Parker David: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Parker David: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10722] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I endorse Amy Adams’ comments about the desirability of forging a consensus on these issues in relation to the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill but I add this note of caution: in order to reach a consensus we have to have compromise on all sides. It is all very well for the Government to say that it wants to reach a consensus but if it withholds its approval of reasonable suggestions on the part of other parties including the Labour Party then it will not reach a consensus. Consensus can only be reached if there is give and take by all parties in relation to these issues; otherwise one party can withhold consensus. We all know that realistically the prior status quo under electoral law had some failings but in some instances those failings could have been to the advantage of the National Party. If that party defines consensus as a requirement for its agreement on everything then it can prefer the status quo effectively even if the status quo is inadequate. I just caution a little against the pretence that that sort of consensus is the ultimate answer. Actually reasonable compromise leading to consensus is what this Parliament should be aiming for. 
I mention what I think are the three most important principles in electoral law. They are the principle of equity the principle of freedom of expression and the principle of transparency. They are the three most important principles. There are other principles like accountability legitimacy integrity viability clarity and cost-effectiveness which were referred to by the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in earlier years but the three most crucial principles are equity freedom of expression and transparency. Equity of course is crucial as the report of the royal commission said back then. It said that there was a particular importance in achieving fairness between political parties because at elections voters were primarily choosing between alternative party Governments. There had to be fairness between parties but that is not just fairness between sitting parties as represented in this Parliament. Election rules should not advantage one party over another; nor should they place inequitable barriers on the formation and entry of new parties into Parliament. That is one of the important principles. 
The next principle is freedom of expression and that principle requires that there should not be undue restrictions on the ability of citizens to freely express their views. Freedom of expression is very very important. We made proposals around freedom of expression that left the media completely unconstrained—and the media should be completely unconstrained—but there have always been some constraints on political parties and there should be. If we are to maintain a low-cost electoral system such as we have in New Zealand that implies there have to be some constraints on spending. Those constraints are a necessary restraint on freedom of expression. If we did not do that we would have an electoral system like those in the United States where people can essentially buy elections by outspending the other. We would get into a ratcheting-up of expenditure on both sides of the political debate. Increasingly the only people who can meaningfully participate in election processes in countries with unconstrained expenditure are those with very deep pockets and that is not democracy. A low-cost election system is appropriate and freedom of expression does not mean an unlimited right to spend in order to buy an election. That is why there are spending constraints on political parties. We have long had them in New Zealand and we should long continue to have them. 
The third principle is that of transparency. Transparency only works if there is transparency around donations and that is one of the areas where the Labour Party thought that we should go further than this bill does. We thought there should be even more transparency than is proposed in the bill. This is an area where we may be forced to compromise but we think this bill should have gone further. We accept that we may have to compromise on that but we cannot see why there should not be further transparency in respect of donations. At the last election from memory the Labour Party disclosed the source of about 15 percent of our donations and the National Party disclosed the source of less than 10 percent of its donations. Both parties spent over $2 million yet we disclosed only 10 percent of our donations. That is not good enough. 
Amy Adams 
: You wrote the law. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: This law does not improve it. The member says that Labour wrote the law. Well that law did not go far enough in respect of transparency. There is nothing wrong with donating to political parties. It is a good thing to do. But public confidence in the democratic process requires that there be transparency as to donations otherwise we can never escape the imputation that it is substantial donations that have caused the policy position and that undermines public confidence in democracy. What we are trying to do here is to protect public confidence in democracy because democracy is so important. The countries of the world that have the biggest problems do not have democracy or they do not have transparent-enough democracy. Transparency is a really important principle. There ought to be more transparency in respect of donations. 
This leads me to the issue of parallel campaigns. They are difficult. If we do not in some way have some regulation of parallel campaigns we might as well have no regulation of political parties. We have theoretical limits of spending and some transparency of donations for political parties. If we did not have similar rules for people who are advocating for political causes outside of political parties we might as well not have any rules for political parties because it makes a nonsense of them. Through the process the Government ran we proposed in our submission some transparency around third parties. We made it clear that the media should be absolutely unconstrained. Nothing in our submission affected the media. In respect of third parties we said that they should not just have to register as being a third party which is what this bill proposes but also have transparency around their donations. 
If people are out advocating for the Labour Party the National Party the Greens or ACT—whoever they are advocating for—in effect through their third-party campaign it should be clear as to who their funders are so that we have transparency as to our election process. We did not have any limit on what third parties could spend. Again that was a considerable compromise on the part of the Labour Party compared with our preferred position that there should be at least some limit. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It wasn’t a tiny limit. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It was not a tiny limit but maybe it was too low. We moved away from any threshold but there should be disclosure. There should be transparency as to the source of the funding of campaigns if more than $100000 is spent. That is what we said. That is a perfectly reasonable proposition on the part of the Labour Party and for the National Government to say that it is doing this by consensus illustrates the fact that it can withhold a consensus and stick with the status quo where it thinks that is in its best interests. 
I hope that the National Government is willing to look at this issue at the select committee—I really hope so. I do not think we are doing a favour to New Zealand or a favour to democracy—[ 
Interruption 
] no they have not. We are not maintaining public confidence in our election process if we do not deal with this important issue which is the transparency of the campaigns run by third parties. The Royal Commission on the Electoral System concluded that limited spending by political parties but not by parallel campaigns was illogical. The royal commission found that; it is not the Labour Party being selfish in saying that. Labour is taking a principled approach which was found by the royal commission. We hope that this is properly addressed through the select committee and that the Government is willing to compromise on it as we have compromised and as we are compromising in so many other areas. If it does not then the talk about consensual electoral law will be shown to be hollow words. 
John Hayes 
: Nothing consensual at all about the way you did it. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: There is some fairness in that criticism. Labour has accepted that but the same accusation will be made against the National Government if it does not follow a consensual route in respect of some of the issues that we are fairly raising and that were raised by the royal commission. National cannot have it both ways. It cannot say on the one hand that we did not follow a consensual process.