Goudie Sandra: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Goudie Sandra: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5842] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to speak following the rather poor previous speaker— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Dr Cullen is interjecting and his microphone is on and that is not fair on our members. During previous debates Dr Cullen also interjected when the microphone was on. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I apologise Mr Chairman. In light of the fact that Mrs Goudie is speaking I will withdraw. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is a longstanding convention that during the Committee stage members in charge of legislation shall not take unfair advantage of the use of a live microphone by way of interjection. It is good conduct and common courtesy not to do so. Courtesy is contagious; we will all prosper if we keep within the spirit of our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: The actions of Dr Cullen do not surprise me but I am surprised by some of the comments made by the previous speaker to this debate. 
I want to say a few words about the Auditor-General’s comments. The Auditor-General’s report stated: “Some MPs and parliamentary parties have said that I have acted unfairly by ‘changing the rules’ after the event. I have not changed any rules.” The proposition that has been touted is that the Auditor-General’s report indicates that millions of dollars have been misspent since 1989 and that this spending needs to be validated. That is absolutely false. The Auditor-General as Labour members have repeatedly pointed out has already signed off the annual accounts from 1989 right through until 2003-04. Therefore there is nothing illegal to validate. 
If we look at the purpose of this legislation we see that it is a validation bill. But there is nothing to validate other than what Labour has got itself caught up in with regard to its pledge card. What makes it even worse is that if this legislation is passed Labour will more than likely be free to indulge once again in spending $800000 or more on similar pledge cards using taxpayers’ money. It is nothing more than a con job on a grand scale. 
This validation is not required; all it does is make legal the spending Labour has indulged in—and yes Labour has claimed it will pay it back but will it really do so—so that Labour can come along and say: “Hey we didn’t do anything illegal anyway. That has already been identified by the fact that we have put legislation through the House.” So Labour is putting legislation through that it has a pecuniary interest in. It means that Labour’s spending is legal and it then does not have to pay it back in spite of the fact it said it would. It is nothing more than a con job on the New Zealand public and Labour is playing fast and loose with taxpayers’ money. 
I bring everybody’s attention to a report by Roger Kerr from the New Zealand Business Roundtable. He comments that some politicians—and I would certainly say this applies to those members in the current Labour Party—do not know how hard taxpayers work for the money they have to pass to Government to be spent in an appropriate efficient and effective manner. Taxpayers would prefer their money to be spent only when they cannot spend it better themselves. We have to ask how taxpayers can have any confidence in a Government that passes legislation to protect the wasteful expenditure of their money. 
There is absolutely no way that the majority of the New Zealand public will see this legislation as being anything other than a con job. The New Zealand public are not silly. They know what is going on here. They know that the legislation is designed to get members of the Government the Labour Party and Helen Clark off the hook. How many times has Helen Clark been in situations where she has got off the hook? It is no wonder the New Zealand public are becoming increasingly cynical about Parliament when we have a Government and a leadership that is bringing it into disrepute constantly. It is a never-ending battle. 
If we look at Part 1 of the bill “Preliminary provisions” we see that it is called a validation bill but we know that it is not a validation bill—it is worse than that. The New Zealand public do not realise the further con that has been perpetrated here. A question needs to be asked about whether this legislation will also open the door to State-funded and taxpayer-funded election spending—and it does. 
The New Zealand public need to stand up and say that enough is enough. They need to beat their chests to beat their drums to get on those talkback radio programmes and to get in touch with all their media outlets. They need to talk to all their members of Parliament and to talk to whomever they can talk to—and get out on the street with a megaphone—in order to say they are not putting up with this. And they need to do it today. Why? It is because the Government—this Labour Party and Helen Clark—is rushing through this legislation under urgency and ignoring what the New Zealand public and the taxpayers of this country feel about that. Those Labour members do not care what the public feels about that. They do not care that members of the public cannot have some input into this legislation.