Henare Tau: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Henare Tau: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
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Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I want to concentrate firstly on something that the Rt Hon Winston Peters said yesterday. He talked about those 5000 people who marched in Auckland the other day and he said: “I’ve had more people at my meetings.” Well Winston Peters has never had 5000 people at any one meeting with New Zealand First. 
Judith Collins 
: He might have had 5000 mirrors. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: He might have had 5000 mirrors but he did not have 5000 people. I would love for him to come down to the Chamber and tell members where and when those 5000 people went to a New Zealand First meeting. 
I will concentrate specifically on clause 25A which I hear has been referred to as the “crayfish clause”. It is ironic that I speak about the “crayfish clause” because I love crayfish so much. The wording of this clause provides that any anonymous donation of over $1000 has to be paid to the Electoral Commission or the Chief Electoral Officer. But my point is that donations can be anything; they do not necessarily have to be cash. They can be crayfish they can be pigs they can be paua and they can be all sorts of things. The donations must be paid over within 20 working days but how one would get pigs worth over $1000 to the Electoral Commission or Chief Electoral Officer within 20 working days is beyond me. The clause talks about $1000 or “its value”. I might add that Mr Finlayson has put forward an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 166 to amend clause 25A. It may seem like an exercise in semantics but it is not. The amendment is trying to fix a clause that should have been put together a hell of a lot better in the first place. We need to change the amount of the donation or “its value” to “the value of the donation”. I think that clears it up in a nutshell. The value of a dozen crayfish could be anything between $45 and $4500; it could be anything. But the value of that donation should then be left with the Chief Electoral Officer or the Electoral Commission within 20 working days. 
It says to me that this bill is being rushed through. I refer to the Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen who said today in question time that this bill was not being rushed through. It is being rushed through and there are a couple of things staring us right in the face that tell us that this bill is being rushed. One is the number of Government amendments to the bill after it has been through the select committee process—150-odd amendments and there are more to come. That suggests one thing to me which is that this bill has not been thought out properly. It has not been drafted properly because the intent basically is to stop the other side from having a fair crack of the whip. 
I have heard the Greens and New Zealand First prattle on about the rich people in this nation or the people who actually want to give money to a political party. 
Metiria Turei 
: Secretly. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Secretly or otherwise it is their money for goodness’ sake! It is their money. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh no we know that the Service and Food Workers Union took $250000 last election—$250000—from its members. It stole $250000 from the Service and Food Workers Union members.