Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I tell you what: listening to that speech from a fellow classmate of the class of 2020 Arena Williams—who is I'm sure a well-meaning MP for the electorate of Manurewa and does a lot of good work in that electorate—definitely reinforced that they've been drinking the cordial. They've been drinking the cordial on that side of the House in terms of why this bill is such an amazing bill. I'll be honest I haven't touched that cordial but I can tell you that when I'm looking at this bill it's very clear that this is just another one of these bills that is looking for a problem. The articulation from the prior member in regards to what this bill is trying to do in trying to make sure that people are making donations that are fully disclosed—well there is a threshold. Any donation over $15000 is publicly disclosed right? So we're not talking about people being able to make political donations in this country that aren't disclosed; we've simply got a Labour Party electoral amendment bill that is looking to move this threshold down from 15 grand to five grand. We can navel-gaze a lot around whether that is appropriate or not and around disclosure and transparency and all of that but as the Minister articulated in the opening statements around this bill the purpose of this bill—the purpose—is to improve trust and confidence in Government. Well oh well I tell you what for anyone who's been watching Parliament TV in the last four hours you might have seen a few other bills that have come through this House which pretty much appease and epitomise that contrast around why this Government cannot be trusted in regards to protecting our democracy. So I just simply do not buy it that the true intent of this bill is to try and increase trust in the population of hard-working Kiwis in our democracy—what a load of rubbish. A load of rubbish—absolute rubbish—and it's pretty clear when you look at this that that is the case. The other thing is some of the amendments—which is another element of the bill—around the reporting requirements for donations exceeding $30000 and they're wanting to reduce that to $20000. Again this isn't going to make any material impact in regards to disclosure. I think there was a degree of consensus in the Justice Committee around the time period in which disclosure of information should be made—absolutely. There is agreement. Getting disclosure into the public arena at pace is something that I understand all parties at the select committee agreed on. But moving these thresholds is in our view not going to fix a problem which we face in this country and heck don't we have a lot of problems in this country today right? I don't know if anyone at home is thinking You know what? In terms of the top three issues that are on the West Coast or the top three issues on the North Shore or in Invercargill"—[Interruption] Is the Electoral Amendment Bill Penny Simmonds among the top three issues in Invercargill? Penny Simmonds: It's not featuring. SIMON WATTS: No it's not featuring at all because it's not is it? Arena Williams and I—we're going to get consensus and agreement. Surely we can agree that this isn't a top three issue or top five issue and it's not going to improve trust and confidence in Government. The actions that a Government takes are the things that build trust. The reality is that Kiwis across this country will make an assessment around trust in this Government as they do every three years in this democracy and that will be wholeheartedly based on what this Government has delivered not on whether they have implemented the Electoral Amendment Bill and changed the threshold for public donations from 15 grand to five grand. I'm chuckling under my breath but it is a reality that this is actually something that we're seriously pushing through off the back of the significant issues that our country faces. So National opposes this bill. It's a waste of time. We don't think it's going to make any impact and I don't think we can do much more categorically on that. I'm looking forward to the next speaker on our behalf—Simon O'Connor—who will no doubt bring a lot more comprehension to this because he's on the select committee. But at that we do not commend this bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Dr Duncan Webb—five minutes."