Mark Ron: Statutes Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Statutes Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:637;Page:7862] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I had intended to take a very very short call because everybody knows that Statutes Amendment bills get a pretty good working over by most caucuses in the Parliament. That has to be done because Statutes Amendment bills by their very nature do not get to the floor of the House unless every party agrees. They tend to be non-controversial because they are technical in nature and although some speakers may feign some concern or disagreement with a particular part or Act that is being technically amended the truth of the matter is they really are not. If they were concerned the bill or that part of the bill simply would not be here today. 
But it does present one with a little bit of intellectual gymnastics when one considers for a moment what the odd member says. The speech made by Nicky Wagner— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who? 
RON MARK 
: Nicky Wagner from Christchurch from the National Party. She pointed out and discussed the amendment in Part 7 to the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. If I were that lady from that party I would not even want to mention the Charitable Trusts Act. I would not want to remind this House— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Why is that? 
RON MARK 
: The Hon Clayton Cosgrove from Waimakariri asks why that is. Why it is is that the Charitable Trusts Act—as she quite correctly pointed out—enables church bodies and religious groups to enjoy some exemptions particularly exemptions from taxation laws which other people do not enjoy because they are religious bodies that are there to teach and preach the word of the Lord or whichever deity it is that they happen to recognise and they are not for one thing politically motivated or politically engaged. 
How interesting it is that the National Party would even want to go near that because we all now know from Nicky Hager’s book  
The Hollow Men 
 that that is precisely what one of these groups of people namely the Exclusive Brethren has been doing. Ironically we suspected all along—and we now know with absolute surety—that the National Party was the fiscal benefactor of precisely that activity. So possibly there is a deficiency in this Statutes Amendment Bill and possibly we should be looking more closely at the Charitable Trusts Act of 1957 to make sure that political parties cannot receive third-party funding for their election campaigns. 
How ironic it all was and in fact we can go beyond irony to say what a great lie it was when Dr Don Brash accused another party of stealing an election buying an election by spending $800000-odd of taxpayers’ money on a pledge card. Well as much as I might wish to agree with the sentiment that the expenditure was inappropriate what an absolute joke and what a masterful stroke of hypocrisy it was coming as it did from Dr Brash when now we know what we know from this book that I hold in my hand  
The Hollow Men 
. This book will forever— 
Anne Tolley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thought we are actually debating the Statutes Amendment Bill. I know there is a wide range of topics to debate but Dr Brash is not in the bill. I ask the member to stick to the bill. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Mr Deputy Speaker with your being far more learned than me and many members of this House I value your view. You would know that this is a very very wide-ranging debate and that the member has mentioned a specific proposition—an amendment within the Statutes Amendment Bill—and has built his own arguments around it. Therefore Mr Deputy Speaker I would counsel you to consider that the senior Opposition whip’s proposal is completely out of order. She should read the Standing Orders. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: The only thing that the Minister said that was vaguely sensible Mr Deputy Speaker was that you are more learned than him. The reality of the matter is that what the member is addressing is an argument about electoral funding in the context of the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. It is way beyond the scope of that legislation. That issue is properly dealt with in the context of a debate about electoral funding and the Electoral Act 1993. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank those members for raising those issues and each member in a small way is correct. But I am more inclined to think that the member who was contributing was correct to use whichever or whatever examples he wished to illustrate the points he was making and that is what he was doing. 
Eric Roy 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a well-known convention and several Speakers have made the ruling that points of order will be heard in silence. In fact the very member who has been on his feet is one who has called the Speaker’s attention to that convention. During the point of order that was taken while the senior Opposition whip Anne Tolley was on her feet he made a statement that was quite unseemly and also inappropriate given that points of order should be heard in silence. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Yes I wish members to take note of that. Thank you for raising that Mr Roy. 
RON MARK 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Noting that this has been a deliberate attempt via spurious points of order raised by honourable members of the National Party to break up my speech because I was clearly hurting their pride I take exception to the fact that Mr Roy a man who has been an Assistant Speaker and for whom I have great respect has now cast an aspersion upon me by claiming that I made an unparliamentary improper suggestion or statement which I absolutely refute. I would ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Eric Roy 
: Firstly I did not say anything other than that it was an inappropriate comment because it was out of order. For your information Mr Deputy Speaker the member said: “They don’t like it do they?”. That was what I was referring to. Secondly it was inappropriate because it was made while a point of order was being heard. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is correct so I will not have any further comment about the inappropriateness of that being raised as a point of order. It was correctly raised. I did hear it and it was during a point of order. I chose not to take any action but it was correctly raised. 
RON MARK 
: I refer to Part 7 “Charitable Trusts Act 1957” and—by crikey I will repeat this point—we know when we really are getting to the core of some of these National MPs because these are the very tactics they use. I appreciate the ruling of the Speaker and I appreciate the fact that some people recognise that that series of points of order was designed simply to shut me down and stop me from speaking about something that will haunt the National Party for a long time. National was once a great party; a party that was once led by the Rt Hon Keith Holyoake from Pahiatua from whence I came. It was my home town. 
But Part 7 of the bill relating to the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 is here. It was Nicky Wagner from the National Party who raised a specific reference to the charitable organisations and churches that will benefit from this amendment. 
I do not think that people who sit on the select committee and analyse this bill will be very impressed by the fact that when we look back over the recent goings-on of the National Party—as are highlighted in  
The Hollow Men 
 the title of which should include women as well—we can see there is a need for more amendments than those we are looking at now. 
 If I turn the page to Part 9 I see it amends the Civil Union Act for which the National Party indicates its support. The honourable Chris Finlayson has just raised a point of order to try to shut me down. It is interesting that the Exclusive Brethren who funded the National Party campaign are totally against civil unions. Members of the Exclusive Brethren came into our offices to campaign and lobby. They took the names of every MP who was going to vote for the Civil Union Bill now known as the Civil Union Act 2004 which is now being amended in part by this Statutes Amendment Bill. It is ironic that the Exclusive Brethren gave $1 million to the National Party campaign through the back door to get Mr Chris Finlayson here! 
Anne Tolley 
: Grow up! 
RON MARK 
: The member tells me to grow up. Well it is just something that we point out is it not? I can tell Anne Tolley the retread MP who is back again after a short duration—after what is called a sabbatical—that the Exclusive Brethren came to the offices of MPs around Christchurch and lobbied vigorously for people to vote against the Civil Union Bill. The National Party has members of Parliament who are openly gay and they should know that the people who funded National’s campaign lobbied against them—against their human rights their lifestyle and them as individuals. But here we are making a slight amendment to the Civil Union Act. If the National Party and its financial backers still oppose that legislation maybe they should not allow that provision to sit in the Statutes Amendment Bill. 
Another part of the Statutes Amendment Bill deals with endangered species. Is that not ironic? I am frantically looking for that part of the bill because there is an endangered species on the political landscape. I want to find that part to see whether it includes National MPs because the fact of the matter is that once people read  
The Hollow Men 
 to its fullest extent and understand the level of duplicity complicity hypocrisy underhandedness and wheeling and dealing of some members of the National Party then a lot of the MPs who are voting for the first reading of this bill are destined to become an endangered species themselves. 
An honourable member of the old school of the National Party whom I know—a person I consider to be a mentor—[ 
Interruption 
] Anne Tolley can laugh at the Hon Bert Walker if she likes and criticise him but Bert Walker is a man whom I classify as someone with old National Party values. I put on the record that the members who are laughing and tittering like schoolgirls who think that  
The Hollow Men 
 is something to be proud of who think that National members are not an endangered species—if they have any doubts about it ask where Don Brash is now; he is gone—can laugh and titter now enjoy their time in the House reflect upon their individual honour and integrity and ask themselves whether this is the party they really feel comfortable with or whether they are truly members of an endangered species soon to become extinct in 2008. 
I had thought this was quite a boring bill that it should pass with little comment and that we would probably say what needed to be said in the third reading. But one cannot ignore some of the comments made by some of the National speakers when those comments are balanced against the actions we have observed over the last 12 months. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.referred to Government Administration Committee