Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): It's my pleasure—well actually it's not my pleasure—to stand and take a call on this bill. We are opposing it. I couldn't believe it when Vanushi Walters—who I have a lot of respect for and I sit on the Justice Committee with her—got up and in her opening statement and said We must do everything to protect our democracy. We must do everything to acknowledge our democracy in New Zealand." She had to come to the House with a straight face after they've just got caught out trying to put an entrenchment clause into a bill which was a massive insult. If you looked at all our constitutional academics and lawyers they all came out and said that that's a massive attack on our democracy. So how do you get to stand in the House and say "This is us protecting our democracy." when the week before they were conducting one of the greatest attacks on our democracy? Hon Kieran McAnulty: Ha ha! Hon MARK MITCHELL: So—well they're laughing about it. You got caught out. That's funny isn't it? My colleague Joseph Mooney was saying that this is screwing the scrum—absolutely it's screwing the scrum. It's a desperate attempt by the Labour Party who know that they're in trouble to introduce legislation that is going to work in their favour. Mr McAnulty let's look at the proposal that was put up recently for lowering the voting age to 16. Everyone rushed out from the Labour Party and they said "Let's do it. This is a great idea." Mr McAnulty—he put up the most compelling—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member will come back to this bill. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah Madam Speaker I'm responding to comments that were made in earlier—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): No no. You can actually debate the third reading of this particular bill. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well it's a pleasure to talk to this bill. Let's talk about influence because influence keeps getting raised on the other side of the House. I was trying to rack my brain thinking "Have we had any really good examples in this House where there have been allegations of influence?" and I've thought of one where there was a very wealthy Chinese businessman that made a large donation to the Labour Party and for whatever reason ended up with a citizenship ceremony in a Minister's office or in a parliamentary office. Everyone thought "Well that's wrong—that's inherently wrong. That's money for access and that's money for influence." But the Labour Party came out and they were very clear and they were very firm about it and they said "No that's not the case—that's not the case. That donation had nothing to do with expediting a citizenship ceremony or hosting it here in Parliament." We have to take them on their word. Is that true? Is that true that the donations had no influence and that those donations had no—it is. So we have to accept you on your word. So what is the problem? What is the problem that you're trying to fix? What is the real problem that you're trying to fix or is it quite simply this—and David Seymour raised it and it was a very good point. Is it quite simply this: that you want to try and impact and affect the chances that your political opponents have got in raising money because it has a disproportionate impact—doesn't it?—on the National Party and on the ACT Party and we've heard that. We've heard the numbers. I disagree with them. I think that $200000 is actually going to be very important to the Labour Party next year when they're trying to raise money to actually campaign—because that's what we should do. We should rely on donors that want to support us and want to get behind us to allow us to go out there and campaign and make our case to the country. I think that it's vile and I completely reject the premise of what these guys want to do and that is to go to public funding. That quite simply means that taxpayers now will be funding political parties—Hon Kieran McAnulty: That's not in the bill. Hon MARK MITCHELL: —and they'll have no choice at all. "It's not in the bill." says "Mr 16-Year-Old Voter". He actually said "I think 16- and 17-year-olds are smarter than a lot of us." He makes the most compelling case for change actually when you think about it and I assumed that he was talking about the Labour caucus. I assumed that he was talking about his own Labour caucus members—very true. So we're not going to support this bill. Joseph Mooney is absolutely right and by the way most of the public—most Kiwis—can see what's going on here. The last speaker Dr Emily Henderson spoke about transparency—transparency! They tried to suppress the submissions on this bill. Angela Roberts: What?Hon MARK MITCHELL: What is transparent around that—what? Are you not aware? Whoever is speaking to the bill take a call on it. Are you not aware that the submissions on this bill were suppressed? It took a long time to get them prised out for members of the public for the press gallery for the academics for the political commentators—for members of the public to actually have visibility on it. So when we stand on this side of the House and we say that this is a screwing of the scrum it's because it is. The thing is that the public now are deeply suspicious of the machinations that are going on on the other side of the House in terms of what they're trying to do to use their power in Government to screw the scrum to make changes that normally would never happen. There is no bipartisan support for this to actually—very clearly articulated—give them an advantage next year when we go into a general election. The people of New Zealand can judge and make up their own decision on that. Thank you very much Madam Speaker."