Hipkins Chris: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — Second Readings 
Hipkins Chris: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — Second Readings 
[Volume:669;Page:15843] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 Government members who have spoken on the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill and the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill have made much of the importance of bipartisan consensus on and support for electoral reform legislation. The point I make to them is simply that that goes both ways. It requires a willingness to engage in discussion and to compromise on both sides. 
That was not there when the Electoral Finance Act came through the House before the last election. The National Party thought the opportunity to play politics with the issue was too good to pass up. National members were given plenty of opportunities in the lead-up to the Electoral Finance Act’s passage to engage in discussion with the then Government and they chose not to. They chose not to because they would rather play politics. 
Do members know how we know they chose to play politics with it? Because one of the bills we are about to pass through its second reading now the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill and which we are currently debating as part of this package of bills contains exactly the same provisions that the National Party railed against when they were put forward by the previous Labour Government. What did those members call that legislation? Gerry Brownlee called it “Mugabe-style” legislation—“Mugabe-style” legislation that those members are now passing another bill to continue. It was “Mugabe-style” legislation when a Labour Government passed it; it is all sweetness and light and bipartisan consensus now that a National Government is passing exactly the same provisions back into law. 
Gerry Brownlee called it utterly disgraceful legislation as well. Nick Smith said it was a rort. He said that never in his 17 years had he seen a bill that would bring this Parliament into so much disrepute. That was what he said about the bill that we are currently debating and will pass through the House this afternoon. That is what National members said when they were in Opposition. They are now getting on their high horse and saying that we have to have consensus and bipartisan support for electoral reform legislation. I tell them that it goes both ways. They have to be willing to compromise and to engage in the discussion and they were not before the last election. 
They are not this time round either in some respects. We have a bill on the Order Paper under the name of Paul Quinn that makes significant changes to electoral law in this country and it does not have bipartisan consensus and support yet the Government is using its majority to push it through anyway. It appears that the Government’s willingness to engage in electoral reform only where there is bipartisan consensus has limits. Paul Quinn’s bill appears to be exempt from that. I say that the National Party’s rhetoric on that appears to be just a little bit hollow. 
I rewind the clock back to where this all started back to 2004-05 when we saw the Exclusive Brethren spend a huge amount of money to run a third-party parallel campaign that was unregulated uncontrolled and unmonitored in support of the National Party. The Exclusive Brethren ran that campaign and senior National Party figures including some who are currently in this administration were not entirely truthful in what they knew about the Exclusive Brethren’s campaign. They knew about it but when asked about it they said they did not. That was not truthful. They should be held to account for that because they did not tell the public the full truth about what they knew about the Exclusive Brethren campaign. 
One of the reasons I think the provisions in this bill on parallel third-party campaigns are important is that I would hate to see New Zealand going down the track of the United States where there are significant third-party campaigns. In fact in some cases the third-party campaigns are bigger than the candidate and party campaigns themselves. We are talking about multimillion-dollar campaigns. In a lot of cases those campaigns are simply dirty. They are smear campaigns. 
I spent some time in 2004 in the United States just before George W Bush’s re-election. I was absolutely disgusted with the third-party campaign that was run against the then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran a campaign that was not based on truth. There was no truth whatsoever in a lot of the allegations made. The only thing that campaign had behind it was an awful lot of money—a huge amount of money. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smeared John Kerry’s character with a massive advertising campaign that the Democratic Party was unable to counter. 
I would be very disappointed if we opened the door for that type of campaigning in New Zealand. I think we need to be very clear that if someone is going to do any form of significant political campaigning in this country it should be open. People should be able to know who is behind it. If we see expensive ads in the paper or on the TV or anything else like that the New Zealand public is entitled to know who is paying for them and what their agenda is. 
At least this legislation allows that to happen. It says that if someone is going to spend more than $300000 on a third-party campaign there will be rules around it. 
Amy Adams 
: No it doesn’t; it says you can’t spend more than $300000. Read the bill. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I apologise; third-party campaigns cannot spend more than $300000. The bill also has other requirements on the disclosure of political donations. I think those things are really important. 
The donation thresholds are higher than I would like to see. At the moment it is $1000 for donations to a candidate and $10000 for donations to a political party. In my view that is high enough but as I said at the beginning compromise and bipartisan consensus on electoral reform requires compromise on both sides. The Labour Party has chosen to compromise on those donation thresholds in order to ensure that we can have an arrangement governing the third-party campaigns and preventing an independent party from spending huge amounts of money. I think that is a really important compromise and I support it. 
I congratulate the Labour members on the Electoral Legislation Committee in particular on the work they have put into this legislation. I know that it has been approached with a lot of diligence by committee members including by some of the National members on the committee I am sure. I think that— 
Amy Adams 
: Don’t go out of your way Chris. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Oh well I try not to. I know that the legislation has been approached with a lot of diligence by members on both sides and I am really pleased about that. 
Another provision in this bill that I am very supportive of is the provision requiring political parties to disclose the donations they receive in bands in respect of the size of donations. That will allow the public and the watchdogs to monitor whether this system is being pushed to its limit or rorted in a way that was not intended. If the public sees a whole heap of donations coming through that are just below the disclosure thresholds they might want to ask some questions about that. That is another really important change that has been reached in this legislation; it will increase the overall transparency of the political donation system and that is important. 
The public of New Zealand are entitled to know when they go to vote and when they receive information trying to encourage them in the way that they cast that vote who is behind that information and who is funding it. We do not want to see big money in New Zealand politics buying influence and buying access to power. 
Let us be honest about this. Not many people donate significant amounts to political parties without wanting to get something out of it. They could simply want access to people in authority. They may have a particular agenda and therefore donate moneys to the parties that have policies that are consistent with that agenda. That is OK providing it is transparent because then the public can make their own judgments about whether they think somebody is trying to buy influence by giving donations to a political party. Those transparency requirements are important. 
One reason that the Labour Party is willing to set aside its disagreements over one or two of the issues including the donations disclosure thresholds is so that we can get the bipartisan support required to pass this legislation through the House. Overall the Labour Party will be voting in favour of both these bills: the “Mugabe-style legislation” as Gerry Brownlee called it that the National Government is now trying to pass in the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill and the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill. We will be supporting both of those bills further. Thank you.