Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Well thank you very much Madam Speaker. What a sad process we've gone through over the last 18 or 19 hours as we've considered this legislation.The first point I want to make is the Government's press release and in fact their whole behaviour over this is as David Seymour says pantomime". This is not a ban; this is the lowering of an already low threshold from $1500 to $50. So any claim by the Government that this is a ban and that this eliminates foreign donations is just wrong—any attempt by the Government to claim that it is is incorrect. That's been pointed out by us and it's been pointed out by numerous commentators. So that's the first point.The second point is—and we have litigated this at length on this side of the House—the process leading up to this has been appalling. Now it is true that the Justice Committee has taken quite some time over the inquiry into the 2017 election—that is correct. There are good reasons for the length of time it has taken. One reason is that at the start of the inquiry we decided not to include the 2016 local election inquiry and then we decided to include it. The second reason is that the Minister decided to—not instruct us—ask us to consider the matter of foreign donations and we have been doing that; well the committee's been doing that. I'm sadly—or not so sadly—no longer on the committee. But the committee has been doing that.Now these are tricky issues. The issue of the extent of foreign interference in New Zealand elections or the attempted foreign interference is something that the committee has been hearing evidence on but also there's the issue of what you do about that. Now this is a sliver of the possible remedies to the mischief of foreign interference in New Zealand elections. This is literally the merest sliver of what you could do as a Parliament to respond.If you want an example of some of the things that I think the committee is probably considering it's the submission of Anne-Marie Brady who's made I think at least one submission to the committee. She's been on Twitter this morning outlining her possible remedies. None of that is in the bill; not a single thing. So this is literally the merest sliver of a thing that you could do. As various commentators have pointed out—both in this House and also in the media—you could drive a truck through it in terms of the protections that the Government purports to be putting in place.So the process has been a shocker. Yes it's true that the committee has sat on these issues for quite a long time but we on this side of the House do not believe that justifies the Government basically in the case of the Minister throwing a tantrum and deciding that because he's the Minister and by definition he's got the number in the Parliament he can just basically take an idea turn up to the House and decide on Tuesday morning "Oh well I'll put the House into urgency and we'll ram it through and we'll pass it through all stages by Wednesday morning by half past 12 before the House lifts for lunchtime". Just because the committee has taken a long time does not justify doing that.Actually I believe from my time on the committee the report of the committee will be a good report. It will be a substantive report. It will be a comprehensive report. The reason it will be is: firstly because it's taken quite a long to get there; secondly because there are some good people on the committee with real legal expertise and real investment in the issues; and thirdly committee members have taken a serious look at the issues because these are critical issues for our democracy. On the issue of local elections for example there's widespread agreement I think across the Parliament that local elections are conducted poorly turnout is a shocker we need to improve it we need to reform the way we do that. So the committee report will be good on that.There is widespread agreement that we need to protect against foreign interference in our elections. The committee I'm sure will produce a substantive report in relation to some of the suggestions that have come forward from commentators like Anne-Marie Brady and others. There will be a whole series of improvements that the committee recommends for the conduct of general elections more generally in light of the experience at the 2017 election.Our point is Parliament should have waited for that committee to report. So that's the second point about poor process.Ginny Andersen: Ha ha!CHRIS BISHOP: Well members opposite laugh but I mean the process that is always followed following elections is that you have a bipartisan committee that considers the issues there's generally a bipartisan report it comes forward any amendment bills come forward it generally passes through with bipartisan support and we incrementally improve the operations of our elections. Actually that's been a pretty good process.The third point I want to make is there is no need for urgency—absolutely no need. Members opposite have not even tried. They have not even attempted to justify the urgency with which we are considering this legislation. It can't be that—Golriz Ghahraman: Yes they have.CHRIS BISHOP: —well Golriz Ghahraman says "Yes we have." Well that is completely not true. For the Greens to stand up—the sanctimonious Greens who spent nine years when National was in Government lecturing the Parliament about urgency being an abuse of democracy and it being you know dictatorial and all these other synonyms for fascism for the Greens to then essentially just roll over and support this legislation under urgency I think is appalling. I think people will judge them for it.So many members on the Government side have not even tried to justify the use of urgency for this legislation. If that was the case that there was this flood of donations between $50 and $1500 that you know somehow we'd known about because the commission had disclosed it or told the Minister or something and he'd made that public and we had to really crack down literally overnight and stop these donations coming in well that would be fair enough. That would be reasonable. That might be a case for urgency.It's a bit like when the Minister finds out that a bunch of warrants for officers have been improperly or invalidly issued and there might be an issue to do with whether or not people have been legally arrested. Well that's of course a case for urgency because the Parliament will want to act swiftly to erase any legal doubt about those arrests. Well that's totally justified. As I say if it was true that there was a flood of foreign donations that we must stop OK there'd be a case for urgency but no one's made that case—no one has made that case. There's deafening silence from members. There is literally no justification for urgency in relation to this bill. Barry Soper I think this morning or last night had it completely right which is he said it's the worst excesses of what Government does when it's on the ropes.So let's be clear about why we're debating this in urgency on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Let's be clear about why we're doing it. The Government's under pressure. New Zealand First Foundation's in the media—the excesses of the foundation are particularly—on Radio New Zealand and in the media. The Government doesn't like it. In the last 48 hours there's been a grotesque breach of privacy through the Government's own incompetent management of the gun buy-back scheme. It's been a shocker of a week—or last two weeks actually—for the Government and a terrible poll on Monday night for the Government. So what do we do? Andrew Little turns up. Hey Andrew Little the strategic mastermind who led them to 23 percent. He's turned up on Tuesday morning and he said to Chris Hipkins the Leader of the House "I've got the answer. The answer is: let's go into urgency and ram through a pitiful small sliver of a bill so that we can distract everyone." It's Boris Johnson's dead cat theory. You know—you throw a dead cat on a trampoline and everyone goes "What are you doing?" He says "Oh it's a dead cat." and everyone's talking about the dead cat. It's exactly the same. [Interruption] It's exactly the same. [Interruption] It's exactly the same tactic that they're operating which is "Let's just have a debate about something that's totally totally near pointless."And that's the fourth point that I want to finish on which is the bill does very little. You read the regulatory impact statement—it even says that. The best that the regulatory impact statement can muster in support of the bill is that it sends a message. That's it—that it sends a message. This bill we support it. You know in so far as it goes it's a sensible bill but the process has been a shocker and this Government's got no idea what it's doing. Thank you Madam Speaker."