Ryall Tony: Electoral Finance Bill — First Reading 
Ryall Tony: Electoral Finance Bill — First Reading 
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Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 The previous speaker talked about his suspicions about this seedy Electoral Finance Bill and how he hopes that it is not all about giving one group an advantage over all others. Well I have to tell the member that this bill is all about giving the Labour Party an advantage over all others. The party that stole the last election now wants to buy the next one! It wants to buy the next election by having restrictions on everybody except the Government. Every New Zealander who wants to express his or her view will be restricted in how much money he or she can spend except the members of the Labour Government. 
This is a Government that has spent tens of millions of dollars in the last 12 months promoting itself—Working for Families police recruitment and KiwiSaver. It has spent millions and millions of taxpayers’ dollars promoting itself and what has it brought to Parliament this week? It is a seedy Louisiana Huey Long - type bill that will suppress free speech in this country. I repeat what I told the House earlier on: the party that stole the last election intends to buy the next through using millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. 
But I will tell members one thing: good will overcome evil time and time again. The evil of this legislation will not be allowed to stand. When New Zealanders find out that the Labour Party is going to restrict all public advertising and how much can be spent for the whole year of election year they will ask: “What’s gone wrong here?”. 
We take our democracy for granted in this country. Free elections and a free press help to protect our democratic rights—our rights of free speech and our rights to criticise the policies of the Government. But these rights are not automatic. We have to stand up for them and we have to stand up against those who want to undermine our rights to have a say. This bill does not apply just to political parties. This bill applies to any New Zealander who wants to speak out against the Labour Party. If people oppose a political party’s policy and wish to publicise their opposition they will have to register. If people want to put out an ad that says: “Let’s be hard-working and get ahead” and the ad does not mention a party it does not say to vote for National or not to vote for Labour it just says they want people to work hard and get ahead—and that is associated with the National Party and certainly not with the left—they will have to register their views. If people oppose a political party’s policy and wish to publicise their opposition to it wherever their organisation spends over $100 a week they must register with the Government to exercise their right to free speech. If their organisation is going to spend over $100 a week in an advertising campaign over a year then they will have to go to the Government and register so that they can say what they want. 
Under this bill it will be illegal for any third-party organisation to spend over $60000. Well actually I do not think the lefties in the Council of Trade Unions the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute have worked that out yet. If we look at the advertising in most election campaigns who do we see are the big third-party spenders? They are the unions—the very same organisations who are clicking the ticket with the bargaining fee that they are cleaning up out of everybody. For instance in the case of the Spotless Services workers of the $16 million for low-paid workers the unions got $1 million. That is the sort of stuff that is going to fund the Labour Party at the next election. 
Labour wants to restrict New Zealanders from criticising its policies. Labour will have unlimited Government funds. It is spending $15 million to promote Working for Families $7.5 million for KiwiSaver and $5 million for the Accident Compensation Corporation’s Covered campaign. Imagine what it will do in election year. 
Imagine that there are huge restrictions on political parties. Do members realise that if a candidate is selected in February next year and the election is in October all that the candidate will be able to spend is the $20000. Do members realise that that is all they will be able to spend? We will have this situation where New Zealand First will start doing what happens in England. People there are not selected as the party candidate; they are selected as the prospective party candidate. If someone is a prospective party candidate he or she is not a party candidate. That is why they have that phrase over there—so they can avoid all the campaigning rules. That is what will happen here. 
I say to Labour that these policies simply cannot last. The unions which will now find they are restricted will ask Helen Clark to measure this bill against all her rhetoric about anonymous donations. I ask members to remember that this is the woman who got over $800000 of anonymous donations when she first became Prime Minister. It was the biggest lot of anonymous donations in the history of New Zealand and it was received by the Labour Party when it came to power. 
What did Helen Clark say about this issue? She said in December 2006: “I think the public wants to know who is funding political parties. They want to know who is pulling the strings if they are pulling the strings through funding.” That is what Helen Clark said. Then she said: “I look forward to the National Party support for clamping down on anonymous donations.” Helen Clark said on 6 September 2006: “I understand that in Australia everything over $250 has to be declared. That sounds like a good idea to me.” But what did she say yesterday? Ms Clark said: “Banning anonymous donations in their current form without providing additional State funding would have led to parties across the spectrum struggling for funding.” So this is the party that said: “Let’s get rid of anonymous donations.” but now she says we are not going to do that because it would lead to parties struggling for funding. 
What does that mean? Banning anonymous donations would mean no money for Labour therefore what does Labour do? There will be no money for anybody! Well that is not what Labour is doing. There will be no money for Labour so it will not let anybody else spend anything. That is what Labour is proposing. Helen Clark said: “No money for Labour so we won’t let anybody else spend anything else.” Every member of that Labour Party should have been hanging his or her head in shame as I read that this morning. For over a year it was reported that Labour spent every day moaning about these secret donations and as has been noted in a publication today: “The National Party agreed that these donations should end. Helen Clark and Labour have decided unilaterally to leave it out because Labour would have struggled for funding without such money.”—that is according to www.kiwiblog.co.nz. Is that not inconsistent? 
Hon Bill English 
: It’s completely normal for Helen Clark. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That is right. On the one hand she was saying to get rid of these anonymous donations but when that was going to affect Labour’s funding it was: “Oh no we don’t think we can do that.” That is completely deceitful. That is what this bill is about—it is deceitful. This bill means that the Labour Government can spend whatever it likes but no one else can. 
I have to say that the best thing about this bill going to a select committee is that all the parties will have an option to have a say. All the parties will be able to decide whether this bill is democratic. I think it is undemocratic. If anybody had stood up in this House and said that in Zimbabwe Mugabe had just passed a bill that said parties could not advertise or promote over the whole year of the election third parties could not spend more than $60000 but Mugabe could spend whatever he liked Phil Goff would have frothed and his veins would have popped in outrage. The veins would have popped in outrage that Mugabe was limiting the free speech period putting restrictions on what third parties could advertise and making critics register with the Government. Phil Goff’s veins would have popped like nothing we have ever seen before. 
But that is what the Government in New Zealand is doing today. In New Zealand Helen Clark now wants the critics to register their conflicts of interest—she did yesterday; maybe she does not today—and that is the sort of Government that New Zealanders will turf out in less than 12 months’ time. New Zealanders will get a Government that will respect the views of the people one that has not become tired arrogant and out of touch like that aging front bench opposite.