English Bill: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
English Bill: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12943] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 What is at issue with the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill and its companion the Electoral Finance Bill is that there will be one rule for politicians and one rule for everybody else. Three million adults out there in New Zealand are under the mistaken belief that they have at least an equal role in this democracy as the people in here do. Well when this bill passes and when its companion the Electoral Finance Bill passes they will not: there will be one rule for the politicians and one rule for the public. 
Let me summarise those rules. The politicians will be able to do almost anything when it comes to political advertising; the public will be able to do almost nothing. The politicians will be able to do almost everything and the public will be able to do almost nothing. When it comes to the politicians and money that is spent on election campaigns there will be a lot more for the politicians and there will be a lot less for the public and the citizens. Whose opinion will fill election year? It is the opinion of the people with a lot more money who can advertise almost anything. And who will that be? That will be the politicians. Whose opinions will be crowded out in election year? Who will be allowed to say almost nothing and can spend a lot less money? Any private citizen or organisation in New Zealand that mistakenly believes it is their role to influence how people vote. 
That is what is at stake here. This bill that is being passed gives a broad definition of what politicians can spend their money on—including National as well as Labour and as well as all the small parties—at the same time as we have just had big increases in our funding. 
What happens if a person is the candidate who decides he or she wants to contribute to public life and politics in New Zealand and he or she stands in an electorate? That person will have the amount of money he or she can spend in 3 months restricted to him or her for 11 months at $20000. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s the same since 1996. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is the same since 1996 but it used to be restricted for a 3-month period and now that restriction applies for 11 months. That is all the candidate can spend. That is not enough money to get one’s name recognition up. The incumbent will have his or her parliamentary budget of $60000 plus his or her share of the much larger leader’s budget to spend and the Labour Party says that is fairer than it was before! 
 Let us just go back and remind ourselves why we have this bill. We have this bill because the Labour Party issued a pledge card that the Auditor-General said it should not have issued. The Chief Electoral Office told it not to. I want to take members through the history because I think this bill needs to be debated in the context of our understanding of Labour’s reckless disregard for electoral law and for the consequences of this electoral law and in the context of our understanding of the way that Labour ignored the officers of the electoral law in the 2005 election. 
What is the point of passing this law if Labour plans to break it in the same calculated way it did last time? Why do I say that? Let me take members briefly through the events before 2005. All parties were told by the Auditor-General to be careful—they were all told. On 30 August 2005 the Chief Electoral Officer rang the Labour Party members and told them that he was worried about the pledge card. The Labour Party members wrote back and said: “No we think the pledge card is OK.” The Chief Electoral Officer wrote to them again and Labour members wrote back with a much longer opinion—and listen to this—appealing to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and freedom of expression exactly the measures that the Human Rights Commission has said Labour will trample all over with this legislation. But here is the nasty bit. Three days before the last election the Labour Party members said: “Yes we agree. The pledge card is electioneering and we will count it in our election expenses.” They said that. I believe they said it to stop the Chief Electoral Officer going public. They said: “It is electioneering and we will count it.” Three days after the election they wrote back and said: “Oh we withdraw our offer.” How can this Parliament deal with that kind of calculated deceit against the law of the land and against the citizens of New Zealand? 
That is what this legislation is doing. Dr Cullen can go on and on. All his speech shows is that the Labour members think they are the ones who were wronged in all of this—that they are the ones who have been picked on and they are the ones who have to pass this law. This legislation is not needed. It never was. There were rules there the Auditor-General applied them and people got caught out. We never needed this legislation. It is here today only because Labour members cannot accept they have done something wrong. That is the evil in this debate. Labour members cannot accept they did something wrong even though they paid the money for the pledge card back. I ask Dr Cullen: if the pledge card was not the wrong thing to do why did Labour pay the $800000 back? The only reason Labour was not convicted of corrupt practice was because the police read the wrong legislation. The police could not even figure out which piece of legislation to use to convict Labour of breaking the electoral expenses ceiling. 
This piece of legislation is a disgrace. It is about handing to the politicians a lot more taxpayers’ money. It is about relaxing the rules compared with what applies to the citizens of New Zealand so that the politicians can spend taxpayers’ money pushing their own opinions while private citizens and organisations will be prevented from spending their money on pushing their opinions. In fact Labour has thrown out a practical fair and balanced system. The system balanced the interests of the parties and it balanced the interests of the public and the politicians. Now the politicians are taking over. 
The other thing that is invidious about this legislation is that the public have always opposed State funding of political parties. They demonstrated that again earlier this year. They are against State funding of political parties. So what do Labour members do? Purely in their own partisan interest they say: “Well if we can’t get State funding upfront we’ll get it through the back door. We’ll make one law for private citizens to heavily regulate their ability to articulate views in election year we’ll push their amount of money down we will loosen up the rules for politicians and we’ll pump more money through that side.” This is a deeply cynical self-serving partisan exercise from a party that just will not accept the wrong. Labour does not understand anymore the morality of the rule of law. 
I have no confidence at all that Labour members will obey even this self-serving law they are passing. Last time the documentary evidence was that they deliberately broke the law despite the Chief Electoral Officer telling them they were doing so. They deliberately broke the law. They owned up 3 days before the election then did a U-turn 3 days later. Now they are still fighting the argument. That is how Labour is getting out of touch with the public. 
We will defend the right of the public to take at least as big a role as the politicians in the election and in our democracy. We will keep attacking the Labour Party which is using all the weight and the tools of Government to change the law to get its own partisan interests better funded and better protected. Labour is trying to stop anyone else from criticising it contesting it or throwing it out of office.