Turei Metiria: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
Turei Metiria: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13390] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. First I want to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee staff in particular who worked very hard on this bill; the advisers both from the Ministry of Justice and the Electoral Commission who did a huge amount of work; the other members of the committee particularly those from United Future New Zealand First Labour and ACT; and the chair Lynne Pillay who did a very good job of managing a very big issue and a very difficult committee because of the National Party members’ obnoxious and obstructive behaviour. In fact I have not seen anything that bad since I sat on the select committee considering the foreshore and seabed legislation a number of years ago. 
Modern New Zealand has been built on the principle of democracy and the struggle for equity. But democracy does not happen in a vacuum; it happens in our society which is increasingly characterised by the inequality of wealth. That inequality of wealth can have a significant impact on our democracy. If democracy is to function properly then we must protect the equality of the ballot from the inequality of the wallet. We must ensure that there is a level playing field in election campaigns. We must know who is providing the money in election campaigns so we can track its influence. And we must protect the right to freedom of speech for all citizens. That is why most Western democracies similar to New Zealand’s have rules that limit election spending by both political parties and interest groups and why the Greens believe that New Zealand should do so also. 
New Zealanders have established a very unique series of rules and regulations that make sure everyone gets a fair go. We have a cap on how much a party can spend on the election campaign campaigning for the party vote and we have a restriction on the free speech of parties but it is a restriction to prevent wealthy parties from dominating the political space. Political parties are not even allowed to buy ads on television and radio except with the money allocated to them by the Electoral Commission—a restriction on the free speech of parties but a restriction so that wealthy parties do not dominate television and radio with expensive advertising. These are good rules that mean we have something of a level playing field in our elections because without a level playing field there is no democracy. 
In 2005 real problems emerged with an uneven playing field and we must deal with them. One of those problems was exposed by the Exclusive Brethren in the National Party’s campaign. The Exclusive Brethren ran a million-dollar advertising campaign that was effectively a “Vote National” campaign. According to a publication of Nicky Hager’s just yesterday the National Party’s campaign manager Steven Joyce secretly met with the Exclusive Brethren in May 2005 where he proposed the “Change the Government” slogan which the Exclusive Brethren used in its pamphlets because this fit perfectly with the National Party’s slogan “The only way to change the Government is to vote National.” 
The Exclusive Brethren’s million-dollar “Vote National” campaign was not included in the cap on the National Party’s spending and it was purposely hidden from public view by the Exclusive Brethren and the National Party; it was purposely hidden. It was only through the investigation by the Greens and particularly Rod Donald that this rort was exposed. Our electoral rules failed New Zealanders in 2005. The Greens did not fail New Zealand; we protected our transparency and exposure by exposing the National Party rort. The Exclusive Brethren’s desperate attempt to keep its identity secret with National’s collusion was a direct assault on the transparent and open democratic process. Every New Zealander should be horrified at that assault. 
The Exclusive Brethren and the National Party’s campaign demonstrated a huge loophole in our law; it must be closed. If we do not close it then spending caps on political parties are meaningless. If we do not close the loophole secret groups working with political parties will continue to manipulate the election outcome by attempting to buy it. 
The Greens want our lawmakers to owe their allegiance to the voters not to those who fund their election campaigns. To keep our MPs from being beholden to wealthy interest groups we not only restrict how much our parties can spend on campaigning but also we have rules to make the parties tell us who is providing their money. We want to see if a party’s funders affect the way in which it votes in Parliament and the way in which it makes decisions if it is in Government. If a party receives a donation that is over $10000 it has to declare the identity of that donor to the public and any anonymous donations must be truly anonymous. 
But again in 2005 problems were exposed in the transparency regime by the behaviour of National and to some extent Labour also. We have seen a massive increase in the flow of secret money into National Party and Labour Party coffers. Over the 3 years from 2004 to 2006 for donations of over $10000 Labour received $400000 in anonymous donations and the National Party received $2.2 million in secret trusts. I thank my colleague Doug Woolerton for describing how that money arrived in the National Party coffers. Senior officials within National knew who had given it money but chose not to tell the public—they kept it secret. They did not tell anyone but again it was exposed by Nicky Hager in the article. 
Groups like the horse-racing lobby and the Exclusive Brethren provided independent pro-National advertising. Some of the rich Business Roundtable supporters funded the biography of their leader Don Brash which just happened to come out in election year. The Maxim Institute spent large sums on pro-National publicity and so on and so on. All of this was on top of the anonymous donations from the Business Roundtable giving National probably the biggest campaign budget in the history of New Zealand elections. So in spite of the intent of the law to make parties like National reveal the source of their money it is currently legal for the National Party to know who its secret donors are and to keep it secret from the public. This is a loophole that must be closed. 
The Greens insisted on an anonymous donations regime that will restrict the ability of both National and Labour—and indeed the ability of every political party—to raise money through anonymous donations. Our policy is that all donations over $1000 should be identified as to their true source and secret trusts like the Waitemata Trust and Te Maru o Ruahine Trust do not count as a true source. They should not be listed as anonymous; nor should they be hidden by the secret trusts that the National Party used. 
In the negotiations around this bill we made significant progress towards the Greens’ policy. We have introduced a system that will limit political parties to a total anonymous donations income for those over $1000 to only 10 percent of their spending cap over the 3-year electoral cycle. This will cut Labour’s anonymous donations income by half and it will cut the National Party’s anonymous donations through secret trust income by 90 percent. We have all heard the National Party’s gnashing of teeth over this bill. That is simply because it is fiercely opposed to any law that will prevent it from circumventing the basic democratic principles of transparency and a level playing field. It will not be able to have a secret group run a “Vote National” campaign for it or have its campaign funded from secret money. 
National and the Exclusive Brethren exploited the loopholes in 2005 and it is quite right for Parliament now to close those loopholes in favour of transparency and a level playing field to protect our democracy. To ensure we have a fair democracy we must protect freedom of speech for voters and interest groups while imposing rules to stop the buying of an election. It is quite right that that is a difficult part to get right. 
The Green Party has a record on human rights that is second to none in this or any previous Parliament in New Zealand. Even where such a standard is highly unpopular and attracts attacks we have stood firm on human rights. The Terrorism Suppression Act is one example Ahmed Zaoui is another and the foreshore and seabed legislation is another example too. We will defend New Zealanders’ human rights against any attacks. If the Green Party believed for even one moment that this legislation was a breach of human rights we would not support it; we would not. 
I recognise the Human Rights Commission had problems with the legislation and we chose to work constructively with ACT with United Future with New Zealand First and with Labour to fix those problems so that there would be no issues around human rights and we succeeded by working constructively on the principles of transparency a level playing field and equity in participating in our parliamentary democracy. The Green Party is very proud of its role in protecting the freedom of speech for New Zealanders and introducing rules to ensure a fair election. Thank you.