O'Rourke Denis: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6335. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will support this bill the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) but with some reservations. I would like to begin by recommending a more descriptive title the “John Banks Honesty Transparency and Accountability in Local Government Candidacy Memorial Bill” a title that fittingly nobody will remember. 
New Zealand First will be happy to support the main provisions of the bill and I will go on to mention some of those parts that we have some concern about. But first of all we do think there is some good sense in what a large amount of the bill covers. First of all clause 5 which allows territorial authorities and regional councils to make minor alterations to boundaries is very sensible. Especially we like the idea that they would go to the Local Government Commission first for it to uphold them. That is a good check on whether those alterations would be suitable. Similarly we agree with clause 8 under which communities of interest must be considered by the territorial authority or regional council and it is required to specify the ratio of population to proposed members for each proposed ward; and again with clause 10 in which there are two situations added: wards and subdivisions of a community may be defined either by dividing a community of interest between wards or subdivisions or by uniting within a ward or subdivision two or more communities of interest with few commonalities of interest. Those are two situations where special attention should be paid to communities of interest. Again reference to the commission is a good idea. 
We agree also with clause 21 which inserts new section 73A to add a power to adjourn an electoral process by Order in Council in certain situations. Those of course are the sorts of situations that we found in Christchurch. They did not actually require any action there because there was no local government election at that time but it could have happened that way and then it would have been necessary for some action to be taken. This provision will make it possible for up to 6 weeks’ deferral of any of the important dates for an election to be made. That is just common sense. We are glad to see it there as well. 
But some of the provisions we have concerns about. The first of these relates to the vexed area of donations and expenses under Part 5 of the Local Electoral Act. I might say first of all that one of the omissions that I see here and that is also in the Electoral Act for general elections is the omission in respect of loans made in the same sorts of circumstances as a donation loans that are not repaid or forgiven before election day. These I believe should be recorded as a donation as well because it is simply too easy through the mechanism of making a loan to get round some of these requirements. So that is something I would like to see the Government look at as part of this bill before it goes too much further. 
I would like to also refer to new section 103A in clause 27 where it refers to the circumstance in which it may be reasonably expected for a candidate to know whether a person has made an anonymous donation or not. The words “reasonably expected” need to be taken seriously; they have not been I believe by some members opposite and they should be. So we hope that those words will be sufficient for the purpose; we will wait and see. We disagree however with new section 103A(b) where it refers to goods or services being “provided to a candidate or to any person on the candidate’s behalf under a contract at 90% or less of their reasonable market value”. We say that it would be difficult to prove such a value and that a 10 percent discount is really not a donation and should not be regarded as such. That is one of the things I think should come out of the bill. It is just not practical and it is certainly not necessary. 
I would like to move on to new section 103E in clause 27 and certain other sections of the same kind that refer to penalties. We in New Zealand First believe that a $5000 penalty for offences such as intentionally concealing the identity of a donor is insufficient. It should be at least $20000. It certainly is not a large enough fine to be a deterrent. The same applies to section 103G for a person concealing the identity of a donor. That is too low at $5000 and it should be at least $20000 as well. Similarly in section 103I that penalty should be $20000 and not $5000. These are all the sorts of offences that really do need a heavy deterrent and $5000 just does not get there. Another one is new section 112D—in clause 31—“Filing a false return of electoral donations and expenses”. That requires a stronger deterrent as well and New Zealand First says $20000 and not $10000 or as in paragraph (b) 5000. Neither of those is anywhere near sufficient. 
So New Zealand First will be happy to support the bill but we would like to debate further some of those provisions that I have mentioned and especially the inadequacy of the penalties that have been provided under some of those sections that I have mentioned.