Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions: the Minister did very often refer to the fact that the people in New Zealand need to know who's buttering the bread of politicians and of course the obvious point to make is that there are a number of ways in which an individual can help a political party and giving them some money is one way. The obvious other primary way is to volunteer and offer one's services.Nicole McKee: Kaimahi.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: To work that's right. So I'm sort of just wondering what the Minister's not proposing in this bill—it doesn't propose any changes to that but I mean if somebody was to volunteer their time full-time that would be worth a hang of a lot more than $15000 or $5000 or $1500 but it's not something that she and the Government regards as something that the people of New Zealand need to know from a transparency point of view. And so I'm just interested in the logic there behind her thinking. Secondly I heard the comments of the Hon Michael Wood around the gap between the party threshold and the electorate threshold and whether this opens a back door for donations from the party to electorates in order to confound the thresholds. And I suppose again the obvious point is well if people were worried about that there are different ways in which to remedy that. One simple option would be to limit the amount—Hon Michael Wood: Stop your National Party laundering that would be one way.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I ask the member to withdraw and apologise.Hon Michael Wood: I withdraw and apologise. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Madam Chair. So I mean the obvious point would be to say that another alternative would be to limit the amount that a party could donate to an electorate contest. That's another way of doing it. So did the Minister consider other options and isn't that precisely one of the things that the independent panel that she pulled together is supposed to be considering? Minister Wood raises a potential problem and so the question I have for the Minister is well did she consider other alternatives to rectifying that problem of which there are many aside from lowering the threshold which happens to have other consequences?The second point I wanted to make was the Minister referred very often to the public polls and the concerns that the public apparently have in some of these polls around the electoral finance regime. I'd like her to comment also on other polls which show a very clear majority of New Zealanders do not favour a switch to taxpayer funding of political parties. And the point I'm making the fundamental objection we have to this legislation is by making it more difficult for parties to raise funds there is a logical sort of push or direction towards more taxpayer funding of political parties because parties have to be funded in some way or other. And she referred to Max Rashbrooke who is clearly in favour of taxpayer funding of political parties rather than fundraising. So given the very strong public poll indications that people don't favour that I'd like her to comment on why she thinks some polls are relevant or helpful to her argument and others aren't and if she could give some comment on that I'd be grateful.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): Yeah very clear: this bill does not contemplate taxpayer funding of elections so it's outside the scope and it's not something I'm considering. Secondly to the issue raised around the way in which services by individuals are quantified so currently in these provisions that we aren't changing where a person volunteers their services that they would ordinarily charge for those are considered political donations and need to be disclosed.