Hodgson Pete: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5824] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Every now and again in the annals of Parliament and in the history of the debates of this great place we seem to reach a debate in which one side of the House decides that to scream the loudest is to win the argument that to show the greatest anger is to display the most accuracy that to be thundering is argument in itself that shouting down is a good idea and that a running tirade of abuse against the speaker on his or her feet somehow represents debate. 
We have seen Dr Nick Smith become physiologically frightening. God knows what he did to his systolic pressure as he trotted out the words “corrupt” and “lacking moral authority” as many times as he could fit them into a sentence—as if there was a thread of logic around the unctuous prattle of that simple man. That was not an argument; that was a tirade. That was not a debate; that was high-tension abuse. The gentleman headed off into hyperspace. He demonstrated kangaroos in the top paddock. Minute after minute his blood pressure rose his redness became more and more ruddy and his shouting grew as the argument faded. He thought he had made some good points. 
Well here is something to think about. The Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill lets no one off any hook of refunding any money that needs to be refunded whether or not the legislation is passed. One would not think that judging by the tirade of abuse that has come from the National Party whose members have gathered in their numbers for this historic debate. One would think that there is a link between refunding unlawful expenditure and the passage of this legislation but there is none. One would not think that there is any uncertainty about the Auditor-General’s ruling though the Speaker thinks there is Treasury thinks there is and every party in the House except the National Party thinks there is. But one would not think so listening to the National Party. 
National members have made it up. They do not want to understand what is in this legislation because it does not suit their purposes to know that what they did today might also be unlawful that what they do tomorrow or over the weekend might also be unlawful that that is the state in which we find ourselves and that we have plenty of legal advice that says we need to fix it—one would not think those things by listening to the tirade of the most angry Hon Dr Nick Smith and other speakers before him. One would not think that there was logical strong official advice in favour of this legislation—oh no! This is somehow a cover-up a loss of moral authority and something that the House has apparently never done before! The House does it often but one would not know it in this case because National members have got themselves into a high little lather as if they will seize the benches of power like the born-to-rule folk whom they consider themselves to be on the basis of this. 
Well I say to the National Party that we should talk about television and television expenditure and we should begin by looking at the law. The law says that there shall be an amount of taxpayers’ money to be divided by an independent commission using criteria that are in New Zealand statutes that that money shall be spent on television and that no other money can be spent on television. That is the rule. The rule is that there is a quantum of money that is identified as expenditure for that purpose. It may all be spent on that purpose but not one dollar more may be spent on that purpose. That is the New Zealand law. 
Do members know what happened? Every party in this House obeyed that law in this election as they have done in every election that I have had anything to do with. But the National Party overshot its spending on the grounds that it did not realise that it was a GST inclusive figure. We are expected to believe that and we are further expected to believe that the National Party does not want to pay the GST because it will then break the law! Actually the trouble is that the law is broken already. That is why the police investigated it. Let me say that again. The National Party has in respect of television funding already broken the law which is why the police investigated it. Why did the police take this matter no further as indeed they took other matters no further? Well the answer is that they did not know whom to take to court because they did not know who had broken the law. Why did the police not know who had broken the law? It is because the National Party said it was its agent the agent said it was its client and that was where the matter was left to rest. The truth is that the law has been broken by the National Party. 
Dr Don Brash 
: No no. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: It does not matter how often Dr Brash says this is not true—the law is there it has been broken and the National Party knows it. So its little attempts to introduce legislation to make itself within the law—including indeed earlier today—are simply an attempt to smokescreen. National has broken the law and if it pays the GST the law will still be broken. It will not be newly broken; it will be broken as it already is. Will National pay the money? No. National has not said it will pay the money; it has decided to try to convince this House that only by paying the money will it break the law and therefore it needs some sort of absolution from breaking the law in order to pay the money. That is nonsense. The law has been broken by the National Party and its members simply will not admit it. 
So if those members want to do unctuous if those members want to do angry and if those members want to do “high moral authority” and put together the nastiest adjectives one can ever think of—especially a big string of them in one sentence—then I have to say that the National Party unfortunately has broken the law all by itself and it denies doing so. I say to National Party members that they should climb off their high horse just a little bit peer underneath the tail and see whether there is anything nasty—I suspect there is. I think the National Party needs to get some more legal advice. Quite apart from the fact that it managed unlawful expenditure itself in the last election in respect of the Auditor-General’s opinion—in that respect it did manage to act unlawfully as well but one would not know it; the only difference is that the amount was much much less—the next time it decides to throw a bit of mud around it should remember that in respect of television advertising the law has been broken. 
The law has been broken by the New Zealand National Party not by any other political party in New Zealand or in any previous election in New Zealand that I know of. The National Party is in denial. It has broken the law already in respect of television. Its members are busily denying it even as I speak. They are shaking their fingers at me and saying I am wrong. Well there is nothing wrong about what I have to say. The law has been broken and the National Party should pay the money back. We could get a chorus up saying: “Pay the money back.” but hey that is old hat and it has been done before. 
The truth of the matter is that the National Party does not like being told that it is not lily-white. There is nothing lily-white about National Party members. These are the people who put 92 percent of their funds through a blind trust in order to obscure the origins of the donations and in order to directly frustrate the spirit of the Electoral Act. These are the people who decided to climb into bed—to an extent that we are still uncovering a year later—with a very strange group of people who gave them $1.2 million of support in such a way that it would not be counted within the laws of the land. 
The National Party decides to get on its high horse and it has nothing to get on its high horse about. No one has ever rorted the trust system to the extent that the National Party did in the last election. No one has ever done third-party funding in the history of this country to the extent that the National Party has and no one else has broken the broadcasting legislation in respect of television in the history that I know of this Parliament. Those are the things that the National Party stands accused of. 
It is just a shame that National is not part of this legislative debate because the truth of the matter is that the National Party has done much wrong and National all by itself in one election has triggered a review of the electoral legislation. There is no doubt that that will be needed because the rorting has gone on forever. It is about time National members took a bit instead of giving it it is about time they got off their high horses it is about time they stopped doing unctuous and it is about time they stopped trying to shut down the speaker in full flight because these guys have dirt written all over them.