Tolley Anne: General Debate 
Tolley Anne: General Debate 
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ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I also acknowledge Maori Language Week and in particular acknowledge my newspaper at home the  
Gisborne Herald 
 which wins prizes every year for its extraordinary contributions to the promotion of the Maori language. 
We have certainly seen an interesting week in politics. One could say that we have seen and experienced a new low in political manipulation and in political cant. When I look at the Electoral Finance Bill which was tabled this week and is due to come into this House tomorrow I cannot believe my eyes. Someone said to me today that it was not quite believable that a Government could be quite so dishonest—so flagrantly change the rules to suit itself—that it could almost be accused of corrupting the electoral system. That is something that was passed on to me just today when the details of the Electoral Finance Bill came out through the media. I know from the look on your face Mr Assistant Speaker that we cannot make those accusations within this House and I am not making them in those words. But I do want to look at what that bill actually proposes. 
First of all it needs to be said that this legislation has been entirely developed by the Government without any consultation with this Parliament as a whole. That is unprecedented. It ignores the normal conventions where major electoral legislation like this bill is normally consulted on and discussed amongst all political parties in the interests of democracy. I think that that word has become a foreign language to this Government. The Government has talked more to the media about its thinking as the bill has developed than it has talked to its major political opposition. Of course the Maori Party which the Prime Minister said at the last election was the last cab off the rank is one of the last cabs off the rank again this time round. It has not been consulted it has had no input into the legislation and it has been given the same opportunity as the general public to debate the bill: when it is already in legislative form. So we have seen a perversion of the normal democratic processes around developing legislation that is very important to our democratic process. 
When we look at this bill we see that the first sentence of the explanatory note talks about providing more transparency and accountability in the democratic process. One would think wahoo here we go. But when we read the detail we see that inserted into this process is a person called a financial agent. One has to ask what the role of that agent is. What is the problem that necessitates providing for such an agent? Before an MP or a candidate was accountable for the spending on his or her election campaign. If that person made a mistake or overspent he or she bore the penalty for that. We have seen in not too recent times an MP lose his position in this House because of overspending or because he spent incorrectly: outside the rules. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Reg Boorman was his name. 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: Reg Boorman—who was he? Was he a National Party MP? No he was a Labour Party MP who broke the rules and lost his seat as a consequence of that. There was direct accountability. That is what this bill purports to give but it actually inserts another person into the process so that if an MP or a candidate does step over the line that person can always stand back and say that is not his or her fault but the financial agent’s fault. Again we see this Labour Government put another person between itself and any sort of accountability for wrongdoing. That is not about transparency and that is not about accountability. 
The explanatory note of the bill goes on to talk about promoting participation in parliamentary democracy. That has to be the biggest load of hogwash in this legislation. This Labour Government does not believe in public participation in the process of democracy; in fact the whole bill is about how to prevent the public playing any part in our democratic system. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.