Hughes Darren: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Hughes Darren: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5846] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 Did the contribution of Tony Ryall not show to members what the problem with the National Party is? All he could talk about was the fact— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. During the last contribution to the Committee I watched with some interest as the Hon Dover Samuels interjected loudly continuously and at length throughout the speech. I make some allowance for the fact that he has probably had one of his regular meetings with the Prime Minister where she asks him again to retire but I do not make allowances for you Mr Chairperson because I would have expected a presiding officer to intervene in this matter. I simply ask for consistency in this regard and I want to know whether you are giving a ruling that there is some new low standard being applied by the Chair today because— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr McCully you have made your point. Please be seated. Mr Samuels was called several times and he desisted when I called him. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: The National Party needs Part 1 of this legislation to be passed. The National Party expended appropriations in the last Parliament before the last general election that were unlawful. The National Party spent about $10000 that it should not have and by passing Part 1 of this bill the legislation will validate that. 
I support the legislation because all political parties in the Parliament—with the exception of the Progressive party—operated under a set of rules that the Auditor-General’s report brought down last Thursday has changed. It is necessary for this legislation to validate the spending of all political parties in Parliament because all parties have been found—apart from one the Progressive party—to have actually been outside the scope. This bill is therefore necessary for that. 
It is very unusual to hear the yelling screaming and fake false sincerity from the National Party members as though this is some sort of huge issue of principle for them to stand on. They come into the Chamber yelling and screaming as though they are members of the purest political party ever to have existed in political party history. If that is the case why did they overspend their own budget in the 3 months before the last election? There is silence from National Party members for the first time this morning in the Chamber as not one of the screamers can explain to us why they overspent and why they misspent their budget before the last election. Why was that? Why was that money misspent? They cannot tell us why and that is why we need Part 1. 
We need Part 1 of this bill to make sure that the spending has been validated. In addition to that another thing has happened that has nothing to do with the bill—that is parties have said they will refund the money. The Labour Party is committed to refunding money and the National Party has said it will refund the money and has paid its $10000. But that does not change the fact that law is needed to validate the spending. Let me ask National Party members this question. Did they misuse any of their spending at the 2002 election? There is silence again. For the 2002 election did the National Party use any of its funding in a way that was outside what the Auditor-General ruled last week? There is no answer to that. In the 1999 election did the National Party use any of its money in a way that the Auditor-General based on his ruling last Thursday would have found to be inappropriate? There is no answer to that as well. 
So the National members are now telling us that for three general elections in a row they needed Part 1 of this bill to validate their spending. So I think that pretty much cuts to the chase quickly; National members have no idea why they are opposing Part 1 apart from the fact they see some sort of political game in throwing around words like “corruption” and “Zimbabwe” and a whole lot of stuff that is really stupid to say and silly and way outside the way anything happens in New Zealand. But that is what they have come to Parliament to try to do because it is about their raw politics. 
Let us turn to the politics. Mr Ryall just asked us whether the Labour Party had overspent because of the spending return that we had put in to the Chief Electoral Office at the last election. What did we do? We included the money that was spent promoting a Labour-led Government by organisations like the unions. That was included in the return that the Labour Party put in. Let me ask the National Party this. If not breaching an electoral spending cap is so important why does the National Party not include the Exclusive Brethren money spent in its support? [ 
Interruption 
] One of the members said they did not need to. The Labour Party did not need to include the union spending as part of our return either. We did not need to do that; there was no legal reason to do it. But we did it because the money was spent in support of a Labour Government. 
So let me ask the National members why the Exclusive Brethren money was not used in the same regard. There is silence again. There has been a lot of noise in Parliament in the last few days and the last few hours but whenever National members are asked a question there is silence because the paucity of their argument is clear for everybody to see. They have no idea why they are opposing Part 1. Part 1 helps the National Party. Part 1 validates what their own leaders did. Most of the noise is coming from new members of Parliament who were not here in the 3 months before the last election. That is why they have the most to say about it even though they cannot answer any questions about it at all. They have nothing else to do which is why they are sitting down here yelling and screaming. 
 Let me ask the National members this. If they had $10000 of misspending in the 3 months before the election how much would it have been if the Auditor-General had gone back 4 months? What is so special about 3 months before the election from the point of view of Parliamentary Service spending? What is special about that? There is nothing. What if we had gone back 4 months? Where would the National Party have been then? I want to know why the National Party did not include the money from the Exclusive Brethren when the Labour Party included money that was spent in its support.