Finlayson Christopher: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:13129] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 The Minister Ruth Dyson raised an interesting question. She said that surely we must be able to communicate with our constituents. The National Party does not disagree with that proposition. But the real issue and what really gets under the skin of the National Party is the timing of that communication. If one communicates in the election period then one is breaching the rules that were so very clear for members of Parliament up to the last general election. With that in mind I want to focus on clause 3(2) and the very interesting word that gets the Labour Party off the hook—“explicitly”. Clause 3(2) states that electioneering is “any communication that explicitly—(a) seeks support for the election of a particular person or people; or (b) seeks support for the casting of a party vote for a particular political party”. 
Labour knew that. Under the old rules which all members of Parliament understood very well and more important given the statements I made in an earlier debate understood the spirit of them very well Labour designed brochures to go out to the people that did not explicitly seek votes for a particular person or a particular party but made it clear that they were seeking the support of the people of New Zealand. 
The first brochure of course is the one that Mr Ryall mentioned entitled  
Working together sharing a vision 
 with the Prime Minister’s photo on the front— 
Anne Tolley 
: Whose photo? 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
:—the Prime Minister’s I think—and with seven commitments which were supposedly introduced by the Government between 1999 and 2005. Those commitments included and I think the Maori Party members may be interested in this fair—not just—and final settlements. Labour was going to complete all settlements by 2020. Of course if Dr Cullen is there we can forget about that. 
So what we have is a number of commitments that Labour says it had entered into in the course of its first two terms of office. Any fair-minded person looking at that document in the election period would say that it was nothing other than seeking support for the election of the Labour Party for a third term. Then we had the much discussed “ 
My Commitment to You” 
 document containing the pledge card and “Forward together”—it sounds like a Stalinist march—that it was going to do certain things in its third term and the people will do them or else Labour will have them shot. By the time of Labour’s fourth term if it gets one I am sure it is going to be like that. Labour set out what the pledge card is going to contain. 
Again I come back to those words in clause 3(2). Could any honest decent politician or any political party in this House have any doubt whatsoever that in the election period it is seeking support for the election of a particular person or people or seeking support for a particular party? So that is why Labour inserted that word “explicitly”. I have an amendment that will deal with that because I think as I said in an earlier debating speech the real issue is whether it is directly or indirectly. If we apply that test then beyond a shadow of a doubt that kind of correspondence with electors is not on. 
The person who understood all this was Mr Michael Smith who wrote to the Chief Electoral Officer on 14 September 2005 and said at paragraph 17: “I am aware that there are two streams of communication: MPs with their constituents and the New Zealand Labour Party soliciting votes. They cannot be conflated. Both have their own legal rules.” But what we have here is a transparent and obvious attempt to get around those rules so that they can in effect solicit votes using parliamentary funding. I say to Mr Brown and to the other members of the House from the smaller parties that this is an issue that needs to be confronted. I ask them to focus on the terms of subclause (2) and join the National Party in voting this bill down. This is not pure party politics. This is an important issue. I ask members to consider it in the context of the electoral funding legislation that as we all know is designed to shut down political discourse during the regulated period. 
Mr Smith knew only too well what it was all about. I have referred to the letter that he wrote a few days before the general election on 14 September 2005 about the dangers of conflation. But come 5 October 2005 after the election Mr Smith knew only too well that a certain element of conflation had occurred with the document “ 
My Commitment to You” 
 the pledge card and the other brochure that was sent out to every household in New Zealand using parliamentary funds and that there was going to be a problem for the Labour Party. The offer that he made to include the cost of the material in the return furnished by the New Zealand Labour Party was unilaterally withdrawn because on 5 October 2005 he wrote to the Chief Electoral Officer and said that he had had an opportunity to consider the matter—probably “she who must be obeyed” had told him what to write—and “I wish to advise that I withdraw my offer to have the amount expended on the material in question counted as an election expense since I do not believe it is properly accountable as such.” What is interesting is that when he wrote his letter on 14 September offering to include it as an election expense he had taken advice from senior counsel on matters relating to the correspondence. But that was certainly not the case when he acted on his own behalf on 5 October and said that he did not believe it was properly accountable as such. 
To illustrate the nauseating hypocrisy of Mr Smith we have a letter that was written on 14 September in which he sets out the concerns that he had if there were to be the same sets of rules to this correspondence. He emphasised the importance of members of Parliament communicating with their constituents. That is fair enough but do we do this sort of thing in the regulated period or in an election period? No we do not. The second thing he mentioned was the importance of section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which deals with the right of freedom of expression in New Zealand. Labour invokes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when it suits it but when it comes to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in relation to electoral finance legislation Labour snuffs it out as quickly as the brown shirts snuffed out freedom on Kristallnacht. 
The third thing Labour does is raise important issues of parliamentary privilege. It said that the Electoral Act has to be interpreted as not interfering with ancient privileges. It sounds good does it not until we realise the ancient privileges are all about the right of the Labour Party to send this shabby correspondence to electors in 2005. There is nothing ancient about it at all. Mr Smith really got things wrong. He relied on senior counsel when he offered to pay it back and acted unilaterally after the election when he told the Chief Electoral Officer to go and see a taxidermist. 
So what we have is utterly unsatisfactory legislation and the insertion of the word “explicitly” to make it clear beyond peradventure that when next year Labour has another pledge card rort and when it puts forward another one of these extraordinary documents 3 years on—and the Prime Minister will not have aged a day because her photo will still be the same although I must say she looks more like the emperor in  
Star Wars 
 in it—such as  
Working together sharing a vision 
 what we are going to have is this kind of foul communication being allowed to proceed. That is not good enough. 
The issue is: can we communicate with constituents in an election year in this way? The answer is no we cannot. The rules prior to 2005 were very very clear. The Auditor-General warned the Labour Party. The Chief Electoral Officer warned the Labour Party. The Labour Party with malice aforethought ignored it. It allowed these brochures to be distributed and now using a cobbled together majority from members of Parliament who should know better it is going to introduce legislation that makes it permissible for this sort of nonsense to continue and that is not good enough.