absolution is in itself sufficient acknowledgment that it has done something wrong, without having to acknowledge, really, that it has. My Catholic friends have spoken to me, on occasions, about the process of ethical restoration. For over 2,000 years Catholics have used a formula, and this is how it works. First, there is recognition of transgression; an awareness that they have done something wrong. Next is the process of confession to the transgression—the righting of the wrong; an act of contrition—which is then followed by an absolution.

None of that has happened here. Oh no! Self-forgiveness, self-absolution, and no contrition, no confession. They have done nothing wrong. They have cast a stain on the soul of the body politic and they seek to ignore that fact and legislate their way out of it. Clearly, not only do they see themselves as above the law but, as an earlier speaker suggested, they have given themselves papal grandeur. I think it could be taken further. I would go further and say they have raised themselves to the height of previously unimaginable deity—getting to heaven for this Labour Government would merely be a stepping stone, such is the cavalier way its members are behaving.

I will be told, no doubt, that this Government is proud of its secular profile and ethical response to problems. But it gets worse. The Government’s sycophants, the New Zealand First Party members, are the bête noire of my friend—or perhaps he is their bête noire. It gets even worse, because they do not even see the need to forgive themselves. This represents an awful enormity—a shocking level of denial, complicity, and guilt.

Other speakers far more experienced than I have declared this to be an illegitimate Government on the basis of what has gone on. I fully agree with that. The illegitimate partner, United Future, is creating a presence of denial in a priggish, self-congratulatory oratory. Thank goodness for the honesty of the Māori Party. It is more my style of doing things. Mind you, as a Scotsman I can imagine the level of internecine argument that has occurred within their caucus over who should contribute how much towards the $45. How much should the co-leaders shoulder? One can imagine the wrangling, the tears, the torment, the raffles, the cake stalls, and the appeal to members.

The question is also a matter of leadership. It gives me sadness to find that the leadership of the present Government is so much at fault in this poor brand of trying to solve the problem. There is a total lack of responsible leadership. But let us take it away from any emotional or political aspect. Let us look at it purely from a commercial point of view. The whole thing flows into other areas, as it always does. A debt is a debt. For those of us who have commercial experience, there is always associated vocabulary and behaviour.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek your assurance at this stage. Given that there are some moves to close this debate, can I have your assurance that you will consider Speakers’ rulings 60/7 and 60/8, regarding the harshness of your judgment on the closure, given that there is no select committee scrutiny of this bill and given that a large number of amendments have been laid on the Table? Given that there is a great deal of anticipation about participating from this side of the Chamber, I seek your assurance that you will consider that when you accept or decline a closure motion.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I say to the member that the Chairperson acts under the Standing Orders.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) : It is quite interesting to hear those members across the Chamber say the New Zealand public are not overly interested in this issue. The inside front page of this morning’s Dominion Post refers to the “day of shame”, and quite honestly that is the position that this House has been put in.

In speaking to Part 1, I say that it is quite worthwhile mentioning that some very meaningful amendments have been suggested to clause 3, and I look forward to the Committee giving serious consideration to proposed paragraphs (c) and (d) to underscore the importance that the money will be paid back. There is also a proposed paragraph (d), courtesy of Dr Wayne Mapp, that there can be public confidence that this is the case. It is quite important that serious consideration is given to this bill, so that we do go some way to restoring the confidence that this House should have in the minds and aspirations of all New Zealanders.

I would like to consider the purpose clause in Part 1. It is quite interesting when we look at a reasonable definition of the word “purpose”. It is the reason for which anything is done, created, or exists. So that is a fair definition of the purpose clause. I would also like to draw members’ attention to the definition of validation. A fair meaning of validation is to give legal force for the purpose of confirming an action. What we are talking about here is making an illegal act legal. We have had that summarised to represent a sum of some $14,000 per electorate. We are talking about something that is hugely significant.

In Part 1 we are talking about validation, in a bill that will try to make straight something that was terribly wrong. There is a proverbial saying, that once something has been made crooked, it cannot be made straight. What are we referring to here? We are referring to Parliamentary Service money that was wrongly used for the purposes of electioneering. The members on the other side of the Chamber—namely, Labour Government members—would tell us that this all happened incidentally and by pure accident, and was unintended. I contend the Labour Government knowingly and deliberately ignored the rules governing such spending, and as such we are now confronted with this validation of expenditure.

I like the way it is put in clause 3(a), which states: “that may have been outside the scope or purpose of an appropriation …”. We know, quite categorically, and all New Zealanders know when they read the papers published throughout the country, that this action was deliberate. Labour arrogantly breaks laws, and will in the future, and will justify those actions because it thinks it is above the law. The old saying “A leopard doesn’t change its spots” sums it up.

We know that a lot has gone on. We know that David Henry, the then Chief Electoral Officer, telephoned, wrote, beseeched, and communicated with the Labour Party campaign committee. The Minister of Finance, Dr Cullen, introduced this bill, and it would be very interesting to know just how much he knew. I contend there was a deliberate mind-set at that time, when the sign-off was given to the “Helen Clark - taxpayer funded” pledge card. Labour’s state of mind was: “We’ll get away with this. We’ll put through validating legislation after the fact, and if we play our cards right, the Auditor-General will have smoke and mirrors around him. We’ll ensure that this issue won’t come up until some 12 months after election day, when the public will have forgotten about it.” I say that Labour is guilty on all counts.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) : I move, That the question be now put.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : The Committee, having dealt with the purposes and interpretation in Part 1, now comes to the body of the bill—the largely operative clauses; the bulk of this legislation—and I look forward to this being the first of my four calls on this part. I expect that, given the substantive nature of this part of the bill, many members on this side of the Chamber will be looking for multiple calls on this particular part of the bill in accordance with the Standing Order that provides for such multiple calls.

Part 2, which deals with the actual validation of expenditure, is, of course, the crux of the matter. National, as the Committee will be aware, is opposed to this bill, and in particular we draw members’ attention to an amendment in the name of Christopher Finlayson to insert new clauses 5A and 5B. I know that Mr Finlayson will be anxious to speak to this amendment himself, as he has spent a considerable amount of time drafting it. At the risk of putting myself in the same legal league as Mr Finlayson, I will begin National’s contribution to Part 2 by outlining some of the provisions proposed in this amendment.

The most important thing about Mr Finlayson’s amendment to this part is that it essentially requires that before validation can occur, repayment must have been made. In the modern lexicon we would refer to the clause as the “New Zealand First clause”, because under this clause—if it is accepted by the Committee, and I am sure it will because it is a sensible clause—validation of spending will occur only in the event that repayment has been taken and receipted. We know from the media this morning that all political parties, except New Zealand First, have now agreed to repay. But this clause requires that no validation will occur until repayment is made. There is an incentive for that course of action in Mr Finlayson’s proposed amendment, under clause 5A(2), which states: “If any party neglects or refuses to pay back [money] … which was outside the scope of an appropriation … together with interest thereon, on or before 31 December 2006,”.

So those parties that are proposing to set targets for repayment by some vague date in the ether that may or may not be met—depending on the public’s reaction to this issue if this legislation passes—must pay. Otherwise, if payment is not made on or before 31 December, “then that party will become liable to pay a penalty of $500,000, which penalty must be paid on or before 30 June 2007.” So this is a carrot and stick amendment for legislation that actually does not require the repayment of the moneys. The legislation validates the spending, but this amendment will require the repayment. That is quite a big difference from the parent legislation’s suggestion.

At that point, if repayment is not made, together with interest and penalties, by 30 June 2007, Mr Finlayson’s amendment provides that the Speaker will have the power to sequester the assets of the party that has not made the repayment, the power to institute bankruptcy proceedings against any or all of its parliamentary representatives, and any other powers exercisable by receivers and liquidators. In other words, parties must pay by the due date.

If a party does not pay by the due date it will be penalised by half a million dollars, which must be payable by 30 June. If the payment plus the penalty is not paid by 30 June the party will lose assets, its members will be sued personally for bankruptcy proceedings, and it must submit as well to any other powers needed by receivers or liquidators.

Well, this is the missing clause in the parent legislation. This is the clause that gives teeth to the validating legislation, and requires the repayment. The original bill does not require repayment. Darren Hughes knows that. He is happy about having to write out a cheque for seven grand. He will be pleased about that, but not as pleased as a first-term MP.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : I want to take a short call on this part to describe and explain the Green Party’s vote on the various amendments to it. We will be voting in favour of the Minister’s amendments to the bill, and we will also be voting in favour of one of Mr McCully’s amendments to it. Of National’s many—impressively many—amendments, we will be supporting Mr McCully’s addition of clause 6A, which states: “Nothing in this Act prevents political parties repaying any expenditure identified by the Controller and Auditor-General as being outside of the appropriation for any financial year.” I think it is important to state that in the legislation, because it is the Green Party’s view that parties should pay the money identified as being unlawfully spent. We have said clearly and repeatedly that we do not believe we have breached the rules, at all. Yet the Auditor-General does, and in respecting his office we will concede to his view on the matter. But that does not mean we agree we actually made a mistake. So it becomes a moral obligation on political parties to do the right thing in the eyes of the public and for the benefit of Parliament as a whole.

That is one reason why we will not be supporting Chris Finlayson’s amendments, which are very detailed and which involve penalty payments, interest, enforcement, and all those sorts of things. This is not about making a legal obligation; in fact, a moral obligation on political parties is actually much more potent. It is about the decision, then, of political parties to do the right thing without being forced to—to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. We think it is much more important for the public to understand that there are parties prepared to make that decision, for their own benefit and for the benefit of the community as a whole. So we will support Murray McCully’s amendment, but that is all, and we will vote against all other National amendments.

We were interested in the idea of the reporting aspect in one of Chris Finlayson’s amendments—that the Speaker would report at some stage on whether parties had paid back all the money. It is an interesting idea, and one we would not necessarily oppose, but we certainly do not agree with the exposing of all the details of the expenditure, which, unfortunately, his clause includes. That is unfortunate, I think, for Mr Finlayson, because it is good to have transparency in the process, and that, in and of itself, is not a particularly evil thing.

It is very important for the public to remember that the Greens support the legislation, insofar as it is a clear enunciation of the rules. It also has to be made clear that it is a temporary enunciation—an enunciation until the rules can be sorted out properly and effectively. We think it is important to take the time to make sure the rules are effective, clear, and workable for the public and for politicians. But that is where the Auditor-General has dismally failed. He has dismally failed to provide any clear direction for MPs and political parties in Parliament as to how they might then proceed.

I refer to some of my own ads that have been ruled unlawful—for example, an ad inviting the public to a section 59 repeal bill meeting during the election period. The meeting concerned legislation that was before the House and that was a matter of intense public interest to the community as a whole, but because I put a little weeny tiny ad in a little community newspaper inviting people to come and talk to Sue Bradford about that legislation, the Auditor-General ruled that to be unlawful electioneering. That is one of the mistakes he has made. His interpretation has been wrong, and he has not given me any direction as to how I might then advertise public meetings about legislation that is relevant to the community. So any attempt at this stage to clarify those rules is absolutely essential. I cannot now communicate legally to the constituency of interest and to the constituency of locality that I represent and am involved in, because I do not know what is legal now. Will I have to send all of my ads to the Auditor-General, for him to ascertain their legal validity, before I place them? If that is what the Auditor-General wants, I am most happy to do that. I am sure it would take up enormous amounts of his own resources if every MP was forced to do that in order to make sure we were spending our money lawfully.

So the rhetoric and hysteria coming from some Opposition benches I think is extreme and unnecessary, and is failing to clarify other important issues for the constituency and the public. The public wants us to do our job, to do it right, and to do it properly. The Auditor-General has not enabled us to do that, so we must find the mechanism. This bill is a temporary mechanism, and the Greens will support it to that extent.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : As always, I listened with interest to what that honourable member said, because I value her views, so I thought it would be helpful if I tried to put in context what exactly I am seeking to do with my amendments to Part 2. I have quite a number of amendments, and on this call I want to focus on my proposed amendment to insert new clauses 5A and 5B, because there is a yawning gap in the legislation as it is currently drafted.

Clause 5 seeks to validate expenditure under Vote Parliamentary Service, but there is no mechanism for repayment of unauthorised expenditure, and there is no way in which the public can be satisfied that moneys have been paid back if honourable members do the right thing and act—as Mr Copeland said yesterday they would do—on the moral imperative to repay. So new clause 5A seeks to introduce a repayment clause, and it is limited only to the expenditure under Vote Parliamentary Service for the financial year 2005-06 that was outside the scope of an appropriation.

The key provision in subclause (1) provides that the expenditure that was unauthorised must be repaid on or before 31 December 2006. That gives political parties a couple of months to get their act in order. It also provides, in paragraph (b), that the funds are to be repaid with interest. Where is the harshness in that? If people do not pay on a judgment given against them, they are required to pay interest under the Judicature Act. If people do not pay their fines or their terminal tax on time, they are clobbered by the Inland Revenue Department. If they do not pay their credit card debt on time, they get an interest bill component in their next bills, or they get their credit cards taken away from them. So it is only fair that there should be an interest component, and rather than going for some of the higher rates of interest—which I could have done, and I have come under some criticism in my own caucus for being too soft, I must say—I have picked the interest provision under section 87 of the Judicature Act, which is at a rate simply of 7.5 percent—

Darren Hughes: Ha, ha!

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON:—and I am sure that the boy wonder from Ōtaki could afford that.

The second point is that if unauthorised expenditure is not paid back by 31 December, it will attract a penalty. The penalty is to restore confidence in this institution, and it is for $500,000. That penalty has to be paid on or before 30 June 2007, but at the same time people are not exculpated, if you like, from having the obligation to repay the expenditure with interest. So that sort of concentrates the minds of the miscreant parties, and makes them focus on their obligations to this place and to the political process if they do not pay by 31 December 2006. If we face continuing disobedience, in respect of what the Auditor-General said, after 30 June, then the Speaker may appoint a manager who can take whatever steps are considered necessary to ensure that unauthorised expenditure is repaid to the Parliamentary Service. That will include some of the matters set out in my proposed new subclauses (4)(a) to (4)(c). Subclause (5) simply states that “the liability of any Parliamentary representative for that expenditure shall be joint and several.” That is the first part of my amendment.

The second part is new clause 5B, which concerns the reporting function. This is an extremely important clause, and I am grateful that the Green MP indicated at least some interest in it, because it is fundamental to regaining the respect of the public. People are entitled to know that those sums have been repaid, but at the moment there is no mechanism for ensuring that that is the case. As we know, the Parliamentary Service Commission is not subject to the Official Information Act 1982, so how are people in the general public to know that the sums have been repaid? This proposed new clause attempts to address that. It also addresses both the amount paid and a detailed breakdown of the way the amount was calculated. That is really what this critical clause is about, but I do not think I have time on this call to go further.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : I have amendments to Part 2, and they relate to saving and allowing the courts to hear the case of Darnton v Clark filed earlier this year. What is Mr Darnton seeking? He is seeking the fundamental right of all citizens to hold the Government to account. We do not do that just through elections. As citizens, we also want to know whether Governments and parliamentarians are lawful—whether they obey the law.

That is one of the fundamental checks in our democracy, and there is no more powerful a case on that than Fitzgerald v Muldoon when, back in 1975, the Government of the day sought to overturn superannuation by a non-legislative procedure. The courts were absolutely emphatic that one cannot do that—that one must pass law to establish the law of the nation. In essence, the same principle arises here, does it not? Surely it is the right of Mr Darnton to know whether the actions of the Labour Party last year followed the law—whether it breached its Appropriation bills or whether it did not. Surely that is a fundamental right of citizens in holding the Government to account. So what does the Government say? The Government is saying: “No, we don’t want the courts to judge our actions. We’re going to pretend”—because that is what we are actually doing today; let us not fool the public here—“that what was unlawful is now lawful, as if it never happened.”

The public will not be fooled by that. The public will judge the parliamentary Labour Party and its followers, the New Zealand First Party and United Future, harshly for that. They know that the fundamental right of citizens is to have their cases heard and to have judgments from the courts that in essence ask whether these actions—the actions of the parliamentary Labour Party last year—were lawful. It is a fundamental right of citizens to know that.

Darren Hughes: And the National Party.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I might say to the junior whip on the other side that there is a case in the court. The court is adjudicating on whether he obeyed the law. Surely citizens have a right to know whether that was the case. But this Government is saying that it is going to take a high-handed approach and remove the right of citizens to know whether the Government’s actions were lawful, as if there were never an issue in the first place.

I find that reprehensible, because Western democracies—countries we model ourselves on—are, we say, countries of laws. Our actions are judged by independent courts. But in this case the Government says no. It is going to reduce this country to the level of a Third World democracy, where courts are routinely browbeaten by the lawmakers of the day, and that is, of course, what this legislation does. The Government is saying to the courts and to the citizens that their rights do not matter. It is saying that it has absolute power and will use it ruthlessly to its own end. Well, I say to Mr Deputy Prime Minister that the public will judge it harshly for that.

That is why I have this amendment today, which I ask the Government to actually vote for so that citizens are allowed to have their cases heard and judged to determine, simply by a declaration, whether those actions were lawful. If those members are true to their word—if they believe in the rule of law—then they will be willing to be judged. They will be willing to have their actions submitted to an independent test of the courts. They can make their submissions to the courts. They have, in fact, filed a statement of defence. They can have the judges of the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and their Supreme Court adjudicate to find out whether this Government, this parliamentary Labour Party, actually obeyed the law. Surely that is a fundamental right of all citizens.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) : I rise to take a call in respect of Part 2, “Validation of expenditure and interim meaning of ‘funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes’ ”. I will start by reminding people of what we are debating today. First of all, in 2002 the Auditor-General put out a report saying he had some concerns about the way political parties—he did not identify any particular party—were using taxpayer funds, Parliamentary Service funds, for political activity for which those funds were never intended to be used. That is the first point. We should bear in mind that our democracy exists on the basis that politicians do not use taxpayer funding for political party campaigning. That is one of the fundamental principles of our democracy in New Zealand, and it is one that works in most of the Western World.

Then the Auditor-General came back to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, in April 2005, and said to the Prime Minister, through her staff and her advisers, that he had some concerns about the road that Labour was starting to embark on. He said he had some concerns about the credit card expenditure and other expenditure that the Labour Party intended to go forward with in the upcoming election. The Prime Minister refused to see the Auditor-General. How did that happen? How can that happen in a democracy? Where in the world would that ever happen in a Westminster-based democracy? Nowhere. That is the first point that all of us need to remind ourselves of in terms of why we are having this debate today.

The Labour Party proceeded with the credit card anyway, promising all sorts of things—things it claims it delivers but never does—and it spent something like $450,000, or thereabouts, on that campaign activity. It spent a huge amount of taxpayer money on that campaign activity—blatant campaign activity. Labour said it was not campaign activity; it was policy. It said it was about what Labour was offering. It said it was not illegal—and we went through months of debate on that. It said it had not overspent and would not pay anything back. In fact, Labour’s great strategist, Pete Hodgson, went on television and radio, saying that Labour would not pay it back—end of story, no more discussion. Then we read that Labour would pay it back, and that all the MPs in the Labour Party have been requested to put their hands in their pockets and front up with between $8,000 and $15,000, depending on which article we read and whether the members are Ministers or back-benchers. Well, which is it? Is the spending illegal or not illegal? Are they meant to pay it back or not pay it back? Did they get it wrong in the first place, or not? The public will not be as easily fooled as that.

Here is the greatest tragedy of this whole scenario. We had an election campaign, and we can witness the outcome by the votes in the Chamber today: Labour 50, National 48. That was the outcome. The whole direction of the country, the Government, is decided on the basis of a political party’s ability to convince the voters as to where to put their votes. That is how it works in a democracy and that is how it should stay. But we have found that Labour spent money illegally to win votes—buy votes—and the outcome of the election was decided, potentially, on that. So I just say to the Prime Minister, and to the Deputy Prime Minister—the Minister in the chair—that when they are elected to this place they are elected to exercise their judgment on what is right and what is wrong. When they knowingly take taxpayers’ money, having been warned by a senior Government adviser that to do so is wrong—when they ignore that advice—they are not exercising that judgment. The public of New Zealand will judge them harshly on that.

We have heard all sorts of debates about what it was that the Auditor-General may or may not have said. But I have a few of his statements here, and I think it would be interesting to advise the Committee about them at this point in time: “Some MPs and parliamentary parties have said that I have acted unlawfully by ‘changing the rules’ after the event. I have not changed any rules.” That comment comes from page 30 of the Auditor-General’s report. “I deliberately decided to publish my 2005 Report before the Election to provide a clear signal…”.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : I first of all draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that there is literally a small technical amendment to be made to clause 7(1)(c) and (d), which involves simply a matter of getting the technical terminology correct, and we come back now to one or two key points. First of all, let me make it clear that the Labour Party accepts the Auditor-General’s view is that unlawful appropriations occurred, and that they occurred across all parties except for the Progressive party. But one thing that appears to be now established is that the National Party is the only party that claims it did so knowingly; all other parties claim they engaged in unlawful expenditure unknowingly.

As we respect the person who determines the rules around this matter, we will be refunding the expenditure involved. If the National Party were in the same position, of course, it would not do so, because it shows its contempt for whoever is the referee almost daily, if not hourly, within this Chamber. The challenging of the Speaker’s authority is more than an hourly occurrence; it has taken sometimes all of an hour, continuously in this House. But Labour does believe that the Auditor-General’s opinion is wrong, and that it is certainly unworkable.

Even Mr Brownlee, this morning in the Parliamentary Service Commission meeting, finally began to understand what the implications were—

Gerry Brownlee: You weren’t told.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: It is not a select committee; I am sorry. It is not bound by the rules of privilege.

Hon Member: You can’t talk about it.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I can talk about that, and I am going to. Mr Brownlee had it explained to him, with the General Manager of the Parliamentary Service and the accountant present, what the implications were of the Auditor-General’s ruling and what it would mean if he went to a meeting in Auckland. If questions started being raised about National Party policy and he answered those, that could render invalid the expenditure of the money engaged entirely in that visit.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think it is worth pointing out that Dr Cullen was not at the meeting this morning, and that the situation he outlines was a most absurd and preposterous suggestion put to the commission by Mr Mark Burton, the “justice Minister extraordinaire”, who is behaving as if he were some sort of sycophant to the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. In no way does this reflect a reasonable approach to the Auditor-General’s report.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. That was not a point of order, and the member knows it was not a point of order. It is a matter for debate.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. You simply cannot sit there and condone Ministers of the Crown getting up and purporting to give an accurate report of meetings that they have not attended. That is misusing the parliamentary process.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Mr Brownlee, I should warn you that I have ruled on that point of order. It is clearly a point of debate. There is no way that the Chairperson can know about the content and be in a position to rule on that matter. It is a point of debate, as are all the things that you raised.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I also come to this point. The extraordinary claim made by Mr Ardern, who appears to have inhaled the tractor fumes rather too much recently, was that somehow or other no parliamentary funding is ever used for political activity. I ask whether he would care to explain to me what paid for National Party billboards in 2002, what paid for National Party billboards on the foreshore and seabed legislation in 2004, what paid—this year—for questionnaires with politically leading questions being put out by National Party MPs around the country, and what paid for their pledge advertising in 2002.

And when Mr Ardern finally realises that all that funding came from the Parliamentary Service, could he tell us something else, because yesterday I challenged National members and I have not had an answer. What did they spend their leader’s budget on in the few months before the 2005 election? What was it spent on? Was none of that money to do with the election at all? It was all about flower arranging, was it, in what was purported to be Ms Bennett’s office when she finally got here after the election? Was it nothing to do with Bryan Sinclair, nothing about polling, nothing about anything else? [Interruption] Oh, they are not going to commit themselves to saying that—because we know.

The point is that the Auditor-General did not look at it, and he said himself that he is aware of other practices that could be unlawful but did not have a sufficient audit trail. Well, why not?

If we look at the National Party’s own advertising contract, and I have in front of me the report, we see no written arrangements were entered into for conducting the advertising campaign, despite the amount of money involved—nearly $1 million a year spent. A contract was entered into without a written agreement, so the police could not pin down who overspent with the GST. So the National Party escaped prosecution. [Interruption] Well, I will quote it to the member; I thank him for that. “The issue for police is to establish, in the absence of a written agreement, what each person communicated to and understood from the other party. Police cannot attribute responsibility for the GST overexpenditure to either the New Zealand National Party or their advertising agency Rainmakers, and are not therefore in a position to charge either person.” That party deliberately made sure there was no documentary trail, in the same way that there was no audit trail on the spending of its leader’s budget.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think you should ask Michael Cullen to come back to the point of the bill, because at the moment he is straying into the area of election spending from funds that this Parliament does not have to have any account of, and he is trying to confuse two things. The reality is that we are here because the Labour Party misspent Parliamentary Service funding, not because of anything to do with the National Party election campaign or otherwise. But I would now seek leave—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. I want to rule on the point of order before you seek leave. I say to Mr Brownlee that certainly the first part of the debate was wide-ranging, and the points Dr Cullen has brought into the debate are ones that members have brought in all morning, and they continue to bring them in. Therefore, I caution members about keeping to the clauses of the bill, but I do accept that every member has brought in those points in a wide-ranging debate.

Gerry Brownlee: Thank you for your ruling. It probably explains why this particular process is taking so long. I seek leave for the bill in the name of Don Brash that would allow National to pay the GST to be introduced to the House immediately upon the vote on this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): We do have a problem with that, because it is not actually within the competence of the Committee to do that. So the member has to put that to the House.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: When that leave is sought it will be declined, because we are not letting that party off being convicted and fined for overexpenditure, which is what the import of its bill is. The only reason National members want it is so they are not convicted and fined. But I note that they cannot tell us what they spent their leader’s budget on, because they know it was spent on campaigning. They had their feet in the till and they are criticising us.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I make this point because I think that no one who is taking any time to listen to this debate should be left under any false illusion. The Auditor-General knows full well what the National Party spent its leader’s budget on. All of those accounts were made available to him by the Parliamentary Service, which pays out all the money for the leader’s budget—which is why the Labour Party is in trouble.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Mr Brownlee, I just warn you again that those are all points of debate.

KATHERINE RICH (National) : I am delighted to rise in opposition to the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, which all National Party members have spoken out against wholeheartedly. It is interesting to hear Dr Cullen’s comments, because he wants to create the impression that somehow all parties are in the same boat, and that all parties have erred equally. Well, I would like to hear him explain why he runs that point, when the Labour Party spent some 14,000 times what the Māori Party spent unlawfully. Dr Cullen overlooks the fact that the Labour Party spent 70 times the amount spent by the National Party. Dr Cullen wants the public to believe that this is somehow about validating Parliamentary Service expenditure. Well, it is not. It is about validating Labour Party expenditure in the last election. It is about validating the expenditure on the pledge card.

When Kiwis got their pledge card in the mail, most did not think for one second that they had paid for it. Most Kiwis thought that it would have been paid for by the Labour Party. The Labour Party was told that it was an electioneering expense, and we have heard Pete Hodgson confirm that it was an electioneering expense. So this bill is all about validating that expenditure and opening the door for the Labour Party to do it again in the next election. Well, I do not think there is a member of the public who thinks that is a good use of parliamentary time. I do not think there is a member of the public who believes that is the reason we are here—to pass legislation that makes up for the Labour Party’s mistakes.

One other point is that Dr Cullen also overlooks the fact that if one looks at the major area where there has been some debate, one sees it is in the area of the leaders’ budgets. While he calls on the National Party to expose what we spent our leader’s budget on, I do not see him offering to the public information on what Helen Clark spent her leadership budget on, other than the pledge card. Well, we know that the pledge card was unlawful, and this is all about validating the pledge card so that Labour can do it in the future.

It is also about heading off a court case. Although members on that side of the Committee might be feeling delirious and slightly sick at having to get out their cheque books and write personal cheques, this is all about ensuring that they do not have to have their day in court. It is typical Labour Party behaviour—when the chips are down, it will change the law to suit itself. It is quite obvious that Helen Clark has misjudged this situation. For months she kept saying that this was an issue that was not of interest to anybody past the beltway. She ignored the fact that every single paper did an editorial slamming her position. She ignored the fact that talkback ran hot day after day, calling on her and the Labour Party to pay it back, and proving to her that it was not an issue just for the beltway.

I turn my attention to some of the fine amendments put up by my colleagues Chris Finlayson and Wayne Mapp. I would like members of this Committee to stand up and explain why they will not allow an amendment to be inserted that would require parties to pay the money back. Peter Brown is sitting there. I have not seen him take a call, but I would like to hear why New Zealand First is trying to wriggle out of its obligations, and why it will not support an amendment to ensure that the money is paid back. The way this bill reads at the moment, once it is passed and becomes an Act all expenditure will be validated and will not be required to be paid back. In fact, some members—it will not matter what they have done with their budget—will not be required to do anything, because it will all be valid expenditure.

We have seen some spurious contributions from the Labour members. They want us to believe that everything they have done was kosher. Well, it was not, and four different independent Government organisations have told them that it was not. They were told before the last election that they were to include the pledge card in their election expenses. The amount that they overspent on the election—frankly, buying the election—is an issue that should be dealt with separately.

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) : We are debating Part 2, which is the part of the bill that the National Party needs. We have just heard the member Katherine Rich speak. She is, by streets and streets, one of the smarter and more considered members of the National Party. Notwithstanding that, there were two or three factual errors in what Katherine Rich said that we need to correct now.

The member Katherine Rich said that if this bill was passed into law it would all relate to the 2008 general election. This part contains a sunset provision of 31 December 2007 to allow the parliamentary parties, working with the Parliamentary Service Commission, to come together with a proper and legal definition of “parliamentary purposes” so that no political party gets back into the situation that all parties—with the exception of Progressive—were in before the last election.

This is the part about the National Party that I cannot understand. National members are quiet in the Chamber only when they are asked a question. When they are asked a question they have nothing to say, because they cannot understand the inconsistency of their own position. When they are not debating that, when they are not answering questions, they yell and scream because that is what they are expert at. But here is the point: the National Party is saying that it is somehow without any fault or sin here. How come it had to pay back $10,000? National members’ argument here is that because they did not get it wrong too badly, they are therefore perfect, but everybody else, because they got it wrong by more, therefore did something wrong.

Nobody accepts that as a point of logic. Nobody accepts that as a point of fact. The National Party is caught by that in the same way that all parties have been. That is why we have introduced Part 2. And that is why there is a sunset provision in there, which Katherine Rich did not refer to. She got it 100 percent wrong when she said it was about the 2008 election; it is not. There is an opportunity in here for the parliamentary parties to get this put right.

Let me now ask members of Parliament this. What page of the Auditor-General’s report clarifies what “parliamentary purposes” means? What page number is that on?

Mark Blumsky: Page 27.

DARREN HUGHES: Mark Blumsky is giving us advice. He says it is page 27. Knowing Mark Blumsky’s command of detail and fact, I am not even going to check page 27—I know Mark Blumsky is wrong. So we will put Mark Blumsky to one side in that regard—in terms of credibility—and say that the Auditor-General did not come back and report to us last Thursday with a clear definition of parliamentary purposes. That is why we need Part 2, unless the National Party proposes to spend none of its leader’s budget between now and 31 December.

Let me ask National Party members another question. What law currently exists that requires money to refund the money misappropriated, that would be changed by Part 2?

Hon Tau Henare: No it won’t.

DARREN HUGHES: I am asking Tau Henare a question and he answers me by saying “No it won’t”. That is not the answer. What law exists right now that requires the money to be refunded, that is altered by Part 2?

Hon Tau Henare: That’s why you’re scared.

DARREN HUGHES: No, I am hearing nothing from Tau Henare. I ask the shadow Attorney-General what law changes with Part 2 and he points to Tau Henare, and Tau Henare points to Mark Blumsky, and pretty soon we have the parliamentary National Party. So National members have no answer for any single question the Government is trying to ask, as we debate Part 2. The only answer they have is for anything apart from Part 2. So I ask National members to join the debate on Part 2, and to give us the examples rather than the abuse and the “Tau Henare, I’m still in talkback land” kind of swagger, which does not pay a single dollar back. I also ask them to explain to us why $10,000 was misspent, when the National Party said it knew what the laws were around that issue. I ask National members to answer me this question. Why did the National Party spend the money if it knew the rules had changed? Labour did not know they had changed, New Zealand First did not know they had changed, and United Future did not know they had changed. Even the Māori Party, which has been lauded by the National Party, got it wrong as well.

I accept the amounts of spending are different. What I do not accept is that somehow parties get away with it if their amount of spending is different, and that therefore they understood what the rules were. They did not understand the rules, and National members have to come up with some sort of clear argument against Part 2 if they are going to vote against it. I want to know, first, when they found out that the rule had changed; second, what law is altered by Part 2—

Hon Tau Henare: Sit down and we’ll tell you.

DARREN HUGHES: Tau Henare tells me to sit down so they can tell us. Will Tau Henare yield if he gets it wrong? Tau Henare will argue the National Party position—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member cannot shout continuously like that. That is not an acceptable interjection.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I just want some clarification. When I am continually named in the debate and the member who was on his feet is asking me for a reply, is it within the bounds of the Standing Orders that I do reply?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No, the member knows very clearly that—[Interruption] I will rule on the point of order. The member knows that reasonable interjections are tolerated—six barraging calls in a row are not.

Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I do not want to interrupt the member who is on his feet any longer, but I draw your attention to the fact that Mr Tau Henare is sitting in the wrong seat. He comes out with these rather loud insults from time to time, and I think he should be at the back of the Chamber where he belongs.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Can I just clarify that.

Hon Dover Samuels: What about Gerry Brownlee?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Silence! Points of order are being dealt with. The point is that the member has not moved his seat for an advantage. He has been sitting there for a long time, and that is acceptable.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairman. Throughout this debate, from its beginning, members have been warned on several occasions not to interject on points of order. Some members have even been thrown out of the Chamber, and for the right reasons. During that point of order, Dover Samuels interjected. I am not asking you to throw him out or do anything. I leave it in your hands.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member is quite right. I have not given a general warning today, but certainly a general warning was given yesterday. I warned members earlier and there have been a number of interjections, so I really think the member should leave, because he should not interject during points of order or when points of order are being dealt with. I ask the member now to leave.

• Hon Dover Samuels withdrew from the Chamber.

DARREN HUGHES: How much time do I have remaining in this speech?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): About 16 seconds.

DARREN HUGHES: Sixteen seconds leaves me just enough time to mention Murray McCully and validating legislation. That man over there, with his $56 million Tourism Board fiasco, required validating legislation in this House. I know that none of the new National MPs have any history of their own party, but I say the man who is their strategist cost us $56 million.

NICKY WAGNER (National) : I rise to oppose Part 2 of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill. I want to make it quite clear to anyone listening to this debate just how significant this bill is. It is significant not so much in terms of the actual wording, which is designed to look innocent enough, but in what it says about Labour and how Labour views the political process, how Labour thirsts for power and control at any cost, and how Labour is even prepared to pass retrospective legislation to validate its misdeeds and its wrongful expenditure under Vote Parliamentary Service.

As a new MP, fresh from the real world of work, kids, respecting the law, and paying my own way, and who was not here during the last election, I would like to think that I have an uncorrupted take on the issue. But coming into Parliament and watching this Labour – New Zealand First Government at work, I have learnt a few lessons.

Lesson 1: there is one rule for us and one rule for Labour. As National candidates, it was drilled into us just how important it was not to overspend during the election campaign. We were told horror stories of MPs who had won on the night and who had lost their seats for the sake of overspending a few of their own dollars. We were all very, very careful. And then the worst happened. Bob Clarkson was accused by Winston Peters of overspending and of buying the election. Mr Peters instituted a very nasty, very stressful, and very expensive court case, which, of course, Bob Clarkson won. It was a classic case of Peters using bully-boy tactics while, all along, he and his Labour mates were rorting the system and using taxpayers’ money to underpin their own campaigns. Labour members believe that there is one rule for them and another for poor old honest Joes like Bob Clarkson. That is not the sort of behaviour the public of New Zealand wants or expects.

Lesson 2: one who thinks one is all powerful can treat electoral officers with contempt. On 30 August David Henry, the Chief Electoral Officer, in his role of monitoring spending, rang Mike Smith, the general secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party, and warned him that it was wrong for the Parliamentary Service to pay for the pledge card. David Henry said it did not matter who paid for it; it did not need to call specifically for the party vote to be considered electioneering. On 2 September David Henry clarified his warning in writing, citing sections 221 and 214B of the Electoral Act 1993. On 6 September Mike Smith wrote back arguing the case, but on 12 September David Henry wrote again asking Mr Smith if there was any reason why this matter should not be referred to the police for investigation of an illegal practice.

Forced to answer, Mike Smith wrote a long letter arguing the case, but he finally agreed to accommodate David Henry’s concern, saying: “I would be happy to include the cost of the material in the return furnished by the New Zealand Labour Party.” So far so good; it was all sorted. David Henry had done his job. We should remember that this was on 14 September, nearly 2 weeks after the issue was raised and days before the election itself. We can imagine David Henry’s surprise when he received a letter from Mike Smith on 5 October that stated: “I have now had the opportunity to reconsider the matter and I wish to advise that I withdraw my offer to have the amount expended on the material in question counted as an election expense.” So lesson two is that if one thinks one is all-powerful, one can treat electoral officers with contempt.

Labour agreed to the rules before the event, then deliberately and cynically changed its mind when it thought it was too late for the officials to be able to do anything about it. The New Zealand public is lucky that it has a public servant of the calibre of the Auditor-General, Kevin Brady, who refuses to be cowed and bullied by Labour.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) : I rise to speak to Part 2, “Validation of expenditure and interim meaning of ‘funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes’ ”. In particular, I would like to comment on a number of amendments I have to this part, especially to paragraph (b) of clause 5. There are four Acts that I would like to add to the list of Acts in that paragraph. They are the Income Tax Act 2004, the Proceeds of Crime Act 1991, the Public Records Act 2005, and the Declaratory Judgments Act 1908. In addition, I have an amendment to subclause 7(4), where I would like to omit the expression “31 December 2007” and substitute the expression “20 April 2007”. I would also like to spend some time on clause 7(4).

But before I talk about that I want to focus on subclause (2) of clause 7, which describes exactly what “electioneering” means. It is defined in that subclause, which really says that if this shoddy, shaky, shabby Government collapses and there is a snap election, then the Labour pledge card would be paid for by public funds. That is absolutely appalling! That is why my amendment proposes to bring the date forward by 6 months. It is to limit the time that this shabby, shaky, shoddy Government, if it does call a snap election, could use the pledge card and pay for it out of public funds. I tell members, quite frankly, that that has been termed currently a “corrupt practice”. But if this bill is passed it clearly will not be a corrupt practice; it will be part of electioneering, and New Zealand will be going backwards. I certainly hope that my amendment will get the support of the Committee.

I also support the amendments to this part in the names of Chris Finlayson and Wayne Mapp. There is an unsung hero in all of this shabby, shoddy, shaky mess the Government has caused, and that is Bernard Darnton from the Libertarianz. He has a lawsuit against this shabby, shaky, shoddy Government—Helen Clark and her caucus. If this bill is passed in its current form, it will mean that Bernard Darnton’s lawsuit will certainly not proceed. He issued a press statement yesterday in which he basically said that the Government’s changing the law to escape charges against it was something he would expect from a Third World dictatorship, and that, sadly, New Zealand has no constitutional protections to prevent that type of abuse by a Government that is quite literally out of control.

I could not agree more. We have a banana republic. It is a Mugabe-type Government. This Government is trying to ram through legislation without allowing public comment and without having a select committee process. One would think that maybe the public is not interested but, believe me, the public is very interested in what is happening. People will not forget. They will have long memories about this shabby, shaky, shoddy Government and what it is trying to ram through this Parliament, under urgency, to pass a law to validate its overspending in the election campaign. It is doing so because Labour members are self-interested, cynical, and out for everything they can get.

David Bennett: They’re corrupt.

Dr JACKIE BLUE: Exactly. The public interest in this case is very high, and when 81 percent of the public said “Pay it back.”, and when 75 percent of Labour supporters said “Pay it back.”, Labour was finally shamed into saying that it would pay it back. But there is a catch. We do not know when it will pay it back or, indeed, if it will ever pay it back. This bill, in its current form, gives no time line. It gives no guarantee that any party that has outstanding money will pay its money back. Helen Clark talked about a target. What does a target mean? It is a pretty nebulous term and there is no guarantee that any money will be paid back. We know that Labour MPs are having to write personal cheques, but when will we see the colour of their money? When will taxpayers be refunded? Even New Zealand First is trying to duck and dive. It is in cahoots with this shoddy, shaky, shabby Government.

Darren Hughes: Read it again.

Dr JACKIE BLUE: I say to Darren Hughes, the marginal member from the marginal seat of Otaki, that I do not have to. Mr Hughes will not be here in 2008, because my colleague Nathan Guy—

KATE WILKINSON (National) : Can I start by clarifying—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the member but there are two members, one each on either side of me, interjecting. They are not permitted to interject when they do not have the floor.

KATE WILKINSON: I start this call on Part 2 of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill by clarifying for members opposite that there is every difference in the world between, one, accidentally overspending, realising it, admitting it, and paying the money back straight away; and, two, blatantly and intentionally overspending by $800,000, denying it ever happened, trying to hide it within the beltway, shooting the messenger who dared to disagree, then attempting to legislate under urgency to make lawful what was unlawful and to validate actions, having still not paid back one solitary cent.

We have heard in debates today that this bill will make legal what was illegal, but the moral obligation to pay back the money that was misappropriated remains. How on earth do we enforce this moral obligation? How can we be expected to believe that this Labour Government, which blatantly ignores its legal obligations, will now conscientiously subscribe to some moral obligations? If Labour’s legal obligations have not been obeyed in the past, what suggestion is there that its moral obligations will be obeyed in the future?

I refer to the amendment proposed by my learned colleague Mr Finlayson to insert new clauses 5A and 5B, which addresses the fact that there is absolutely no legal obligation, under the proposed bill, to repay any money. Mr Finlayson has rather eloquently imposed an obligation to pay the money back. The public expects the money to be paid back. The public expects a legal obligation for it to be paid back. The public will not trust the Labour Government to obey some moral obligation to pay the money back. We urge support for this amendment. What is wrong with a proposal that states that the parties will pay the money back? After all, that is what they said they would do What is wrong with a provision in clause 5A(2) to impose interest, as an incentive on a party to pay the money back? What is wrong with imposing a penalty for not paying the money back, when we have already heard promises that parties will pay the money back? What is wrong with having provisions to appoint a manager to take whatever steps are necessary if the money is not paid back, and what is wrong with the manager having the power to sequester the assets of a party and to initiate proceedings, and having all the powers and authorities exercisable by receivers, to ensure that this wonderful moral promise by the Labour Government is, in fact, honoured?

I urge the Committee to support the amendment proposed by Mr Finlayson. As an addition to that, as provided for in the amendment to include new clause 5B, it is only common sense that members are made aware exactly when the money is paid back, so that it cannot be just swept under the carpet and “moved on”.

I would also like to address the amendment proposed by Dr Mapp to insert new clause 6A. This addresses the process. I will talk about the process for a minute, because we have been told that this is an urgent matter. Nobody has yet enlightened us as to where the urgency is that is being demanded of us. The money has already been misappropriated. Whether the bill passes today, tomorrow, or next year will not change that fact. Even if we accept that clarification of the rules is required, there is no desperate urgency that the clarification be codified now, today, tomorrow, or even this year. Dr Mapp’s amendment, in fact, suggests that nothing in the Act shall affect the existing High Court proceedings, which seek a judicial declaration as to whether the expenditure was lawful or whether it was misappropriated. Why not wait until the Darnton case is judicially determined? Why push this through under urgency?

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) : I am delighted to take a call on this bill. Yes, there is urgency about it, and yes, I am glad we are sitting in urgency, because this Government has taken the responsible position and will clean up the situation, following the recommendations that came from the Auditor-General. The Opposition is failing to acknowledge the steps that went into the Auditor-General’s report to the Minister responsible for Vote Parliamentary Service. That Minister reported to the House, as we were told, that seven parties breached the spending rules at the last election, including National. National members, on their high horse, say that it was just a little breach, so it was all right. But the Opposition did breach the electoral spending rules, and this bill will validate that overspent electoral spending. It is fine for National members to get on their high horse about this matter, but the public out there are pleased to know that we are getting this validating legislation passed. We will get the issue cleared up, and the validation will lapse at the end of next year.

I want to talk about one of the amendments in Part 2 of the bill that has come from the Hon Bill English. He wants to omit clause 7(2)(a) and substitute the following: “encourages or persuades or appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote for a particular person or persons:”. Well, let us get that cleared up, for once and for all. Who paid for the National Party candidate in the electorate of Rotorua to put billboards up 6 months before the election? The report on overspending looked at the communications spend in the Parliamentary Service only for the 3 months from the date of declaration of the electoral campaign. But for 6 months before the election, National Party billboards were up in our electorate, telling us who to vote for. “Who is Gilbert Stehbens?”, they asked. Then, before the 3-month spending period had even begun, a little van drove around Rotorua, saying “MP Rotorua”. The candidate was not the MP for Rotorua. Who paid for that, prior to the 3 months of the electoral spend that the Auditor-General has looked at?

And who paid the salary for National’s candidate, who was absent from his job in Auckland as a marketer and a cosmetic dentist—the one who fixed up Dr Brash’s teeth? Who paid for him to come to Rotorua and go door to door, telling everyone what a lousy local MP they had, and that she was so unsuccessful she was not even in Cabinet. Who paid that salary? It was probably paid for from the Leader of the Opposition’s spend, which is unaccounted for line by line, because the Leader of the Opposition spent all his allocation up until the election. What did he spend it on? National has no accountability at all on that. But we knew the spending was something we had never seen before. It was absolutely unprecedented. There was no party machine helping the wannabe candidate in our electorate—but the whispering campaign had begun.

The Opposition also chooses to ignore the $110,000 overspent on GST. How can Opposition members say they did not break the spending rules, leading up to the last election?

I am pleased about this validating legislation. We should get this spending cleaned up, and then we should get into the review that will look at the rules on overspending.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : I do not buy a word of what MP Steve Chadwick has just said. I do not buy a word of what the Deputy Prime Minister said today. I do not buy a single, solitary word that has come from any member on that side of the Chamber on this issue, and I will tell members why. When I look at the Order Paper that we should have been addressing this week, I see the heading “Business before the House”, and I see a number of bills under that heading that should have—and would have—been debated in this House this week or the next, were we not in urgency. What are those bills? We have bills like the Sports Anti-Doping Bill, a disabled persons bill, a bill to do with children, young persons, and their families, the Criminal Procedure Bill, and the Education (Establishment of Universities) Amendment Bill—and what do all these bills have in common? They have come before the House to benefit the people of New Zealand. The fact that we may or may not support them and vote for them is irrelevant, because the intent behind the bills is to benefit the people of New Zealand.

I turn to the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, which we are debating today, and I ask who it is designed to benefit. Is it designed to benefit, as those other bills are, the people of New Zealand? No, it is not. Of course it is not. It is designed to benefit the Government of the day. There is the difference. This bill is designed purely to get the Government out of a very, very tight spot, and I do not buy a single, solitary word of it.

The then Chief Electoral Officer wrote to the Labour Party and told it that if it put out the pledge card, then it would breach the spending cap. Let us just leave aside the fact that the Labour Party used taxpayers’ money and our money. Labour was warned that the use of the pledge card would be regarded as election spending. We badly need to know—and I would love an MP from the Government to take a call on this question—whether Labour had been informed in advance that the use of the pledge card would be regarded as election spending. If Labour had been informed of that, then it knowingly exceeded the spending cap.

Bob Clarkson was challenged about exceeding the spending cap. Bob Clarkson spent a considerable amount of time and money to prove that he had not exceeded the spending cap. Had Mr Clarkson exceeded the spending cap, he would have lost his seat—but not the Government, because the laws of the land, obviously, do not apply to the Government. The laws of the land that apply to me, my colleagues, and my party do not apply to the Government.

So we have Government members sitting in the Chamber with a worthless piece of paper, hoping they will get away with it, and hoping the people of New Zealand will have forgotten about it by the time of the next election. But we will not have forgotten about it. We have a Government that knowingly and willingly breaks the law. So what did the Government do about that? How did it put that right? It introduced a shonky piece of legislation called the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, which is just a whole collection of words designed to make legal what is illegal.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) : What arrant nonsense we have just heard about accusations that we breached the spending cap. That party received over $1 million of expenditure from its friends in the Exclusive Brethren—the same people who had private detectives tailing me and other members of Parliament, and who took part in other disreputable practices—of which not one cent was included in its election return.

The nonsense we heard about the so-called clarity around what is a parliamentary purpose is just beyond the pale. It is absolutely clear that the National Party used its leadership funds to promote its cause at the last election. It has not been pinged for doing that, for two reasons. First, the Auditor-General did not look into that matter as thoroughly as he did in relation to directly promotional expenditure. But of perhaps more concern was the comment of the Speaker of the House that those who had been criticised were those who had records, and those who did not have records had escaped scrutiny. She criticised that situation, and asked what sort of a way that was for Parliament to conduct itself. The answer to that question is that that is no way for this Parliament to conduct itself.

There most clearly is uncertainty here, as we have seen from the fact that every party in this Parliament except Progressive got the rules wrong, according to the rendition that the Auditor-General now believes is the correct one. For those reasons, we have said we will refund the money, but it remains abundantly clear that the very grey line that is left as to what is and what is not a parliamentary purpose must be fixed, as has previously been said. I ask whether it was a parliamentary purpose when Dr Brash went to Nelson to sign up a new member—Mr Ewen-Street, the former Green member—and use political profile in order to encourage people to vote for the National Party. That was paid for out of funds that come through the vote that is meant to be for parliamentary purposes. That is no less an electioneering purpose than the things we have been criticised for.

It is arrant nonsense to suggest that one can separate parliamentary purposes from things that have an electioneering aspect. Just about everything we do here has the dual purpose of promoting good policy for the betterment of the country, and encouraging people to vote for us. That is what democracy is about; it is a contest of ideas. When we promote our ideas, the Opposition promotes its ideas. Through that promotion of ideas, and the different ways those ideas are promoted, those parties are encouraging people to vote for them. It is the essence of democracy that parliamentary purposes include encouraging people to vote for a party.

This amendment in Part 2 is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the National Party, like every other party in this Parliament, will not be able to go about its business in the way that has happened for decades and decades. We have a sunset clause in the bill because we actually need to take a wider look at this legislation between now and the next election. But until we take that wider look, we need to make proper what we all do and what we always have done. Thank you.

JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) : I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill with a sick feeling in my stomach, because I know that the public of New Zealand will right now be deciding how this Parliament should be judged.

There are vast differences in the ways we should be judging the various parties that are caught up in needing this validation of their expenditure. I start by referring to National. National overspent by approximately $10,000. It got it wrong, put its hand up, and paid the money back immediately. How different that approach is from that of some of the other parties! First of all, I need to say that the Progressive party was not guilty. The Green Party, the ACT party, and United Future were a little slower to act, but they put their hands up to pay the money back. Then we come to New Zealand First. New Zealand First members still say they will pay back only what they think they legally must pay back; we know that this validation bill will probably result in their not having to pay a single cent back, so some may say that is quite wise on their part. Then we come to the Labour Party members, who have been bleating on about confusion. They think that the signs about whether they should have spent the money on the pledge card were not clear.

I quote from the Auditor-General’s report, in which he refutes the claims made that he changed the rules: “Some MPs and parliamentary parties have said that I have acted unfairly by ‘changing the rules’ after the event. I have not changed any rules.” He continues: “I deliberately decided to publish my 2005 Report before the Election to provide a clear signal to MPs and parliamentary parties about the need to be careful during the pre-election period.” It seems the Labour Party ignored that advice. I can tell members that the public of New Zealand are wondering what this is all about. I hope they are not bluffed into believing that we are simply sorting out some sorry mess. I hope they understand that what we are doing today is trying to validate the behaviours of Labour Party members in particular, who, it seems, would be happy enough to be compared with the likes of Mugabe in a mutual validation society. Is that what we want the New Zealand Government to be compared with around the world? I think not.

I know that some hefty sums will need to be paid back, and I am greatly distressed to hear about some of the ways those sums will be paid back. I suggest to Heather Simpson that if she feels she needs to contribute in some way, she should pay a visit to a Timaru supermarket, where she will find Labour Party people approaching customers and asking them whether they would like to make a donation.

Hon Member: It’s shameful!

JO GOODHEW: How shoddy and shameful is that? Labour Party people in Timaru supermarkets are asking customers to please make a donation to Labour. Maybe that is one way that Heather Simpson can make a donation to this campaign. We have heard about TradeMe—about all the various things that are being offered for sale in order to pay this money back. Everything we hear from the other side of the House muddies the issue. But the public of New Zealand are not as stupid as that: 81 percent of them have said that Labour should pay it back and get on with it, and stop talking about all the other stuff that Labour members think validates their behaviours.

Labour has pretended for so long that this is not a problem. For months and months—

Hon Member: 13 months.

JO GOODHEW: For 13 months, Labour has pretended that this is not a problem. Then its strategist, Pete Hodgson, said Labour would not pay the money back. Well, it seems he got that wrong. Pete Hodgson, the strategist, got that wrong, because now Labour says it will pay it back. Alarmingly, Labour seems to be helping its partners in Government—New Zealand First—to avoid having to pay it back. Why would New Zealand First bother? Once this bill is passed, the money will not have to be paid back. There have been weeks of obfuscation by Labour about whether it would pay it back. For months there have been denials by Labour that it knew about the pledge card funding before the election but intentionally carried on with it. That means Labour breached the spending cap. Section 214B of the Electoral Act states that one cannot spend over $2.4 million. Labour’s spending of $800,000 on top of that means it is in doo-doo.

Shane Jones: What about GST?

JO GOODHEW: Oh, it owes more! So Labour overspent during the election campaign. In my maiden speech I used a quotation from Václav Havel, little knowing how soon in my parliamentary career this quotation would be reflected on.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the Hon Tau Henare.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Oh, no!

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I see the goons on the other side are laughing. Let me say something about the goons on the other side and, also, about the goon who is presently sitting in the Minister’s seat. The member from Gisborne said: “Why don’t you go and live in Zimbabwe?” Well, I tell members that I have stayed a little time in Zimbabwe and there are similarities between the two countries in terms of the leaders. It is scary to think that in Zimbabwe, where they live a funny little life, and make rules and break them, the President—the little fellow with a moustache—validates everything that he has done wrong. This piece of paper in my hand shows what it looks like when one compares Clark and Mugabe, as the caption, “Mutual Validation Society”, shows.

When Helen Clark does things wrong, she does two things: she blames other people and says a law will be made that says that we did not do anything wrong. I know that, because clause 5 states: “To the extent that any expenditure under Vote Parliamentary Service was outside the scope of an appropriation or was not made in relation to an appropriation,—(a) the expenditure is validated;”. What does “validated” mean? It means that before being validated, it was illegal and unlawful. Those members stole; they are corrupt. This is all about making right what they did wrong. But in whose eyes? It is in the eyes of the members of the Labour Party caucus, because people out on the streets, when they have been reading about this in the newspapers and watching television, are saying around the fire: “Mum, I think they’re a pack of crooks.”, or, “Dad, I think those guys have taken us for a ride.” That is what this bill is all about.

Then Darren Hughes stood up and prattled on about Labour wanting to pay it back, and so on. Well, this amendment in the name of Chris Finlayson is the mechanism to pay it back. It will make sure that everybody in the House pays it back—even the people to my left, from New Zealand First, who have said they will pay “whatever” back. They have not even figured out that they owe $160,000-odd. That is what they owe and that is what they should pay. They should not make a point of standing in this Chamber and saying they will pay, when they know full well that the passing of this legislation means they will not pay.

None of the people who have said they will pay are going to pay. Helen Clark says she has picked out a target. Well, where is the target? Where is the bull’s-eye? Members opposite are all quiet now, because the truth hurts. It hurts that this is a rort on New Zealand’s political system like never before. This is a corrupt Government, which needs a spanking, and it will get that spanking at the next election.

I say that, come the next election, this item will be the major item. It will be about honesty, it will be about credibility, and it will be about reliability. The fact of the matter is that if Labour members took the time to read my colleague’s amendment, and I hope they have, they would see that if we had something like this in law, we would make real and significant progress. It would make people think before they go and spend what is not theirs, and then try to get away with it by bringing in legislation—

Gerry Brownlee: What’s it called?

Hon TAU HENARE: I do not know what it is called. In my language, I call it theft.

I seek leave to table a report with the headline: “Goff out of line on election spending”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a report headed: “Clark’s pledge card argument falls apart”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. [Interruption]

Hon TAU HENARE: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There was comment from both sides.

Hon TAU HENARE: Ah, different rules, eh? I seek leave to table a document headed: “Herald has own ‘spin’, says Cullen”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa report headed: “National Party to oppose spending validation bill”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa report headed: “Parliament goes into urgency to consider validation bill”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a Radio New Zealand report headed: “Auditor-General’s report on parliamentary election expenditure”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a report headed: “New Zealand First will pay when convinced” that they have something to pay.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a document headed: “Why Labour must repay taxpayers”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE: I seek leave to table a New Zealand Herald report headed “The election spending row” in question and answer form, beginning with “What do Parliament’s rules say?”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) : Thank you, Mr Chairperson, for the opportunity to speak, because I know that many of my colleagues are very keen to contribute to the debate. I will speak specifically to the amendment put forward by my colleague Chris Finlayson. The amendment, in the main, talks about the need for payment to be made before validation. I stand to speak specifically to this because that is what the public want us to do. This is what the public want to see happen.

The public do not have faith that the current bill, as it stands, will deliver on their expectations, and, in particular, New Zealand First is creating an illusion, maybe, of the fact that it is looking to escape from the need to pay the money back. I think, therefore, the only confidence we can give the public is to make sure Chris Finlayson’s amendment is supported.

The tragedy of all of this though, at the end of the day, is the fact that we are standing here, putting amendments forward, because we have not given the public the opportunity to make a contribution. There is real anger and frustration in the New Zealand community at the fact that this process is going through the House at speed. I had the opportunity last night, with leave, to visit a fund-raising promotion for a hospice. There were a couple of hundred people there, and the talk in the main was very much focused on the fact that this was happening in the House. A lot of people were concerned, a lot of people did not understand, a lot of people do not have the trust or the faith that we are getting it right, and a lot of people were commenting on the fact that they are not being given the opportunity to have their say through this process.

I regularly take Winston out for a walk in the morning. I put him on his leash and take him for a walk through the streets of Wellington. I came back in this morning just after 7 and, lo and behold, on the TV one of the Ministers of this Government was standing up and saying, with great gravity and in a serious tone, that this bill is righting 17 years of supposed wrong. A Minister of the Crown was talking about how this bill is righting 17 years of what is supposedly wrong. Heck me days, wowee! Is it so urgent that 17 years after the wrong supposedly started, we have to right it tomorrow—in fact, that we have to do it today? We cannot wait one more day, one more week, one more month for this process to occur, to allow the public of New Zealand to have an involvement in what is a very serious issue.

One would think, from listening to the Cabinet Minister on the TV this morning, that the world was falling apart and that this legislation was the most urgently needed legislation in the world because for 17 years things have been wrong. Has the world fallen apart? No. The only thing falling apart is the Labour Party polling, and it is falling apart and falling down at a great rate of knots because the public of New Zealand understand exactly what is happening in this Chamber today. The only reason we are in urgency is that the Labour Party wants to put a stop on its slide now. Labour senses, quite rightly, that the public are incredibly concerned and worried about what they have seen from the Government in this House over the last few months. Labour members have said to themselves: “How can we stop this slide?”. There is no better way than to pick it up and put it before the House as quickly as possible, in the hope that by next week the public will have forgotten.

The public will not forget what Labour has done here today. The fact that there is no public submission through this process, and that there has been no opportunity for the public to have their say, is just an indictment on the sort of Government we have. It is sending a very strong signal to the public of New Zealand that the Government does not want to hear what the public is saying. The reason the Government does not want to hear it is that it does not like what the public is saying.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : It is a tremendous privilege to be able to stand in this Chamber. It is a tremendous honour to be able to be here to represent constituents. But I find that there is an amazing sense of history here, as we sit and watch events unfold today. The Government took nearly $800,000 from its leader’s budget and applied it to electioneering purposes, and that money is now being laundered through the parliamentary process.

The only problem with sitting here and watching these events unfold today is that faeces splatter. Every one of us, in time, will recount the process that we have been going through over these days and hours as we sit in this Chamber now. Some of us may recount this process over a glass of whisky, and some of the really honourable members may recount it in black and white print as they write and publish memoirs. But every one of us will have to recall this process, because what is happening here today is a salient point in the history of this country.

It will be interesting, too, to note members’ various responses to this process. I will be able to stand, sit, or whatever and say: “Yep, I was there. I remember the day.” I will be able to say I voted against this legislation. Other people sitting around the Chamber today will have various explanations as to their part in this seedy business, as well. Dr Cullen will be able to say: “Yep, I was there, and it was my idea. I moved the bill.” I wonder how that will be received by those who are listening to him. Maybe his grandchildren, when they are talking to him in years to come, will ask him why he moved the bill. He will have to fess up and say: “Because we were in the poo.”

The people who are new to this House consider it a privilege to be here. The people who want to push through this sort of legislation are arrogant and believe that it is their right to do so, as they money-launder their way through this legislation. I cannot understand why this legislation is not an amendment to the Crimes Act. That is exactly what it should be.

It will also be interesting to note the explanations of other members who are sitting in the Chamber today, including those of Mr Brown and other members of New Zealand First, and members of United Future. They will be able to look their grandchildren in the eye, or whoever is asking, if they are interested, and say: “Yeah, I was there, and I witnessed this seedy legislation go through. I voted for it because my leader said I should, and I was happy to do it at the time.” If we cannot justify supporting this legislation now, will we be proud to have done so in 20 years’ time? There are other people sitting in this Chamber now who, in years to come, will have to say: “Well, I sat there on my hands and did nothing.” Those people are the Green Party members, who have decided to abstain from voting in respect of this legislation. But they will be tainted, as well. As I said earlier, this stuff splatters.

It is interesting to watch the body language and the jumping up and down of members on the other side of the Chamber. I have interviewed a lot of guilty people in my time—people whom one is suspicious of. It is interesting to look at the body language of those people. They cover themselves, they keep pulling their clothes together, and they stand with their hands on their heart. The ones who are really guilty deny and deny—“It wasn’t me; it didn’t happen.” They protest and carry on, and they say it never happened. Then they move to the next stage, which is: “Oh yeah, well it happened, but it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know.” They are the guilty ones. What about the innocent ones? What do they do? The innocent ones turn round and say: “Oh, gee, I made a stuff-up and here’s the money. I will pay it back.”

Those are the two different responses in respect of overspending that we are hearing in this Chamber today. I find it hugely ironic to see the former member for Otago jumping up and down and waving his fingers at this side of the Chamber.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) : I am very pleased to take a call on Part 2 of this legislation, although in the end this is a total disgrace. This whole debacle has been a total disgrace, led by Helen Clark and her Labour Party. This party has run fast and loose with taxpayers’ funds, and it is now running fast and loose with the parliamentary process. The public out there know this. In fact, other than that, they probably expected that at some stage this Government would move to validate the unlawful spending and the overspending. The public made their judgment on this debacle long ago—weeks ago—and they have judged the Labour Government and the Labour Party guilty as charged. It has been fast and loose with the public’s money, and now it is fast and loose with the democratic process.

Here we are in urgency. The bill was introduced yesterday and it will be passed today, thanks to parties who really should not be supporting it, but are. The fact of this bill’s passing will cement this in the mind of the public; they will not forget this. It may be 2 years until the election, but there comes a time when a Government takes one step too far. This Government has done so with this debacle here. If there are lessons that Labour Government members should learn—and they probably will not; their record to date has shown that they do not learn from their stuff-ups—the first one is that they can run but they cannot hide. Or, maybe, it is that they can ride but they cannot hide. Helen Clark did her best to ride roughshod over the issue until she realised, finally, that the Government’s poll ratings were taking a dive. Government members can run, or ride, but they cannot hide; they need to learn this lesson.

The other lesson they need to learn is that the public will not tolerate an arrogant Government. The public, in a sense, have been reasonably tolerant; I do not know why they have been willing to give this Government the benefit of the doubt notwithstanding the number of stuff-ups over the last 6 or 7 years. But, on this one, the public will not forgive the arrogance that has been shown by Helen Clark, her party, and her Government in the way they have dealt with this matter.

I am absolutely grateful that we have an Auditor-General who has acted without fear while under huge pressure from the Government to do something different from what he did in the end. Sure, in the end he found that unlawful appropriations occurred across all parties, so, in a sense, we all have a lesson to learn from what has happened—I do not deny that. But no one, no party has been as arrogant as Helen Clark and her Labour Party. That they think that their pledge card was lawful is so arrogant that I cannot describe it, quite honestly. As I say, the public have made their decision. They have made their judgment; they made it long before today. This bill just cements in their minds what an arrogant Government this is.

I am grateful that the Chair gave me a small call. Before my time is up, I want to refer to Murray McCully’s amendment to insert new clause 6A, which states that there should be “No effect on political parties wishing to repay monies”. I hope the Committee will support that amendment. With this legislation and the validation of that spending, there will be parties—and maybe the Labour Party might even still change its mind—that still might not repay the money.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

PETER BROWN (Whip—NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. As the vote was taken I listened very keenly, and I noticed that the Clerk was not calling for the ACT vote. Mr Chairperson, can you confirm that those members have disappeared or are not voting, or whatever?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It is not a point of order. I confirm that the member is quite entitled to come to the Table to look at the votes.

• The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Gerry Brownlee be agreed to:

to insert the following new clause:

5APublication of electioneering material

Any expenditure captured by clause 5 which resulted in the production of material deemed to be electioneering by the Controller and Auditor-General in the report entitled Advertising expenditure incurred by the Parliamentary Service in the three months before the 2005 General Election must be published by the Minister in charge of Vote Parliamentary Service to ensure that validating legislation of this kind is enacted in a fully transparent context.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : This will be the last debate in the Committee stage. It is a shame, is it not, that this Government, using its majority, is ruthlessly putting through validating legislation. Government members seem to think that this legislation is absolutely vital for the health of the nation and, indeed, for the lawfulness of this Government. What arrant nonsense that is, I have to say. Government members have come in here with the completely facetious argument that everything that has been done back to 1989 urgently needs validation—so urgently that no member of the public can make a submission. That is a completely outrageous lie that is being perpetrated on the voters of New Zealand.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member cannot use the word “lie”. He knows that is out of order.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I certainly know that one cannot accuse any member or, indeed, any party of a lie, but it has certainly never been the case that one could not describe legislation, or something of that nature, in those terms. The rule about the use of the word “lie” relates to individuals and parties, and to their personal and party motives, not to legislation.

• Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Dr Mapp, the previous Chairman, Mr Robertson, has advised me that the Committee was in the middle of a point of order before the lunch break, and that you had been asked to withdraw and apologise for the word you had used. So could you do that, please?

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I did not withdraw and apologise, because I did not accuse anyone, or any party, of a lie. I simply said that the legislation was a lie. My understanding of the Standing Orders and the rules of this House is that that could not be a breach of the Standing Orders. Therefore, I have nothing to apologise for.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The word was not used against a person or a party?

Dr WAYNE MAPP: No, it was not, and, indeed, the Deputy Prime Minister knows that to be the case.

This is a tawdry little bill. It is unneeded and it is unwanted. I say to those parties that are going to vote for it, the Labour Party, the New Zealand First Party, and United Future, that they will be forever stained with it. They will be judged in the court of public opinion, and they will be judged at the next election. There will be an accounting. That accounting will be in the ballot box, and it will not be favourable.

I want to say this. When a party deliberately uses taxpayers’ money towards its election expenses in excess of the spending limits, that is judged to be a corrupt practice under the Electoral Act. That is the case, and that assertion has been made many times in this Chamber and has never been denied by the Government. The Labour Party ought to live with its guilt. If one speeds, one pays the fine. That does not obviate the crime; the fact is that the record of one’s guilt remains. Someone who had done that does not come to Parliament and try to change the law, saying: “I never sped. At all stages I was within the law.” But that is what this Government is trying to do now.

The Labour members say there has been validation legislation in the past. But it has never been for a political party in relation to its own malfeasance. That is what this bill is actually about—the deliberate use of taxpayers’ money to Labour members’ advantage, in order to turn the election in their favour. Now they want this Parliament to say that is OK—that it is permissible, and that the public of New Zealand ought to forgive them. Well, the public will not.

I say this very, very clearly to the Labour Party. It has committed a corrupt practice under the Electoral Act. Labour members should not be asking this Parliament to let them obviate the consequences of doing that and pretend that the unlawful is now legal. That is a fiction, and a patent fiction at that, and the public know that. That is why, on talkback radio and in letters to the editor, the Government is being judged very harshly. People see naked self-interest. That is the difference between this form of validating legislation and any other validating legislation in New Zealand’s history. This Parliament has never passed law for the naked self-interest of members of Parliament; that has never happened before in the history of our land. That is why this bill is such a travesty of fundamental democratic constitutional principles.

The Labour members do not care about that. They are just riding completely roughshod over the foundations of our democracy, and they expect the public to understand that. Well, the public will not, and Labour will be judged accordingly.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) : In speaking to the title of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, I want to go back a bit to what is being validated here. The Controller and Auditor-General identified $1,173,598 of illegal spending. A large hunk of that related to Labour’s pledge card, so I just want to go back a little over that pledge card. It was not the New Zealand Labour Party’s idea. In fact, it was an idea it copied off Prime Minister Blair from the Labour Party’s campaign in Great Britain. The pledge card in Britain proved to be very, very successful; it was a very, very successful election strategy. So what Labour did in 1999 was to copy, as Helen Clark often did, what Tony Blair had done for the Labour Party in the UK. The whole third way approach of this Government was a sort of copy of Tony Blair’s approach in Britain.

In 1999, when Labour first used a pledge card here in New Zealand, it was congratulated on what an effective election campaign strategy the pledge card was. I want the Minister in the chair, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, to tell us who paid for the pledge card in 1999, when Labour itself took credit for how effective it was—it was the centrepiece of Labour’s campaign in 1999. I ask Dr Cullen who paid for it.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: That would have been announced publicly.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: So the taxpayers of New Zealand paid for it?

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: That has been said frequently.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: I just want to make sure that Dr Cullen acknowledges that the taxpayers of New Zealand paid for it.

The reason why I believe that is important is this. When Labour gets caught like that, it tries to muddy the waters. No honest New Zealander could possibly have thought, in 1999, that that pledge card was not electioneering. No ordinary, honest New Zealander would have ever, ever assumed that it was not electioneering. So in 2002, when Labour’s funding was also hidden, no honest New Zealander would have dreamt that anyone—anyone, no matter how dishonest—could consider it not to be electioneering.

The reason this is important is that the Auditor-General did not look at technical, difficult reasons in making his decisions about what was illegal. He states, in paragraph 4.9 on page 35 of his report: “I took a common-sense approach based on what I considered a reasonable member of the public would think …”. And any reasonable, honest member of the public would have treated that pledge card, absolutely and clearly, as electioneering. Dr Cullen, who is always very clever, seems to think somehow that it was not electioneering, because it did not ask for a vote.

What makes this issue even more despicable is that the Minister responsible for Vote Parliamentary Service has been dragged into that dirty, dirty muddying of the waters by this Labour Government—by Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. The Speaker of our Parliament has been brought into disrepute in her role as the Minister responsible for Vote Parliamentary Service. This report of hers is a disgrace. The report of the Minister responsible for Vote Parliamentary Service on the Auditor-General’s report is a disgrace. As a longstanding member of this Parliament—22 years in this Parliament—I am ashamed that our Speaker should be involved in that kind of tawdry cheating of the public purse of this country.

There can be no honest consideration of that pledge card that treats it in any other way than as electioneering. There is no possible honest assessment of that pledge card that could treat it in any other way than as electioneering, and Labour knows that.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Earlier this morning the Chair of the Committee warned the Minister in the chair, Dr Cullen, that his microphone was live and that any comments he made were being carried. I have just come down from my office, where I was listening to the Hon Lockwood Smith in the debate, and I can say that Dr Cullen’s voice was coming through the radio louder—quite a bit louder—than that of Dr Lockwood Smith. Dr Cullen had been warned about that this morning—he actually chose to leave the chair because of it. I suggest, Madam Chair, that you give him another and final warning that if he carries on while his microphone is live—[Interruption]—yes, there was some pretty choice stuff coming through, actually—you will ask him to leave the chair and have another Minister do the job.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : I apologise for making a comment in response to the member saying he had been standing in this Chamber for a long time. In fact, I left the Chamber this morning for a Cabinet committee meeting.

That was Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith PhD in full understatement mode, taking a moderate and balanced view in his speech. What he showed was a really important distinction. As I said this morning—and I say again—the Labour Party does not accept that the Auditor-General’s views are correct. But we accept that he is the referee, and therefore we are paying the money back. I note that Dr Lockwood Smith did not agree with the referee’s decision in terms of the Speaker’s report, so what did he do? He attacked the Speaker and attacked the report.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: As the Minister responsible for the Parliamentary Service.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Oh, what a fine distinction he tries to make now, having been caught out booting the referee because he did not like the referee’s decision on this matter. Is that not just typical of the National Party—the born-to-rule Government it would like to be? When one does not like the referee, one boots the referee. We on this side of the Chamber are digging deep into our pockets, even though we disagree with the referee.

I note that not a single person opposite has yet picked up my challenge and quoted a single sentence from the 2005 Auditor-General’s report that states that the interpretation of the rules then current was wrong. Such a sentence is not in that report. Indeed, what the Auditor-General said in that report was that advertising is broadly defined, leaving scope for the inclusion of considerable political content. That is a pretty clear warning to people that what they are doing is wrong, is it not?

Worse than that, the member forgot his own party’s record. He went on to ask who paid for the pledge card. He has asked that publicly so many times, that it is a wonder he has not heard the answer. It came out of the leader’s budget, which is why we argue that in 2005 there was no change, because we had done that in two previous elections. Having described all that as—what did he say—“despicable, dirty, dirty electioneering”, he forgot something. The National Party in 2002 placed an advertisement in the newspaper stating: “My pledge to you”. That was Bill English’s pledge—paid for how? By the Parliamentary Service leaders’ vote. Who paid for Bill English’s billboards in 2002? The Parliamentary Service vote. Who paid for National’s billboards on the foreshore and seabed issue in 2004? The Parliamentary Service vote. Who is paying this year—when National members say they knew that the rules had changed completely—for party political questionnaires, clearly designed to support the National Party, that are going out in electorate after electorate? The Parliamentary Service vote.

So now Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith PhD is struck somewhat dumb. He has now described his colleagues, his former leader, his current leader, and the National caucus as engaged in despicable, dirty, dirty electioneering.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Just muddy the waters further.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: He calls this muddying the waters. I do agree—if one throws a Tory into the water, it does tend to make the water look dirty. But that has nothing to do with what the Labour Party did.

I challenge Dr Smith again: what was the National Party leader’s budget spent on in the 3 months leading up to the 2005 election? We have still had no answer on that point from the National Party. The last thing National wanted was the Auditor-General to look into that. We wanted him to, but he declined to go beyond the issue of communications. He declined to go back to 2002, and he wonders that we are somewhat critical of his report appearing somewhat partial as a consequence of that. I make no apology for saying that. We do not believe that we did anything wrong, but, the referee having blown the whistle, we will refund the money. In the same way, a week or so back my soccer team got a penalty it should not have got. Thank God we won the game, because it was the first time we had won for a number of weeks, and we are very grateful for that. National is very grateful for the fact that we have to spend a lot of money, but, by golly, it wants the second part of this bill to pass. We have already heard that one member has had his Christmas card expenditure questioned under the rules the Auditor-General has now set. Who paid for Dr Lockwood Smith’s Christmas cards last year?

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: I see you—

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: See, see, see! Dr Lockwood Smith should answer the question. Who paid for his Christmas cards last year?

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Just muddy the waters.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Ah, just muddy the waters!

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I am keen to discuss the title clause, the commencement clause, and, in particular, the amendment I am proposing to clause 2. Clause 2, “Commencement”, currently reads: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” I am proposing, by way of amendment to clause 2—the amendment having been tabled—that to give this bill the necessary teeth it requires, and, in particular, to ensure that New Zealand First is left in no doubt about the nature of what this bill should do, the bill should come into effect “the day after the date on which the Controller and Auditor-General reports to Parliament that he has received confirmation that all political parties have repaid … the amounts listed in Figure 2 and Figure 3 on pages 33 and 34 of the report …”.

The point of this amendment is straightforward. It is that validation will occur only in the event that all parties have repaid the moneys owed. I have heard Dr Cullen tell members on several occasions over the last couple of days that the Labour Party will repay the money, so I am sure he will have no objection to the validating legislation coming into effect once that repayment is made. The Greens, the Māori Party, National, ACT, and, yesterday, United Future have all indicated that they also will repay the moneys. So I am looking forward to their support on this amendment, which requires that repayment to be made before validation occurs.

There is, however, one political party that has not made that commitment, and I ask Peter Brown, as deputy leader of New Zealand First, to stand during this part of the Committee stage debate and reassure other politicians—but, more important, the public of New Zealand—that the moneys owed by New Zealand First, as listed on pages 33 and 34 of the Auditor-General’s report, will be repaid. It is a very simple statement for the member to make. Once he has made that statement—and because he is an honourable member, I am sure he will make it—then he too, like Dr Cullen and the Labour Party, should have no objection to my amendment, which simply states that once repayment has occurred, the validating legislation will kick in. It is pretty straightforward.

The danger in not voting for my amendment is that political parties such as New Zealand First will take the gamble that the New Zealand public will see this issue disappear into the ether. As a result, when the validating legislation passes, the legal requirement for New Zealand First to repay will disappear at that time. The obligation will then simply become a moral or political obligation.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: There’s no legal requirement.

SIMON POWER: I say to Dr Cullen that that is my point. That is why we need the amendment—to create the obligation for repayment to be made before validation can occur. On that basis, a perfectly reasonable, straightforward, and simple amendment should enjoy the support of all parties that have agreed publicly to repay the moneys owed as identified by the Auditor-General.

Frankly, New Zealand First should take the opportunity now to take a call and reassure the public of New Zealand that it will repay the moneys owed and vote for my amendment to ensure that validation of the appropriation occurs only once that repayment has been made. In fact, I cannot think of a good reason why any political party that has agreed to repay the moneys owed would not vote for this amendment. It actually makes no material difference to its position in respect of the validating legislation currently before the House. It is a serious amendment. It is an amendment that is straightforward and makes sense, and I look forward to its support by all parties, because it actually makes a fair bit of sense. I also look forward to contributions from my other colleagues who have made amendments on the title and commencement clauses.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) : I have come down to the Chamber to speak having listened to this debate on the radio and wondered whether we are in real land or in some gaga time. If there was any argument against the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, it could have been laid out point by point, rather than our having the abuse, the overstatement, and the chuckles we are hearing. Examples could have been given of current spending that is uncertain and should be validated. This is why I speak to the title and commencement clauses.

I ask members to take, as an example, a member of Parliament who drives around in a truck with his name and the parliamentary crest on it, and also a logo and advertising slogan that have nothing to do with parliamentary business. Should that be paid for by the parliamentary budget? Is it advancing policy, or is it some form of ongoing electioneering? It seems to me that use of that truck, parked prominently at an airport, with, no doubt, the parking costs being paid for by the Government as well, comes outside the parliamentary vote. I am very sure that members who have trucks with advertising slogans on them parked in airport car-parks at parliamentary expense—the slogans are not advocating policy but are promoting the members; they are politicking—will be glad that this bill goes through and validates expenditure back to the last election. Because if it does not, there is further trouble afoot and further uncertainty.

That uncertainty will go through to Christmas, because members of Parliament who continue to run businesses will put out advertising circulars for their businesses with their names prominently displayed in a way that overlaps their political advertising. Of course, we would not encourage that, because one should not profit from one’s actions as a member of Parliament. But when one appears prominently on a phone book cover in relation to one’s business activity, with one’s “MP” sign alongside one’s name, on a similar advertising slogan in a similar place, the confusion is very easy. The confusion is now profound because no one knows where the cut-off point is. [Interruption] Listen to the brays! We have to have some clarity; otherwise, we could again have Lockwood Smith disporting his body for the world to see on his Christmas card or his calendar. I do not know what the point is in displaying the body perfect of Lockwood Smith on his calendar or Christmas card, but I am sure that if he had a photograph taken of himself with his logo on his chest, and put it on his calendar, then it would be approved. At least, his chest would carry something of merit.

Anyway, I support this bill. I support the title of the bill. I support its immediate commencement, so that we will all know where we stand, and will spend our money legitimately—not confusing our political activities with our business activities, not trying to rip off the public by spending money illegitimately to make private profit. If we are going to spend parliamentary money, let us have clear rules, let us know where we stand, and let those rules start tomorrow. I support the bill.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I rise to speak to the title and commencement clauses of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill. It surprises me that the term “money-laundering” is not in there, because that is exactly what is going on here. Here is money that has been unlawfully appropriated and we are putting it right by passing this legislation today—I am expecting it will be passed, given the voting record of those who have shown their flag earlier in the day, and no doubt it will happen again.

Let us look at ways other people appropriate money—in the Crimes Act, for instance. There used to be a crime called theft by misappropriation. That was when people were given money for a certain purpose and they used it to do something else. That was a misappropriation. Well, some people would say if we are given money to complete our duties as members of Parliament and we use if for something else—campaigning, maybe—that is theft by misappropriation. There was another crime called theft as a servant. That was where someone employed by an organisation or a person used money, without authorisation, to do something else that was not in line with the immediate task. In 2002, the Crimes Amendment Bill renamed this to “theft by a person in position of trust”. I think that pretty clearly defines what has been going on here.

It was interesting to hear Steve Chadwick, the member for Rotorua, say that the public are calling out for this validating legislation. I challenge her—or any of her colleagues—to name one member of the public who is not a card-carrying or pledge card - carrying member, or a relative of a member, of the Labour Party, who actually wants this legislation to go through. It is my contestation that nothing that this legislation does is wanted by the public. It will not change the public’s perception of what has happened here at all. If members look at the New Zealand Herald website and some of the letters to the editor received by that newspaper over recent times, they will see that this point is made very, very clearly. Nothing that is done in this House today will do anything to enhance the public’s perception of what goes on in this debating chamber.

Here is a reader’s view: “This is an absolute outrage! This corrupt, desperate Government who’s only interested in retaining power at all costs has no option but to call a fresh election. If not, its a sad day for democracy. The worry is, is what spin will they put on this to weasel their way out of it.” I thank Mr John Middleton for that contribution. Here is another: “Holding another election is what is needed now. Enough of all the ‘spin’ - which is really another name for lies and deceit. Obviously, the Government, trying to be very clever, has us down as being totally naive easily manipulated.” Bang on, I say to Mr Ian Findlay from Auckland.

The point is that once members have been sitting over on the Government benches for as long as that Government has, they tend to think they have a right to be there and that they can bend the rules any which way they want in order to ensure that they can stay there. I ask members to look at the two different ways that the overspending has been received by the various parties in this House. On this side of the House, there was a cock-up. We said “Oops”, we had made a cock-up. We self-reported it and paid the money back—just like that. What happened on the other side of the House? Members on the other side said: “No, we didn’t, we haven’t broken any rules, and stuff you, Jack, we’re not going to pay it back.” But what happened then? Now they are saying: “Oops, well, we will, but the reason why we overspent was—hang on, a minute—no, it wasn’t, it was that reason there.” It was everybody else’s fault but the Government’s.

Let us see what Mr Ron Bruce has to say about that: “To over-spend $760K of our taxpayer money to get re-elected the Labour Party has to be either stupid or crooked. In either case, it’s not fit to continue running the country - we need someone in capable in charge.” That is a really good point. Someone has to be naively stupid or malicious to do what this Government has done. When an innocent person makes a mistake, what happens? The person says: “Oops, sorry about that, I’ll pay for the damage I have done and I’ll try really hard not to do it again.” What this legislation does is try to make right something that can never be put right.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) : I rise to take a call on the title of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill. It was interesting to note that my colleague from across the floor Mr Fairbrother was having a crack at me about the current spending in my electorate. I go back to last year’s election campaign, because the rules were made clear to me. As a new candidate coming into the election process, I was told from day one that the rules changed 90 days out from the election. After that time one could not spend over $20,000 at all.

So what happened? I got into a seat that in 1999 had a Labour majority of 11,800 votes. In 1999 the loyal member, Mr Geoff Braybrooke, had a majority of 11,800 votes. Then what happened? Anne Tolley came along in 2002. Despite probably not the best performance from National over a period of time, and a party vote of 20-odd percent, Mr Fairbrother’s majority dropped from 11,800 to 4,500. I thought that at the 2005 election, after his being in office for 3 years, the result would be interesting.

On the Thursday prior to the election Mr Fairbrother was asked in a radio interview whether he was confident of retaining the seat of Napier. He said: “Yes, I am confident. I will retain it with the margin of 4,500.” Anyway, when it came around to Saturday, what happened?

Paula Bennett: What happened?

CHRIS TREMAIN: Well, unfortunately, he lost. The majority is now 3,600, give or take a few. It would have to be one of the all-time excellent performances from a Labour candidate, to go from an 11,800 majority to a 3,600 vote loss—a turn-round of 15,400 votes inside 3 years.

Let me tell members how fair it was going into the election. Did I have a painted office when I went into the election? No. Did I have three staff paid by the Parliamentary Service working for me? No. Did we have a parliamentary budget of $60,000 at that point in time? No. Did I have the benefit of 3 years in office? Did we have the Deputy Prime Minister of the country living in our electorate? [Interruption] We did, yes.

Hon Maurice Williamson: But that’s not an advantage.

CHRIS TREMAIN: Yes. On top of that, we now find out, down the track, that this party across the Chamber had an additional $14,000 per electorate put into it to help it win the seat of Napier. That is a fact.

I will tell members what happened a number of times out at the Eastern Institute of Technology campus. What were Labour’s people handing out by the hundreds?

Dr Jackie Blue: Pledge cards?

CHRIS TREMAIN: Well, they were handing those out, as well. It was red pens—as referred to in the Auditor-General’s report—with the Parliamentary Service logo written all over them. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, and that is a fact. But it was not only that; there were also the newsletters put out in the electorate by Mr Barker and Mr Fairbrother.

Electioneering is about being fair. I accept that there are rules leading into the last 90 days before the election. In the last 90 days before the election we were allowed to spend $20,000, and we stuck clearly within those rules. Members opposite broke the rules and that came home to roost with a change in the seat of Napier. I remind Labour members, because their colleague is keen to stand again at the next election and to front up and take me on, that in 1999 their majority was 11,800—

Hon Maurice Williamson: To Labour?

CHRIS TREMAIN: To Labour. In 2002 there was a majority of 4,500 to Labour. In 2005 it was a loss to Labour of 3,600—a turn-round of 15,400. Do we know of anyone else in the history of the Labour Party who has been able to achieve that feat?

Hon Maurice Williamson: Imagine how well you would have done if they hadn’t cheated.

CHRIS TREMAIN: Exactly! Thank you.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : Madam Chairperson, it was impossible to hear your call or your comments. I say to the Committee this afternoon that the pledge card money that the Labour Government has stolen from the taxpayer simply represents the pollution of politics.

Jill Pettis: Hallelujah, brother!

JOHN HAYES: I think it is time that Madam Pettis went back to Wanganui, where the people voted her out. She should stop wasting their money because, along with her party, she has done nothing but tread water this year. It is time that the Labour Government’s mocking of the Auditor-General ceased and that, instead, the political establishment acknowledged the realities of our community. My phone has been going hot all of this week with calls from Dannevirke, Eketāhuna, Porangahau, Ngawī, Greytown, Martinborough, and Masterton. The phone has been going red hot and people have been saying: “John, ask the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament, because the Labour Party and its supporting parties are thieves. They have stolen our money and we want to see the back of them.”

Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I do not mind what the member on his feet actually says, but if he starts calling people thieves he is inviting trouble. I object, I take offence at it, and I ask him to withdraw and apologise.

JOHN HAYES: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No, please be seated. As that member has taken offence at being called that, will the member please withdraw and apologise.

JOHN HAYES: I withdraw and apologise, but I would just like to say to you—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No, please be seated. I remind the member that when a member is asked to withdraw and apologise he does that alone and nothing else.

JOHN HAYES: I withdraw and apologise. The people of my electorate consider the governing party of this country to have stolen their money. Their view is backed up by the Auditor-General. In any Oxford Dictionary, taking someone else’s money is called theft, and that is what has been going on here. So I call on the Labour Government to resign and allow a new election because that is what the people of my electorate want.

I am reminded of the words of Oliver Cromwell when he addressed the Rump Parliament on 20 April 1653. He said—[Interruption] I would like Mr Duynhoven to have the decency to listen to me. Oliver Cromwell said to his Parliament, and I am repeating it here because it has major application today: “You have sat for too long for any good you have been doing … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”. That is what my electorate is saying to the Labour Government—just what Oliver Cromwell said to Parliament in 1653.

Of course, our Prime Minister disagrees with this view. She claims that allegations of corruption are intolerable in a Western democracy. What my electorate is concerned about is the way in which Helen Clark and her administration have tried to shut down dissent: through shouting from the former member for Whanganui, through intimidation, and through vilification of their opponents. She has tried to put down the Auditor-General and she has tried to intimidate him. I congratulate him on standing his ground and I congratulate my colleagues on supporting him. Ultimately, honesty will come through in this business.

The Labour Government has tried to move the argument from issues around whether it took the money and spent it improperly; it has tried to blame the Exclusive Brethren. Hitler did that with the Jews and it was a very totalitarian policy to follow. I have to say, sitting in this Chamber, that there is a whiff of totalitarianism in the air and I will stand against it. Trying to silence the critics of this Government by shouting at them, or by trying to portray them as illegitimate or illegal, is in my view a very stupid thing to do.

There is huge resistance in my electorate to what this Government has done. People want the Government to be held accountable. They want an election now, and they are completely flabbergasted at the action that we have been engaged in over the last 2 days. Parliament is being forced to pass retrospective legislation to allow an amount of $760,000-odd to be justified. None of the people in my community, if they break the law, can go to a court or to a parliamentarian and ask that the law be changed because they made a mistake.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) : I have listened to the debate with interest on the radio and here in the House today. I heard Dr Mapp talk about a speeding fine. He said that if one gets a speeding fine, one pays the ticket. It is interesting to consider that analogy a little further, because here the true analogy is that the traffic has been driving on the road since 1989, thinking that it knew what the rules were. Everybody on the road thought he or she knew the rules. Then, suddenly, the people charged with enforcing and interpreting the rules came out with a new interpretation.

Hon Harry Duynhoven: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt my colleague, but the last speaker objected stridently to the noise in the Chamber. We are getting a barrage of noise from members on the Opposition side, including noise from people who are not sitting in their own seats, and the member who just spoke is himself one of those who are being very noisy right now. I wonder whether you could pull him back to order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The noise level and the interjection level were certainly too high during the last few minutes of that speech. I just ask members to be considerate of, and respectful to, the person who is speaking.

CHARLES CHAUVEL: So we found that the drivers of all the vehicles on the road, except for the Progressive one, were unable to say that they had complied with the rules.

In that situation, the analogy that Dr Mapp has used is actually quite a useful one. What does one do when the enforcement agency changes the rules that everybody thought they understood, and all but the Progressive party did not manage to comply with those rules, according to the new and novel interpretation of them? Of course, one goes back to the rule-making body and gets some clarification. One makes sure that protection is provided for the staff of the Parliamentary Service and of Ministerial Services, and for MPs, who, in good faith, have been following since 1989 the rules as they understood them. One provides some protection for those people so that they are not liable, having acted in good faith and having tried to interpret the rules that everyone except the Progressives got wrong at the last election.

In light of the novel interpretation of the rules, of course we need to have validating legislation. Of course we need to say that people who followed what they understood to have been the rules since 1989 will not incur civil liability. That is the way to go. Otherwise, we would create an untenable situation for the people who have acted in that way since 1989. They cannot, and should not, be blamed for having obeyed traffic rules that were suddenly changed on them. That would result in chaos, and it would be stupid. The bill takes account of the reality that the laws were changed while people were driving, and that that put at risk everything the drivers are doing now. Let us face it, not only is the bill necessary to validate what has been done since 1989 but also it is needed to make sure there is clarity as to what we and our staff should be doing now. We should not put them in the gun and at risk through the novel interpretation of the rules.

The bill validates the actions taken in good faith by MPs and their staff. It is the appropriate way to go. It gives 14 months for there to be a proper, an open, and a transparent consultation as to what the rules should be, going forward. It means that no one ought to be in this position at the next election. Instead, there ought to be a proper and well-understood set of laws for people to follow. That will be a very good thing.

The traditional objection to retrospective legislation just does not apply here. The traditional objection to retrospective legislation is, of course, that it has the ability to impose penalties on people who did not know that what they were doing at the time was wrong. That is why retrospective legislation is objectionable in principle. But this legislation does exactly the opposite of that. This legislation provides that people will not be liable for following what were thought to be the rules at the time by everybody except the Progressives. It saves people from liability. It is an appropriate exercise. This is one of the rare occasions when it is appropriate to legislate retrospectively, because instead of trying to impose a liability the bill removes one, for the avoidance of doubt. And it provides for a period, going forward, in which we can actually get the rules right, so that this sort of situation does not arise again.

This is very good legislation, and I commend it.

TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) : I am delighted to be able to take a call in this debate because I think the Labour members have been missing one very important point. Actually, they have been missing the truth the whole way through, but here is the key point. They are claiming they did not know. They are claiming they went along with the rules the way they were. They thought it was OK and now it has all turned to custard.

Actually, that is not right. The Chief Electoral Officer, David Henry, both phoned and wrote to the Labour Party several weeks before the last election and said that if it went ahead with the pledge card, doing it on the leader’s budget would make the spending illegal—although I do not think David Henry was too fussed about that side of it—and it would be accountable expenditure. He told Labour very clearly not to do it. So when Labour members come into this House, shedding all the crocodile tears they can and saying they did not know it was wrong, as it is how the rules have always been, why do they not mention David Henry’s letter? David Henry has gone. I would not be surprised if Kevin Brady were not around for much longer, either. Labour will get rid of anybody who stands in its way. But that is what David Henry said. I challenge the Minister in the chair, Dr Cullen, to say whether that letter existed and whether that was what Labour was told. There is not a mutter, not a murmur, not a whisper.

So Labour members should not come into Chamber shedding crocodile tears and saying they did not know. They did know, and they went ahead and did it anyway. They stole the election. They became the illegitimate Government of this country, and now, like some Horn of Africa flight lieutenant who has taken over a country, they have decided to pass some legislation to legitimise their illegitimacy. It is absolutely unbelievable. It is unprecedented in the history of this country.

Then we have the member for Rotorua running what I think is the best line I have heard. This is a Tui ad. She says that the public want this legislation. Let me share with my colleagues the latest numbers from the Stuff poll. Here is the poll question: “Should a bill validating illegal spending by political parties be passed?”. Members should listen to the numbers. First, 13.8 percent say “Yes”. That is probably the Labour Party membership plus a few of its cronies. How about this number: 84.7 percent of the public say “No”. So we have the “in touch with the public polls” Steve Chadwick telling us that the public want this. She is right—13.8 percent of the public do, and 84 percent think that this bill is legitimising corruption, cheating, and crookedness. I do not know why members on the Labour side of this Parliament have not learnt the first law of politics, which says—

Hon Dover Samuels: The first law is “Don’t listen to Maurice Williamson!”.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I say to Dover Samuels that he could really learn from this one. The first law of politics says: “When you are in a hole, stop digging.” So when Kevin Brady came out with his initial draft, Labour members could easily have deflected it. They could have said that they had a draft that suggested there may be some problems, that they would watch with interest until the final report came out, and that if the final report stayed with that finding, then they would most certainly comply. That is the way they could have handled this situation, and there would have been almost no ammunition from this side of the House to fire at them.

But what did the self-appointed strategist Pete Hodgson say? He said: “We won’t pay this money back.” I saw him on TV and heard him on radio saying that. Members will love what Mr Hodgson said next: “I was not authorised to say that.” He was the chief strategist, he was put up by Helen Clark, and he said he was sent there by Helen Clark to represent her on breakfast TV. But then he said he was not authorised to say that. So every time we hear him answer a question in the House from now on, we will have to check with the Speaker whether the member was authorised to answer it.

This is an absolute outrage. Labour knows it, and it should have done something about it.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I refer you to Standing Order 85(1), “Disorderly conduct”. It states: “The Speaker may order any member whose conduct is highly disorderly to withdraw immediately from the House during the period (up to the remainder of that day’s sitting) that the Speaker decides.” On a number of occasions I have been booted out of the Chamber and not allowed back in until the following day—it was most probably my own fault. Having said that, I point out that one of the members of this House was asked to leave the Chamber earlier on today, and that member is now back in the Chamber. I ask you for some direction, Madam Chairperson. Did you allow that member to come back into the Chamber, or is there a new Standing Order?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No, there is not a new Standing Order. The member is quite incorrect. The Chairperson makes a decision about when a member will come back. That decision is communicated to the Serjeant-at-Arms, and the whips ask when that will be. So the member can ask his whip at any time when a member who has been sent from the Chamber can come back.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I will not dispute your ruling. Am I right in saying you have allowed the Hon Dover Samuels back into the Chamber after he was kicked out?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member can check with his whip about this matter. That is the correct procedure to find out when, as decided by the Speaker, a member who has been sent out of the Chamber can come back. Obviously, all circumstances differ. Yesterday the members stayed out for only half an hour, because of the circumstances and the point that Mr Brownlee raised.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Corrections) : I have been in this House for a number of years, but I do not think I have ever heard so much hypocrisy spoken in this House for so long. A few facts need to be laid on the table. The Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill validates expenditure that the Auditor-General has deemed to be illegal. The question is which parties spent illegally, according to the Auditor-General’s report. If we listened to the garbage coming from the National Party members, we would think that they did not spend outside of the law. They did. If we listen to and accept the Auditor-General’s report, as we have done, we find that that report says the National Party spent money outside the law, in the same way that every party, other than the Progressives, did. So this bill will validate money spent by the National Party, by New Zealand First, by the Greens, and by the Labour Party—all the parties in this House except for the Progressive party.

I have a couple of questions. It is not good enough for National Party members to say they did not sin; the Exclusive Brethren might tell them to say that, but National, like every party in the House other than the Progressives, spent money illegally. The question is what did National members do. Well, they were the first ones to admit guilt, because, after a leaked report, they rushed to pay back money they had spent illegally. Labour Party members gave due consideration to the process, and awaited the outcome of the Auditor-General’s final report. We got the report, and we have committed to paying back the money, in the same way that the National Party did. However, the facts are that the money was spent illegally—according to the Auditor-General— because of confusion. We need to move to clarify the confusion, because it might lead to further spending of this nature in the future.

I need to ask a couple of questions. Why did the National Party spend so little, when other parties were confused in the same way National was, and Labour spent a lot more? Well, National members will say that they knew the law better than Labour Party members did, and that they were far more astute than we were. Well, if they were more astute, and if they did know the law better, the question I have for Dr Don Brash is why he did not work out that GST was due on National’s broadcasting budget. Dr Don Brash probably provided tens, if not hundreds, of reports to Governments that related to GST and its effect in this economy. Yet Dr Don Brash says he knew the law better than the Labour Party did, and that is why National spent so little. But I say to Dr Brash that National spent the money illegally though, did it not? Yes, he admits it. His party needs this bill as much as any party in the House does. The question is why the National Party spent so little when other parties spent so much. It is because National had money from the Exclusive Brethren—it did not rely on this money.

I understand that National is expecting interest to be paid on the money parties are to pay back. Well, the next question is whether National paid interest on the money that it paid back. The other question I have for Don Brash is whether National not only paid the interest on the $11,305 but also paid the GST on it, or did Don Brash forget about the GST in the same way he tried to kid us that he forgot about GST when it came to expenditure on the broadcasting budget? Let us see some consistency.

Dr Don Brash: Get the facts right.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: The facts are that this bill validates expenditure by all parties in this House, including that of the National Party, and it will provide us with a clear way forward so that MPs spend money legally, and so that we know the guidelines and the parameters for that expenditure.

JILL PETTIS (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The following amendments in the names of Dr Jackie Blue and Paula Bennett to clause 1 are ruled out of order because they are not serious amendments. The next two amendments in the name of Jo Goodhew are also ruled out of order because they are not serious amendments. The following amendments, in the names of Jacqui Dean, Nathan Guy, Craig Foss, and John Hayes, are all ruled out of order because they are not serious amendments.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Could you please explain why my amendment has been ruled out of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): If the member refers to the Standing Orders and Speakers’ Rulings, he will see the rulings that have been given on the title clause.

The amendment in the name of Chris Auchinvole to clause 1 is ruled out of order because it is not a serious amendment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The next amendment is in the name of Simon Power.

Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I have two amendments to clause 2 in my name. Just as a point of clarification, is the Committee to vote on the amendment that would require confirmation from the Auditor-General that moneys have been repaid before validation? Is that this clause?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I will read the first amendment. This clause 2 amendment is to omit the words “the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent” and substitute the words “the day after the date of the return of the writs in the next general election after the date on which this Bill receives the Royal assent”, in the name of Simon Power. That is the first one.

• The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Simon Power to clause 2 be agreed to:

to omit the words “the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent”, and substitute the words “the day after the date of the return of the writs in the next General Election after the date on which this bill receives the Royal assent”.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The next amendment to clause 2 in the name of Simon Power is out of order. It refers to an indeterminate event, not to a specified time.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. This is a sincere point of order—not that there is any other sort of point of order. How is the date on which the Auditor-General reports to the House that all parties have paid back the moneys they owe before the validating legislation takes effect, an indeterminate point in time? That is a very determinate point in time. The point in time is when the Auditor-General reports back to the House.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): If the member refers to Speaker’s ruling 106/6, he will see that it talks quite clearly about amendments or parts of amendments that are too vague and therefore out of order. This amendment has been ruled out of order.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Speaker’s ruling 106/6 refers to amendments or parts of amendments that are too vague. I would have thought that if the amendment required the moneys to be repaid prior to validation, then indeed, in my submission, it would be a vague amendment. This amendment requires the moneys to have been repaid, and for the Controller and Auditor-General to have reported to Parliament that those moneys have been repaid, prior to validation occurring. There is nothing vague about the requirement of that amendment. In fact, it was drafted very carefully to ensure that a specific act triggered a point at which validation could occur, for the very reason of avoiding any difficulties of the vagaries that would otherwise have been the case, had the inclusion of the reference to the date on which the Auditor-General reported not been included. I ask respectfully that you take advice and reconsider that ruling.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I urge you to read Speaker’s ruling 106/6 carefully. It provides a good example of a vague amendment, which proposes that local authorities should have “such resources as would enable them to engage adequate services and to operate adequate technical facilities,”, etc. I can understand why that would be ruled out of order for the reason you have outlined in this case. Mr Power, though, has made it very clear that a very precise process is laid out in his amendment. It has been established in that way for a particular reason. I put it to you that it would be quite wrong, in relation to the Speaker’s ruling, for you to rule it out of order for that reason.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : An example of exactly the same nature immediately leaps to mind. It would negate the view that this particular amendment is vague. How is it that legislation can refer to the date on which Royal assent is given, when no specific date relates to that particular action? The requirement in my amendment that the Auditor-General report to the House that moneys have been repaid before validation occurs, thereby triggering the validation, has the same, if not more, specificity as the act of the Governor-General giving assent to a bill. There is no difference between those two descriptions, in relation to the need to have a specific action or date occur. Thousands of pieces of legislation run through this House with the commencement date of each being “the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent”. This clause was designed specifically with that level of trigger in mind.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : In respect of that last point, of course, I tell the member that “when the Royal assent is given” is simply another way of saying “as soon as the formal processes are completed”. The bill has to be checked for consistency and accuracy, and it then goes to the Governor-General for approval—that is, if the process is not held up; that is as quickly as it can be done.

I think the Opposition has got itself into a slight problem. It has been arguing all the way through this debate that it has no assurance about when the money will be refunded. Having stated all the way through the debate that there is an uncertainty about when the money will be refunded, Opposition members are now trying to argue for some certainty about the date on which the money will be refunded.

I suggest that the member Simon Power might care to try his luck with the Committee—given that the ruling is quite clear and consistent with the Standing Orders—by seeking leave to have the amendment put, in any case.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I thank the Leader of the House for that suggestion. On that basis, I seek leave for my second amendment, the one the Chairperson has just called, to be put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. As the leave has been denied by the person who suggested that leave be put, I now require you to rule on the point relating to the Governor-General’s assent being a similar trigger to that described in my amendment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member’s previous amendment provided a particular time. There will be a general election, and the date will be fixed for the return of the writ—that is clear; there is a date there. But no such fixed event can be associated with this amendment; there is no requirement for the Auditor-General to report on those matters and, therefore, no determinate time.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek your further clarification. Is there a requirement that the Governor-General assents?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : Since 1707. I think I can say it is pretty well established now, yes.

Simon Power: Is there a requirement? No, it is only a convention.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: It is a convention that has lasted now for 299 years. I think it would be an extraordinarily brave Governor-General who broke it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): And it is covered in the Constitution Act, Mr Power.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : I move, That the Speaker be recalled to give a ruling on the matter.

• Motion agreed to.
• House resumed.