Cullen Michael: Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Cullen Michael: Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16109] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the conclusion of the first reading debate I will move that the bill be referred to the Standing Orders Committee with an instruction that the bill be finally reported back by 21 July 2008. For reasons I will explain in my speech it is essential that this bill passes before the House rises for the election. 
The bill provides for the Parliamentary Service to maintain a longstanding practice of giving administrative and support services to candidates who are to become members of Parliament. It addresses a technicality that relates to the status of candidates who will clearly be elected but have not yet become members of Parliament. It has been the practice over many years to make some travel and accommodation entitlements available between polling day and the day that members are declared to be elected to those new candidates who clearly will be elected. It has also been the practice to continue to give support during that period to those candidates who were members of Parliament before polling day and the duration of that period has usually been approximately 2 weeks. The practices allow contractual arrangements such as telecommunications and office leases to continue uninterrupted. The practice has also allowed new candidates who clearly will be elected to travel to Wellington to participate in the processes of forming a Government. Doubt has arisen that these past practices were authorised by legislation and therefore are probably illegal under the Public Finance Act. This legislation will remove any doubt about the lawful authority of continuing these practices. 
It is necessary for this legislation to be brought to the House at this time to provide for the continuation of funding entitlements following the close of polling at the general election later this year. Section 7B of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000 requires that funding entitlements administered for parliamentary purposes must relate to specified persons and those specified persons are members and former members. There are no references in the legislation to candidates for election. Therefore the Parliamentary Service is constrained from maintaining the longstanding practice of giving administrative and support services to candidates who are to become members of Parliament. 
It is clearly stated in the Constitution Act 1986 and the Electoral Act 1993 as to who is a member of Parliament. Members are persons who are elected in accordance with the Electoral Act 1993 and they continue in office until the close of polling day at the next general election. From the day after polling day until the day elected candidates take office there are in one sense therefore no members of Parliament in existence. As the Parliamentary Service has authority to approve expenditure in respect of members of Parliament and former members it is doubtful at best as to whether the service can continue to approve expenditure for certain candidates for election from election night to the time when people are declared to be elected. 
It should be noted that this does not apply to Ministerial Services since there is a period after an election when a person can continue to be a Minister even though he or she has not been elected as a member of Parliament and therefore authority to continue expenditure for Ministerial Services continues and does not require further legislative authority. 
If the legislation is not passed it creates the risk of incurring unnecessary but not avoidable additional expense for the taxpayer and the Parliamentary Service because contracts for certain support arrangements would have to be cancelled and then re-established some 2 weeks later. It could prove to be at the least very inconvenient for the short period between the election and the time when candidates formally become members because the service is currently constrained from providing entitlements to candidates. The bill therefore recognises that candidates need to be supported by the Parliamentary Service after the election and that the Parliamentary Service requires clear lawful authority to provide this support. There will be no new entitlements of costs compared with previous practice as a result of this bill. It merely in effect codifies current practice. 
I think that the Standing Orders Committee will need to look in particular at the provisions under new section 9A(4) in terms of how it is decided who these people are who are the candidates who are going to be elected. At the end of the day the bill provides in clause 4 that such a person is a person who “(a) in the opinion of the General Manager (formed in the light of the election night results) it is clear that the person will be declared elected;”. There is of course a certain degree of uncertainty around that. The past practice under first past the post was actually relatively simple. The person who was ahead on election night was presumed to be a member of Parliament and services began to that member including pay and rations from the next day. 
Under MMP of course it is slightly more complicated. Not only is the complication the fact that special votes can change the result in the electorates but as a consequence that can lead in some cases to significant changes to the provisions for list members. Members will recall one election when on election night the Green Party did not qualify for Parliament but once the special votes were counted the Green Party qualified to be within Parliament. That of course significantly changed the entire membership of the House at that point. 
I think there is no way of avoiding some degree of uncertainty in that fashion under the new arrangements because as happened at that point Green members were not serviced by the Parliamentary Service on election night to the time of declaration of the results but nor was any money clawed back from other list MPs who had temporarily been serviced and who then ceased to be members of Parliament when the Green Party was returned to Parliament. So there will always be some uncertainty around the edge but the broad continuity needs to be maintained. Once this matter has been drawn to the attention of the Parliamentary Service it has no choice but not to fund candidates from election night onwards because the illegality has been drawn to its attention and this must be fixed before the next general election.