SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Look National continues to oppose this bill for a number of reasons. Look in effect it's screwing the scrum and I'll explain that in a little bit. Fundamentally too it sits in the background and we heard it today from a Minister of Justice who is exhibiting an enormous arrogance when it comes towards our electoral system.Anna Lorck: No arrogance there.SIMON O'CONNOR: The Minister was simply—well no actually arrogant sometimes only mixed with a bit of ignorance.Hon Dr David Clark: They don't like transparency.SIMON O'CONNOR: We're being yelled at by a Minister who doesn't like—Matt Doocey: Worst health Minister in 50 years.SIMON O'CONNOR: That's right. The Minister was not terribly happy about some transparency two years ago. Look this is screwing the scrum. There's a general convention in this House that changes of electoral law—Anna Lorck: Who's the scrum?SIMON O'CONNOR: —are actually—and actually someone yells out from the other side Where's the scrum?" and that sums up the left wing. They don't actually want any scrum. They don't want a game. They just want to win at all costs—at all costs. And the thing about donations is yes there are limits in place. If people are giving enormous amounts of money we do want to know and New Zealand's electoral law is already sufficient in this space. But what the left want is to basically name and shame every person who gives money or time that opposes them. And we have already seen that more in the cultural areas where if someone stands up and gives an opinion which is different to this Labour Government they are harassed they are bullied; the twitterati the commentariat hoe into them. Be under no illusions that when these rules come into play Labour and its stalwarts and its mates will hoe into those New Zealanders who dare to give money to any party other than the Labour Party. They probably won't mind about the hundreds of thousands of dollars given to the Green Party but anyone on the right particularly in the likes of National—who will predominantly actually receive lots of little donations—they are more than happy to track these people down. As I say they are going to bully and harass them and fundamentally—fundamentally—we end up with a series of rights. So we've heard about transparency from the other side. There's two points on that. The first is actually yep transparency's important but so is the freedom of privacy or the freedom to have privacy the freedom of expression and the freedom of association. Particularly in the political realm those are important. I think most New Zealanders would agree on one hand yep large donations should be shown up or declared but actually New Zealanders should have the right to donate to a party of their choice without having to be named shamed and harassed.But to illustrate the Orwellian-ness—the Orwellian-ness—of the Labour Party they've spoken today and earlier in the debate all about transparency. But do you know what? Do you know what? The Labour Party is refusing to release its submission to the Ministry of Justice on this very bill. Gosh they've gone very quiet now. Why will they not release their submission to the Ministry of Justice? We've just heard from speakers and the hecklers of just how much Labour wants transparency. But what it illustrates is they don't believe that. What they want is transparency for those they disagree with. They are more than happy to hide—they are more than happy to hide when it comes to them.It still plays into the elements of donations because where does the Labour Party get most of its money from? The unions. Masses and masses of money given by the unions.Anna Lorck: And it's disclosed—it's disclosed.SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh and it's disclosed. Oh la-di-da. You know this union gave a million dollars. I mean yes we all know that. Everyone knows what drives the Labour Party but they're not so fussed by that. What they want to do is get to those ordinary Kiwis who dare oppose them and hold different political views.And the final point because we've heard it being said today in the House that "Oh well you know there are some good elements in this bill. We should vote for it." Yes there are some good elements. One of them is overseas voters. A number of my locals in Tāmaki will be very pleased to see that this law will extend the ability or the franchise to vote seeing that this Government locked them out of their own country—you know "Wow thanks for imprisoning us Labour." But you know what? If this was a bill simply about extending the franchise to overseas voters we'd have voted for it in a heartbeat. I'd say gosh and I can't speak for the National Party overall but we'd have probably have said "Let's do it in a day. Let's get this sorted." But that's just a distraction. At the end of the day this is against the ethos of this House where electoral bills are agreed in a bipartisan way. Let's not also forget for those listening at home the Government is conducting a review into electoral law reform but so urgent is this matter that it has to be pushed through Parliament. And as I said earlier Labour won't even release its own submission."