Parker David: Appointments — Electoral Commission Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner 
Parker David: Appointments — Electoral Commission Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to support the appointment of the third Electoral Commissioner. The reason this comes to this House is that we in New Zealand have a long tradition of well-run elections. I think we can be very very proud of the fact that we run non-corrupt elections in New Zealand. We have public confidence in our election processes which is one of the reasons why New Zealand has relatively high rates of voter participation in our democratic elections. People know that if they cast their vote it will be counted properly and that there will not have been corrupt practices in the electoral process that political parties do their utmost to comply with the laws and that we have independent bodies like the Electoral Commission overseeing elections to make sure that the laws that this country has built up over the years are adhered to. 
One of the ways we maintain the confidence of political parties across the political divide in the process is that when we make appointments to the Electoral Commission which oversees elections we make sure that that process is not politicised. We do not see the former president of the Labour Party being appointed to the Electoral Commission and we do not see the former president of the National Party being appointed to the Electoral Commission; we see independent people who are of standing in the community who political parties across the House can agree are appropriate people to oversee elections and maintain our confidence in those processes and also more important maintain broader public confidence in those processes so that we maintain confidence in our democratic institutions. 
There is a saying that the only thing worse than democracy is the alternative. That is a backhanded way of saying that democracy is very very important. We in this House all understand that democracy—for all its flaws for all its frustrations at times and for all its niggles and our sometimes immature behaviour in this House—overall delivers better outcomes than Saddam Hussein managed to in Iraq despite a wealth of oil money. Despite various other despots in other parts of the world democracy delivers good outcomes. 
In New Zealand we have one of the longest unbroken democracies in the world and we can be very proud of that. We have strong traditions and those traditions are in my opinion almost more important than the written rules of law. But those traditions are reinforced and upheld through good rules of law. We in New Zealand have good electoral law and we try across this Parliament to agree on the structure of it. We do not always agree. There is always disagreement at the margins. The Labour Party does not think we do as well as we could on the transparency of donations which can be made in a way that undermines public confidence in our electoral processes but we have some pretty strict rules around what is spent on elections and where the funding for that spending comes from even if in some situations we do not have clarity as to who donated the money. 
The people we rely upon to oversee our rules around elections are at the Electoral Commission. That is the body that we have formed in recent years to take over the functions that were previously split between two bodies. The Electoral Commission is already quite busy; it has had a by-election recently—the Botany by-election—since its formation and of course we have another this weekend in Te Tai Tokerau. I wish the candidates well in that election and I thank them for their efforts. We rely upon the Electoral Commission to oversee the rules to make sure that we are all playing by the same ground rules so that we do not descend into the sort of nonsense—and I think it is nonsense—that we have in places like the United States of America. Enormous amounts of money are spent on elections enormous amounts of money are spent on lobbyists and the outcomes are no more just or good for their country. In fact I would suggest that they are less just than the outcomes we generally achieve in New Zealand. 
We rely upon the members of the Electoral Commission to oversee those rules. We already have two of those officers. The first is the Hon Hugh Williams a former High Court judge who is in charge of this body; I understand he is the chair. Is that right Mr Chauvel? He is the chair. We also have had Robert Peden the Chief Electoral Officer appointed to a role on the Electoral Commission. Today’s appointment of Ms Huria is the third of the three appointees that are provided for under the law. 
We are of course coming up to an election within 6 months. The Electoral Commission already has the workload in respect of those by-elections I have referred to. We are dealing with a new law so the Electoral Commission will be required to make a few rulings that will be slightly different from earlier rulings because the rules have changed. There are some issues that relate to the dual sign-off that we will now need between the Parliamentary Service and the Electoral Commission in respect of some spending that is of proper parliamentary purpose but also falls within the definition of an election advertisement. In respect of those perfectly legal transactions we as parliamentarians will have to negotiate both the rules relating to the Parliamentary Service and the rules relating to the Electoral Commission. We look forward to some sensible rulings from both of those bodies as we parliamentarians try our best to adhere to the rules of the law. 
The attributes of Ms Huria have been well canvassed by other speakers and I do not propose to repeat them. Suffice it to say that her experience is wide ranging and has included public roles as well as roles for private companies. We on the Labour Party side of the House have confidence that she is a suitable appointee to this role. I will not say anything more than that. The Labour Party supports the appointment of Ms Huria as the third member of the Electoral Commission. 
Motion agreed to.