Hide Rodney: Appointments — Electoral Commission—Membership 
Hide Rodney: Appointments — Electoral Commission—Membership 
[Volume:624;Page:18998] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise in support of my colleague the Rt Hon Winston Peters and I say to the National Party and the Labour Party that it is now MMP. What we have here is a carry-over from and an artefact of a first-past-the-post stitch-up whereby the two old parties would get together and decide what the rules of the election would be. Here they are deciding the funding that the parties will get for TV. The amount of money that will be allocated as we see in the  
Dominion Post 
 today is to go up to $3 million. We heard from Mr Ryall that the advantage of Mr Isles—and I am not criticising Mr Isles personally— 
Rod Donald 
: Charging his purse strings! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: —I am not going to say that—is that he is a guy with a great name and he is a great National Party guy. We heard from the Labour Party that David Caygill would represent its interests well. Not only is that the case but Mr Isles is supposed to represent—let us wait for it—the Opposition parties. Mr Isles is representing the National Party and Mr Caygill is representing the Labour Party. I turn to my colleagues from the United Future party and ask them this: when did David Caygill become a member of the United Future party? 
Rod Donald 
: He does not represent them; Mr Isles does. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Is United Future an Opposition party? 
Rod Donald 
: That is what the law states. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: So Mr Isles is to represent the United Future party. Well I am sure that Don Brash Gerry Brownlee and Mr Isles consulted with the United Future party and that Mr Isles has been off to see the United Future party and has told its members that United Future is an Opposition party so they have him as a representative. Did they do that? There is absolute silence from the United Future members. 
Here we have an absurdity—and I am sure that Rod Donald from the Greens will stand up and agree with me on this. One could not get two parties that are more different in the political spectrum in New Zealand than the ACT party and the Green Party. But the ACT party and the Green Party can agree on a stitch-up against the interests of the voters of New Zealand and against the interests of taxpayers. I see members of the Government hanging their heads in shame and so they should because they are only one party in this election. I look across at the National Party and tell its members that it may suit their purposes from a National Party perspective to have “your man” in this position but I ask whether that serves the interests of New Zealanders. Does it serve the interests of taxpayers and does it serve the interests of democracy when two parties can decide on who will carve up $3 million? The United Future party does not get a say. The Progressive Party does not get a say. 
Simon Power 
: Some good has come out of that! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: The New Zealand First Party does not get a say nor do the Green Party the ACT party and the Maori Party. Mr Power may like to call out and say some good comes out of it because some parties have been excluded. But I ask Mr Power how that serves democracy. 
The idea is that the money that the poor taxpayer has been socked to pay for broadcasting will be spent without reference to parties that have been voted into this Parliament. How can that serve their interests? How can we seriously say that this is in the interests of democracy in New Zealand? It is not just a stitch-up against the parties in Parliament; it is a stitch-up against would-be parties in our democracy. What we have in New Zealand is a rule that states one cannot broadcast. That is an offence against freedom of speech. We passed a law that one cannot put an advertisement on TV. That is an offence against free speech. Why should we not advertise? Then we turn round and the Labour Party and the National Party having banned all would-be parties and all other parties the opportunity to advertise then say they will allow the other parties to advertise if they comply with Labour and National’s rules. They say they will pay the money to TV3—to CanWest—and to the State-owned TVNZ and they will give the other parties the money. But hang on; it is taxpayer money that is being given. Well that is an offence against free speech. It is an offence against the democratic ideal of an open contest of ideas. 
On top of that the National Party and the Labour Party having denied the other parties and would-be parties the opportunity to talk through the most powerful medium that there is in politics have then conspired to put on the Electoral Commission David Francis Caygill—he was a Labour Party candidate a Labour MP a Labour Minister and a Labour Party appointee to various positions—to represent the Labour Party and Mr John Isles who I heard from Mr Winston Peters was a National Party candidate to represent the National Party. I ask members who represents ACT. I know that Mr John Isles does not and I know that Mr David Caygill does not. Who is here to represent the Greens? Who is here to represent New Zealand First? Who is here to represent the United Future party? No one. It may be all very well for the two old parties to club together again in their own seedy interests of winning the election and gaining power but they are doing so in a cheap and tawdry way and the ACT party opposes this motion for those reasons. 
I look across to the Labour Party and to the National Party and I say we have MMP—mixed-member proportional representation. That means that there will be multiple parties in our Parliament—multiple parties contesting an election—so I ask why those members are supporting this artefact of first past the post. Well there is only one reason for that. It is that it serves National’s interests to cook up a deal with Labour against us—the other parties. The Labour and National members may think they are clever because they have the numbers to do that. But do they feel good about it? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: The Tamaki by-election all over isn’t it? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: It is the Tamaki by-election all over—the Tamaki by-election when Labour and National conspired together to do over the Alliance. Labour went in with National and Helen Clark was a negotiator for the Labour Party to give Gardiner across to the National Party so Clem Simich could win against the Alliance! The two parties had an interest in keeping out a third party and we see that situation time and time again. 
I have a message for Labour and National: the voters are going to know that it is MMP. The voters know that they will have a choice and I have to say that they are very very tired and sick of the old two-party club. That is why they voted for MMP why they will continue to vote for MMP and why they will continue to vote for other parties. Why? Because they want something better than National and Labour are offering.