Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I feel like I was given a little intro by my friend cross the aisle there but I will begin in speaking on this bill as I always have at every reading by saying that democracy is a fundamental human right and it is in many ways the one right that underpins them all because it's the right to have a say in decisions ranging from our education and health system to our justice system to our immigration system and the ways that those laws the decisions in this House so intimately impact on all of our other fundamental rights. So to get it right is important. To make it fair and inclusive and accessible is one of the most important things that we will do as a Parliament and each Government successively gets to do if we pay attention. A modern functioning democracy has to be responsive to changes in society. And in this way I think successive Governments have actually let New Zealand down. We have a privilege. We have the machinery of parliamentary political parties behind us in this House and I think sometimes it's easy to forget that the rules weigh in our favour. We've heard over and over again that political donations in New Zealand aren't a big problem. Well to anyone who does say that I say: let's step outside of what we think as standing politicians as members of this House and look at the independent reports and what the independent entities entrusted with speaking to electoral reform have told us. The Electoral Commission itself came to the Justice Committee in its review of the last general election and said that it's actually pretty hard to investigate donations breaches because the limits are so high. So yes some cases end up in court. Yes three out of the five parliamentary political parties last term did end up in some kind of trouble. But what we don't know is the other stuff the stuff that goes under the radar the stuff that's hard to investigate because the thresholds have been so high for so long in terms of anonymity in terms of limits. So this bill brings down the anonymity threshold to $5000 and the reporting requirements of donations to $20000. My strengthening democracy bill suggested much lower thresholds of $1000 and of $15000. Now we have—leaving aside the plea from the Electoral Commission itself—the latest comprehensive study into donations schemes in New Zealand by Max Rashbrooke and Lisa Marriott. Independent academics who spoke to members of all of our political parties our general secretaries and our donors spent a year looking into this. And I would hope that members in this House go and look at that report because it is a little bit chilling. We are unprotected. There are expectations by donors of access. Whether or not that's being delivered there is an expectation that big money will get you political access in New Zealand and in many ways it has. It's all detailed in there. Everybody's being open in their interviews and to the extent that they have been even that is a little bit chilling. Their recommendation was $1500 and $15000. So this bill is pretty conservative in terms of the political landscape when it comes to donations in New Zealand. By the way that's at doughnation.nz—the full report—spelt like doughnut". Money for Something is a report on political funding in Aotearoa New Zealand; an independent comprehensive report. I didn't hear Paul Goldsmith's contribution this time unfortunately but the last time he spoke on this I think his contribution really encapsulated the fears and confirmed them. When I last spoke to the Minister of Justice on introducing an overall limit to political donations which is not contained in this bill she said "Show me where there might be a problem." And of course the donation report does show that. It firmly recommends a limit be placed on it. But I think Paul Goldsmith's contribution—and I think maybe people should look that up—where he went on and on at some length about how taking donations or the ability of people to give donations large donations and anonymous donations is about creating accountability for us as politicians—he thought he was saying something about democracy being functional and working appropriately. But accountability to donors is not equality in our democracy. We have a one vote per person democracy and some people can't afford to give big anonymous donations to hold politicians accountable for what they want and need. That's not cool. It's not a good argument for keeping donation levels high or keeping the anonymity threshold high. It's an admission. And I won't say what that might be an admission of because it may be unparliamentary. But I'll correct one thing that Paul Goldsmith does also throw around which is that it's Green Party policy to introduce public funding for political parties rather than donations. My very detailed bill that covered every electoral wish the Green Party had didn't have public funding as a policy in it. So I'll just let him know who spearheaded that campaign in Aotearoa New Zealand: it was the Rt Hon Jim Bolger a couple of years ago. He came out and said that actually we need to have public funding for political parties because our donations laws are too loose and they leave us at risk. To say that we are not vulnerable to an American-style political system is to be naive. We know globally that cigarette companies for years held off having warnings on packets. We know globally that oil companies held off climate action. We know that we're in the midst of a biodiversity crisis and we've barely got to a point of putting cameras on fishing boats because of a scandal related to political donations last term. So we know that this is a problem. We know that we're vulnerable. We have the Electoral Commission asking for this change. We have independent studies telling us we should go much much further and we have this bill. All I would say is that given we know we are vulnerable and that we need to go further and that a proper limit on political donations is what has been recommended over and over again by independent entities and experts I would ask that the Government and this Minister include political donations in the electoral review that's going to be under way shortly. This issue is not done and New Zealanders want to have a say in the way that our political system runs in terms of being independent from big money and in terms of being inclusive and equal. So I commend this bill as a starting point to that reform."