Barker Rick: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Barker Rick: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13448] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 The Government welcomes the Committee of the whole House debate on the Electoral Finance Bill and makes the observation that there has been a lengthy period of consultation and discussion on it. There have been many changes and the bill has been worked through very thoroughly. The Justice and Electoral Committee received 575 submissions. It heard 101 submissions and it heard many of those submissions over a period of 6 weeks. On the basis of that the committee has made some significant changes and this legislation will be all the better for it. 
The second comment I would like to make as a preliminary to this debate which I think will be quite extensive is that I welcomed the comments made by the Hon Bill English this morning on radio that the National Party would not be looking to filibuster in this debate and would be looking to move constructive amendments. The Government side of the Chamber has taken the amendments proposed by Chris Finlayson and worked thoroughly through them. We will go through each of those amendments constructively and we will consider them. Where we feel there is merit for them we will support them and where we feel there is no merit for them we will not support them. 
The third point I would like to make about this bill—and let us not forget the issue here—is that the genesis of this bill is in the 2005 general election. To make just one point about it I say that interestingly someone in the Hastings area whom I know quite well collects pamphlets from elections. He has collected pamphlets from 1972 all the way through to 2005. He observed to me that he had a pile of pamphlets from the 2005 election that was twice as high as it was for every other election cumulatively. All the pamphlets that went into his letterbox from the 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 and 2002 elections were half the size of the number of pamphlets that came into his letterbox in 2005. He wondered why that was. The reason for that became very clear with the publication of  
The Hollow Men 
. That book made it very clear what was going on: the Exclusive Brethren was funding the National Party’s campaign and it was doing so covertly. 
The essence of this bill is to identify those weaknesses in our electoral law that have been exploited. Even John Key admits that the law is deficient. The Electoral Act does not have any restrictions in the actions of third parties. As a candidate I was restricted to a certain amount of money that I could spend. My party was restricted to spending a certain amount of money but third parties had none of those restrictions. The National Party knew that and exploited that loophole. It secretively— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. The Minister really does need to show how this immature diatribe is related to Part 1 which deals with preliminary provisions. I know he is not the smartest person in the Chamber but he needs to be told that we are dealing with preliminary provisions that deal with definitions appointments and the listing of third parties not Nicky Hager’s book. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Before I rule on that point I remind members that there will be silence during points of order. The Minister is speaking to Part 1. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I want to make the point quite clear and I thought the connection would have been made for the National Party that this is about publishing. If members look at clause 4 they will find that it talks about publishing and broadcasting and so on. I was trying to make the point very clearly that the National Party’s opposition to this legislation stems from the 2005 election when it colluded with the Exclusive Brethren to have substantial amounts of third-party literature put out. 
The Hollow Men  
makes it very clear that the Exclusive Brethren went to the Chief Electoral Officer David Henry and said it was planning to spend $1.2 million on an election programme with the goal of getting votes for National. That information comes from an email that is quoted on page 26 of the book—it is very very clear. The National Party knew about that and Richard Long who writes—supposedly independently—for the  
Dominion Post 
 was colluding in this process with the Exclusive Brethren. When Richard Long wrote to Mr Brash and Mr Brownlee he told them in answer to questions about “whether they consulted us”—they being the Exclusive Brethren—that they had agreed to say that “they have advised all political parties.” This was a conspiracy; of that there is no doubt. 
This bill does two things. First it reflects the desire by all New Zealanders to see that the election campaign is fair. If people are going to give money to a political party they want to know who the party is and how much it got—not through the Waitemata Trust and so on. So if the National Party opposes this bill it is saying that it wants to continue the secret slush fund of money into its coffers. That is what it is saying. 
The second thing about this bill is that it says that people who want to get involved in politics can do so but they have to say who they are and what they are going to do. A very good example of that can be found in respect of the campaign for MMP. Peter Shirtcliffe said he opposed MMP. He raised lots of money and said: “This is me I’ve got my friends around here and we’re going to campaign against it.” New Zealanders understood that and accepted it. The last election in 2005 was the first time that we did not see that and this bill represents a change in our electoral law that is necessary to ensure that elections are fair. 
The Government has put down two Supplementary Order Papers. Supplementary Order Paper 162 contains some substantive amendments and Supplementary Order Paper 163 contains some technical amendments. I will turn firstly to Supplementary Order Paper 162. Members will find that in Part 1 we are changing the definition of “broadcast” in order to narrow that definition. We are proposing to delete clause 4(1)(i) relating to the definition of “publish”. That will make quite a significant difference because that was the catch-all provision that was to bring to the notice of the public any other matter. There has been severe criticism of that provision. We have recognised that and we are making the change so that the definition will be tighter. We are proposing to roll back the select committee’s definition which would have broadened the reach of this bill more than it should have been. 
The second significant amendment in this part is to omit in clause 17(a)(i) the term “writ day” and substitute the words “the 21st day before polling day”. There was criticism of this particular date from the Electoral Commission and the Human Rights Commission and for good reason: it was far too far out. We have now rolled it back to 21 days before polling day which is 3 weeks before election day. If anybody wants to get involved in the political process he or she has to register 3 weeks before the election day say who he or she is and say what he or she is going to do so as to be open and honest. [ 
Interruption 
] Tony Ryall is opposed to transparency obviously because he was the beneficiary of that. 
The purpose of this bill to come back to it is to ensure that New Zealanders have free and fair elections. As a candidate for an election there is a cap on my spending. My party’s spending for the election has a cap on it as well. It is unrealistic to expect that third parties can run campaigns with limitless amounts of money and to go and campaign for political parties as they did in the last election. There is no doubt about that at all. I saw the pamphlets from the Exclusive Brethren and I saw that they were in collusion with the National Party. Members should look at those pamphlets: “Change the Government” they said. It was all done in collusion with the National Party. It was done to increase the National Party vote and they were going to spend limitless amounts of money—a minimum of $1.2 million—to change the Government without actually having to put anything on the National Party’s vote. 
The unions have advertised in the elections. There is no question about that. But the unions have always put their name on their pamphlets and said who they were and what their purpose was. The National Party’s friends did not do that at all and they attempted to steal the last election by stealth and deception. This bill is going to say that that is not going to be the case. This bill is going to say: “If you’re going to give money to any political party you’re going to have to say who you are over a certain amount so the public can identify who is giving the money and for what purpose.” This bill is going to say: “If you’re going to advertise in this election campaign you’re going to have to say who you are and identify yourself.” New Zealanders feel that that is entirely fair and as it should be. This bill protects New Zealanders’ rights to free and fair elections. This bill is going to regulate advertising not speech and it is going to control donations. Who can argue with that? 
Freedom of speech is not necessarily the freedom to buy as much advertising as one can. I do not think there is any argument for putting a cap on candidates’ spending putting a cap on party spending and leaving third parties completely unregulated when they behave as badly as they did in the last election. There were secret donations secret addresses and secret agendas and it was all done in collusion with the National Party. That is the truth of it and this Parliament will determine what will be fair rules for New Zealand at the next election.