Harawira Hone: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Harawira Hone: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5817] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Madam Speaker. Kia ora tatou te Whare. Everyone in the House well knows how seriously the members of the Maori Party take their roles as MPs. We attended the induction we swotted up on the Standing Orders we read  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 and in fact we even came in for parliamentary training before the election because we were so sure we were coming into Parliament. We worked our butts off because of our commitment to our people. On the very rare occasions when we have slipped up we have copped the flak and done the punishment. 
So with this bill as with other bills when it comes to talking about appropriation legislation to validate parliamentary expenditure we decided to have a really good look into what this was all about. We know that appropriations are supposed to be limited to a specific amount and scope. We know that in this situation there is a serious case to be answered because expenses were incurred outside the scope of the appropriation and the Government was warned against doing it before it actually incurred those expenses. That means that Parliament stands in breach of section 4 of the Public Finance Act of 1989—a breach of law an illegal act and an unlawful offence that puts Parliament’s already tarnished credibility further at risk. Now I may be only a new boy on the block but even I know that political parties are supposed to operate according to the law. 
The Maori Party made a mistake—no issue. One of our people sent in an account that we should have paid but it was paid by the Parliamentary Service—a paltry 53 bucks. But it had nothing to do with overspending. In fact we came nowhere near our spending limit because we did not have enough money. It was a straight-out mistake. We were informed of the mistake and we repaid the bill—end of story. 
Then I hear that persons of privilege—MPs—can simply introduce new laws to right any wrong. I guess that is what is meant in the latest edition of  
Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand 
 which states: “The office to which members are elected has a considerable amount of legal freedom guaranteed to it so that members themselves have the capacity to carry out their duties of the office as they sit and indeed are able largely to define what the duties of that office are.” I guess that means that in the house of privilege—the House of Parliament—legal freedom means that those who control the House can do exactly what they want to do. That is what really sucks about this bill because it is about an abuse of the concept of legal freedom. In fact it is about legal highway robbery. 
So I turned to  
Hansard 
 to see exactly what this legal freedom means and surprise surprise we have already been here before with the 1894 Native Land (Validation of Titles) Act amendment. In case members’ memories do not go back as far as that that Act widely known in Maori circles as the “Validation of Invalid Land Sales Act” has actually come before the House on a number of occasions recently—6 May 2004 to be exact a day that will remain etched forever in the minds of Maoridom. That is the day the infamous foreshore and seabed legislation came before this House—legislation that the Maori Party is seeking to repeal. Dr Cullen was asked that day to consider the similarities between the foreshore and seabed legislation and the “Validation of Invalid Titles Act” which legislated away Maori rights to court redress for land taken without their knowledge or consent. 
Two years later on 15 June 2006 my esteemed colleague Te Ururoa Flavell asked a question of the Minister of Maori Affairs about whether the Maori Purposes Bill would legalise decisions that did not have a legal mandate in much the same way as legalising the theft of Maori land that occurred with the “Validation of Invalid Titles Act” of 1893. Third time lucky my even more esteemed leader Dr Pita Sharples raised the same “Validation of Invalid Land Sales Act” in the context of the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill. 
So there is no doubt in my mind at all about where the Labour Party turned to try to get itself out of this mess because as the Speaker has rightly pointed out without validating legislation the unlawfulness remains. Although she urged parties to pay the money back her key point was that repayment itself would not change the unlawfulness of the spending. So hey presto a new law would be required; a new law based on precedent based on the validation of imperfect titles of legal theft and the justification of banditry from the 1800s. The precedent then for validating unlawfulness was in 1894 when the amendment to the 1893 Native Land (Validation of Titles) Act was passed in which the illegal confiscation of Maori land was justified legalised and validated. 
That amendment also created a perception that every bit of Maori land taken from that point on would also be legitimate. George Elliott Barton the first Validation Court judge said something in 1893 that could have been written for Dr Michael Cullen in 2006. I quote from 1893: “the chief object of the legislature in passing validating statutes has been the validation of all honest and straightforward purchases whether they are legal or illegal in their inception”. He was saying that the illegal orders that he did not have the power to make as a Native Land Court judge would now be validated. This tells us that it does not matter whether acts are legal or illegal or whether one has the authority to make orders all that matters is that one has the power to make one’s thievery legal. 
This House has a history of dishonesty concealment and conspiracy to deceive stretching back to the very earliest days of parliamentary deception in Aotearoa—a history I have no doubt the learned Dr Cullen a professional student of social and economic history has studied in depth. I refer the House to a book written by Dr Cullen himself called  
Lawfully Occupied 
 
for clues as to where this Government’s notions of lawfulness and unlawfulness may have been sourced. 
Last week we quoted Santayana who said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But given the experience and the intellect of the Labour leadership we would have to say that this is not the case here. Was Labour’s overspend an accident? No way; this was a deliberate and calculated act. It was a conscious decision to ignore the advice of the Auditor-General and go ahead with an overspend of some $800000. They have got snapped with their fingers in the cookie jar and this bill is nothing more than legal screaming. 
Last week Dr Cullen said that Parliament would need validating legislation to cover election overspending. But honestly folks who here genuinely believes that in such a close election as we had last year $800000 over the top could be seen as anything but a deliberate act of election chicanery? There have been overspends before—$309 million in respect of the Kyoto Protocol $56 million in tourism and $12 million in corrections—but they were blunders. They were of a completely different nature to the lust for power we see manifest in this Labour Government’s appropriation legislation. 
What sort of example does this unlawful shenanigans give to the nation? Does it say that any Maori on the street can go to jail for pinching a bar of soap but political parties can validate the theft of millions of dollars of Maori land? That any Pasifika can lose his or her home as a result of being caught in a shady finance deal but politicians can validate the theft of a million dollars in election overspending? Or that any poor Pakeha can watch their kids suffer because they cannot afford a doctor while we watch a Government build a surplus of $11 billion? 
This is the challenge we face here today. The 1997 Waitangi Tribunal report said that validating illegal transactions was “a very dubious proceeding” especially where it fails to protect Maori owners from hasty or excessive alienation. The Maori Party strongly opposes any thought that people of privilege should be able to validate their wrongdoings while those in genuine need in this country have to suffer the laws the police the courts and the jails that are so often their lot. “Walking your talk” is the first principle of genuine leadership. Cowering behind a façade of legislation is the domain of thieves and scoundrels. Kia ora tatou.