Finlayson Christopher: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13575] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I wish to speak to proposed Part 2B which is entitled “Indexation of amounts” and is not to be confused with the new Subpart 9 entitled “Indexation of amount” which was proposed by the Minister of Justice a few minutes ago. Against the vote of the Opposition the vote passed so a new clause 117A and a new clause 117B form part of the bill as it goes through the House. 
It is important to note that what the Minister proposes is but a subset of what is contained in my Part 2B. In particular I refer to clause 117D on my Supplementary Order Paper 166. If one pays close attention to that provision one sees that it covers not only the expenditure of candidates and parties but also donations by candidates interest groups or third parties and party donations which are covered by clause 22 and it covers other material not included in the Minister’s new Subpart 9. 
The other point that needs to be said is that the methodology adopted in Subpart 9 for the type of expenditure embraced by clause 53(2)(d) clause 62 clause 84 and clause 103 is quite different from what is proposed in my Part 2B. The Minister has suggested that the amounts for the clauses covered in clause 117A may be amended or increased by an Order in Council promulgated on a triennial basis. I know that Mr Foss in particular wants to say a couple of things about that. My indexation mechanism is quite different. It is set out in clause 117E and with respect it is a much simpler and more sensible proposal than that proposed by the Minister on her Supplementary Order Paper. 
Why do we propose this new Part 2B? We say that all the spending donation and registration limits in the bill—not just some of them but all of them—should be adjusted for inflation using the CPI. Indeed the Electoral Commission recommended this kind of mechanism and I understand that it is the practice in Australia. I do not think Parliament is necessarily split on the issue of how stupid it is that for example candidates have been able to spend only $20000 on candidate campaigns since 1993. If one feeds in the CPI over that period then I understand that the amount is likely to be between $25000 and $30000 and that reflects the reality of campaigning. 
There was a discussion about this issue in the Justice and Electoral Committee and not surprisingly the majority did not want to debate the issue properly but just skirted over it which is why we are debating it in the Committee tonight. The argument that was made was that when one takes into account the expenditure of all the various candidates in the field of the 2005 general election one finds that only a reasonably small number spent between $15000 and $20000. A lot of people spent very small sums of money. Be that as it may the reality of the matter is that when one looks at the expenditure of say candidates from the National and Labour parties New Zealand First a couple of the Greens and the ACT party one sees that the expenditure incurred by them was somewhere between $15000 and $20000 on average. The National Party says that if one is going to apply that kind of standard to candidate expenditure then as a matter of principle it follows that one should also apply it to the complex donations regime set out in the bill and one should also apply it to other forms of expenditure that are incurred. 
That is the rationale behind this. It is a CPI adjustment not only to the limits referred to by the Minister but also to others.