English Bill: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
English Bill: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13383] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Last week we heard the disturbing news that 40000 New Zealanders had left permanently for Australia. This morning we found out that petrol prices are heading for record highs. In the next couple of months thousands of New Zealand families will roll on to interest rates about 25 percent higher than those they are currently paying. There is controversy over whether serious violent criminals are adequately treated by our bail laws. But what is the Labour Government doing? Nothing about anything that matters! The Government is filling its pockets with public money for the next election campaign passing law to make legal what was illegal in the last election and clamping down on public opinion that might criticise it in election year. This bill tells us an awful lot about Labour but not much about New Zealand democracy—and I will come back to that. 
But let us look at some of the content of this bill. What a shambles! The Minister of Justice who is supposed to know the law apparently maybe was not aware that the chief executive of the Electoral Commission was making public comment today. But I have raised the point and I am still waiting for an answer from the Minister. MPs are obliged to make a serious effort to comply with this law because if we are found guilty of corrupt practice we are liable for a $40000 fine or 2 years in jail. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: And we’re out. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: And we are out of Parliament. One of our colleagues is before the courts on corrupt practices charges and we have seen what a dreadful process that is. If I want to know how to comply with the law I suppose I go and ask the chief executive of the Electoral Commission. After all she is the person who is quoted in the commentary on the bill as being the person who will decide on a case by case basis whether MPs are complying with the law. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What does she say? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: She says she does not know what the law means so I asked the Minister of Justice to whom I should go to ensure I do not commit a corrupt act. She said to go to the chief executive of the Electoral Commission. I think the word for this is “Kafkaesque” although I do not think the Minister for Justice could say that. The legislation is a shambles. The definitions are all being changed. There is no precedent. We have 6 weeks until it applies. This legislation guarantees litigation next year. Election 2008 will be as much about the rules for the election as about the future of the country. And whose fault is that? It is the fault of Helen Clark and the Labour Party. This bill tells us more about Helen Clark and the Labour Party than about electoral law in New Zealand. Political interference and the Civil Service and this bill are two sides of the same coin. That currency is Labour’s deep and paranoid sense of entitlement to power and public money—that is what it is. They are two sides of the same coin: its entitlement to taxpayers’ money its entitlement to a pliant Public Service and worse its entitlement to use the tools of the law to deal to its political opponents. 
Mr Assistant Speaker you know that the constitution of this country is informal. We do not have a written constitution. It depends on conventions on understandings and on an anchor of decency. There is no second Chamber to hold this bill up or to look at it when it passes. There is no court that can strike it down. It will be the law. The way we have dealt with that in the past has been to make sure the majority in the Parliament did not use their majority to skew the electoral system. We have a commission and a multiparty process around seats and around how those boundaries are set because it is vital to the health of our democracy that it is fair. Up until this year for decades and decades and decades from the foundation of our democracy this Parliament has had a multiparty process for setting the rules for our elections—up until this year. 
Labour used to care about whether it was seen to abuse the power of the executive. The majority in Parliament can do anything in this country. It can write a law that says that only Labour candidates can stand for election. It can do that; it has probably thought of it. It can write a law about anything but it is restraint that has kept our constitution together and Labour has broken that constraint in a most fundamental way. It has set out to use its majority in Parliament to skew the electoral laws for partisan advantage and it does not matter how many weasel words those members opposite use about the health of democracy and big money. The big money here is public money. The public money dwarfs private money. The politicians get $15 million and the interest groups get $120000. Whose voice is going to be heard—the citizen’s or the politician’s? The one with $15 million is going to get heard ahead of the one with $120000. 
Labour has broken the self-balancing process. If the electoral law needed changes there is a process of multiparty discussion by which those changes can be made and that preserve the decency on which our constitution is based because it is not based on a written constitution. Labour does not care any more about whether it is seen to use the tools of law for partisan advantage. That is what it has done. 
I might say to the Labour Party that if it abused its majority in Parliament to break the constitution for a great cause then I might admire it. If it had done it to abolish poverty to lift economic growth in New Zealand or to bring about climate change policy that would save the planet then yes I might put up with it. But for this—for this piffling waffling vague partisan disgraceful piece of legislation? Who is this about? Labour! This is not about New Zealand. This is not about the public good. This is not about Parliament nor about constitutional propriety. This is about a grubby paranoid Labour Party. Those members opposite think that everyone gets out of bed in the morning trying to beat them so the law sets out: “Stop the Brethren” “Stop the billboards”. 
I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have put up with 8 minutes of barracking and I ask that in my last 2 minutes I be heard in silence. 
The Labour Party has set out to stop the Brethren to stop the billboards to stop the cake stalls to stop the interests groups to stop the canvassing and to stop the citizen with the loud hailer. This bill makes the citizen with the loud hailer subject to a statutory regime—to have an opinion in New Zealand. That is a partisan rort of the constitution as well as the electoral law of New Zealand. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member asked for the last 2 minutes of his speech to be heard in silence. He is being yelled at and barracked by his own members. Was his request meant just for this side of the House or did he really want to be heard is silence? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Hon Bill English. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well I think the Minister has shown why she is regarded as Labour’s top performer! We saw it earlier today. Ultimately this bill is the responsibility of Helen Clark. She is paranoid. She does believe that the only way she can win the election next year is to make law that stops people criticising her. Labour members did not get the lesson of the last election which was: “Be very very careful about trying to control our lives further.” And because they did not get that message and nearly lost an election New Zealanders will decide that the only way to teach them is to throw them out despite the partisan advantages that they have constructed through this stupid piece of legislation. Even the person who is meant to enforce it says she does not know what it means. How ridiculous! What an abomination of Parliament and our constitutional processes!