Groser Tim: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
Groser Tim: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13622] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 I take the floor in the first instance to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 170 and the proposal of the Green Party put forward in the name of Metiria Turei on a Citizens’ Assembly. Let me make this clear. Our assumption is that the Government is not going to go there. But so great is the political pressure on the Labour-led Government and so great is the confusion around this bill that we are simply not going to take that risk. So let us start by looking at the purposes of the Citizens’ Assembly. The functions of this—and I will focus just on the key operational point—are to review the levels of transparency and accountability of candidates and parties and other persons engaged in elections. Who will the members of the Citizens’ Assembly be? There will be at least two registered voters randomly selected from each of the Maori and general electorates. Imagine this. This is a bill of such complexity that the Minister herself has admitted she does not understand it. It is a bill of such complexity that Helena Catt the chief executive of the Electoral Commission says she does not understand it. But at least these two persons drawn from each of the electorate lists—at random I repeat—will be able to clarify it. 
We have to understand the political origins of the author of this proposal. I did a bit of research on Wikipedia because I was wondering about the place of the McGillicuddy Serious Party in this whole process. I found out to my surprise that the author of this proposal was a member originally of the McGillicuddy Serious Party. We have to understand that the criterion of policies for the McGillicuddy Serious Party was that it “selected its policies on the basis of their absurdity and their impracticality.” Let me make this clear. First of all I regard this party as having made a unique and important contribution to New Zealand’s politics. If we have lost our sense of humour we have lost everything. Secondly in no way do I in any way hold Metiria Turei responsible for moving her political views. After all Dr Mapp and I were momentarily members of the Labour Party. But in line with basic evolutionary theory we expect evolution to move up the food chain to higher levels of sophistication. I seriously have to ask whether the author of this paper is a little confused and still thinks that she should be applying that criterion for policy now that she has moved into the New Zealand Parliament. This amendment would be an absolute disaster and we implore—my favourite word this afternoon—the Labour Party not to go there. 
I now wish to move to clause 119 and the matter of the financial agent. My own feeling is that the person who is selected as the financial agent has to be either a person of unsurpassed naivety or one with a heroic sense of martyrdom. 
John Carter 
: Or both. 
TIM GROSER 
: Or both. I mean I would personally recommend anybody contemplating the role of financial agent to seek out a job in Zimbabwe as the person responsible for reporting on CPI movements. That would be a much safer job than being a financial agent under this bill if it should be passed by this Parliament. It is not just a question of the fines and the terms of imprisonment. In a sense one could say that isolated serious breaches of our electoral law the foundation of our democracy should be met with severe sanctions. It is when we look at the sanctions in relation to the responsibilities set out in the rest of this bill that we realise we will be looking for a martyr or an idiot. By the way in no way will I hold to account the person who will eventually take this position in the National Party. Just consider for example financial agents’ responsibilities. If we start to look through the network of information they will be responsible for we see that they will have to take account of all the activities not only in all the branches of their parties but in all the sub-branches of their parties. I know that one National Party safe seat has 27 different branches in its electorate. This financial agent will have to take personal responsibility for ensuring that all the electoral returns on each of these issues is in conformity with the totally vague and imprecise obligations of this bill. It will require a martyr.