Norman Russel William: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Norman Russel William: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Greg Palast one of the great political authors of our time wrote a book called  
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.  
When we look at the influence of money particularly in US politics over the last decade or so we can get a good sense of why the buying of that democracy by big oil and coal interests is one of the key reasons why we have failed to make any serious progress on climate change over the last decade. The involvement of the Republican presidency in the US coal oil and auto industries is one of the key reasons we have failed as a planet to make any progress—it is because the US democracy is being deeply undermined by money. Of course Barack Obama has done something to address that but only through a massive campaign. 
The concern with the influence of money in politics is right around the world. Everywhere around the world we have a major problem with the influence of money in politics and we need to address it. To start with I will read out a couple of quotes that I thought might interest people. The quote goes like this: “Corporate donations are a major threat to our political and democratic system whether it be state governments fawning before property developers the Prime Minister providing ethanol subsidies to a party donor or the immigration minister using his visa clientele to tap into ethnic money.” Now this quote could be from a hard-left critic of our current system but in fact this quote is from John Menadue who was a senior public servant in the Fraser Government and later was the chief executive officer of Qantas. When one of the leaders of one of the largest corporations in Australia is concerned about the impact of money and corporate donations in politics I think we have reason to be concerned. 
Then from the conservative side of politics there is John Hewson the former Liberal Party leader. When he was talking about donations to political parties John Hewson said: “If they were all publicly declared you would find some corporations behaving differently. … There are a lot”—of corporations—“who give to political parties with the expectation of getting a benefit. If they really believed in strengthening democracy they wouldn’t do that.” This is a major threat to democracy and freedom across the Western World. 
We know that political parties need money to run election campaigns but that money can be a source of undue influence on our democratic process. We need to do our best to prevent it. As we have seen in this country non - political party actors can intervene in the political process using their millions of dollars. Undue influence on the democratic process has two dimensions. One dimension is that one side of politics tends to get an awful lot more money than the other side of politics; so the Greens who rely on small donations from party members and others do not tend to get as much money as those parties that promote the big wealthy developers. So it means that the electoral field tends to be stacked. The other side is that it gives people who make donations favoured access into Government decision-making. It is undue influence because the history of the influence of money and politics is that people and corporations who make big donations into political parties tend to get undue access to politicians and Government decision-making. 
It is for this reason that the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System wrote it is “not fair if some in the community use their relative wealth to exercise disproportionate influence in determining who is to govern and what policies are to be pursued.” It is for that reason that over many years we have introduced a series of laws of which the Electoral Finance Act is simply the last one in an attempt to try to restrict the influence of money in politics. 
Now I want to look at donations. The Greens are pleased that the donations regime that we managed to twist Labour’s arm with some considerable negotiating finesse to get put into the Electoral Finance Act will be protected in this move and that those parts—which will go back into the Electoral Act 1993—of the Electoral Finance Act will be retained which is good. The donations part of this is all incredibly important and I want to quote the royal commission again. The 1986 royal commission said: “Disclosure of donations would give valuable information to the voters about the character of the parties. It would as well provide healthy confirmation that political parties are not dominated by big business unions or overseas interests. It’s vital to our democratic system that we have a decent donations regime.” 
The donations regime that we have in the Electoral Finance Act is still far too weak. There are enormous holes. The Greens were aware of it. We wanted to lower the disclosure so that instead of a $10000 donation it was $1000 donation but in our negotiations we were unable to achieve that. Nonetheless that remains the Greens’ view. We believe hopefully along with other parties that any donation over $1000 should be identified so the public can be sure who is funding political parties. 
I want to talk about third parties which is non - political party involvement in elections and is I think one of the hardest issues in all of this and always will be. I want to quote the royal commission again. The royal commission said in its 1986 report: “It is illogical to limit spending by parties if other interests are not also controlled. Supporters or opponents of a party or candidate should not be able to promote their views without restriction merely by forming campaign organisations unaffiliated to any party; nor should powerful or wealthy interest groups be able to spend without restriction during an election campaign while the parties are restricted.” 
 The royal commission was very clear that we need a regime—or rather a set of rules—around spending by non - political party actors if the caps on spending by political parties are to work. It is essential. There has been an enormous uproar about the set of rules put in around non - political party spending but it is absolutely essential to protect our democracy. 
The limits on spending in the Electoral Finance Act were probably too low but we can talk about that. There was enormous complaint about the need to register. But unless we have a register of third-party actors who are involved in the election campaign how can we have transparency in our electoral system? How can we have transparency in our democracy unless we know who those non - political party actors involved in the election campaign are? So it is an essential part. 
The other thing I want to touch on briefly is the regulated period. The Greens always agreed that the regulated period was too long and we wanted a shorter one. However it is important to say the 3-month regulated period is not long enough. I quote from Steven Joyce who was the National Party campaign manager in 2005. Mr Joyce said: “Under MMP the lead-up to the campaign is just as important as the campaign itself. It is imperative that National maintain a high level of activity during the next 2 years”—2 years—“prior to the commencement of the campaign itself.” That is because Mr Joyce as campaign manager understands what all of us in this Chamber understand which is that the election campaign does not last for 3 months. It goes on for a much longer period than that. It is for that reason that we need a regulated period that is longer than 3 months. 
I think that a 1 January start date for the non-regulated period was very problematic and the Greens were pushing for an April start date. But certainly it needs to be longer than 3 months because 3 months will not work. 
I want to pick up on the question of State funding. The Green Party has supported partial State funding for political parties and again the royal commission report is clear. It states: “Moreover if election and other costs outstrip the capacity of ordinary party members to meet them parties may be forced to rely on Institutional sources such as corporations or trade unions to find their activities. We consider that too great a reliance on such sources would be detrimental to our democracy and might in the long term lead to corruption of our political process.” That is why we need an element of State funding—to protect our democracy. 
In terms of how we go forward the Green Party thinks it is essential that we build a system based on the principles of transparency—that is that one has a right to know where the political funding of parties is going and who is involved in the election campaign including non-party actors. We need a level playing field so that the contest is between ideas and not between who has the most money and can buy the most “iwi or Kiwi” billboards. We want to avoid State or corporate dependency. Political parties should not be dependent on the State nor should they be dependent on corporate donations. Those things are essential. We would once again promote the idea of a citizens’ assembly to inform the process of looking at how we will reform electoral finance laws. The citizens own this democracy; the members in this Parliament do not. It belongs to the people of New Zealand and they should have a say as to what happens. 
The Green Party will not be voting for this bill. We do not think it is progress. There is no need to repeal the Electoral Finance Act while we look at what we will do. The National Government is doing it because of an election promise but there is no need to do it. We can look at what we will replace the Electoral Finance Act with without repealing the Act. So we will vote against the bill. We think that the principles of the Electoral Finance Act around making sure that we are clear about the role of money in politics are sound and we should deepen those principles in the next round. I welcome the Minister’s comments that he will be consulting with all parties on how we will look at electoral law as we move forward.