Roy Eric: General Debate 
Roy Eric: General Debate 
[Volume:643;Page:13307] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to conclude the general debate today. Each Wednesday the House dedicates an hour for 12 members to raise matters that are of concern to them. They can choose any topic they like. Today National members have talked about a range of issues—Mr Tim Groser spoke on immigration and Lindsay Tisch spoke on the cost of compliance. Those are the issues concerning them. The matter that is of concern to me and that I wish to focus the bulk of my remarks today on is democracy. Democracy is New Zealand’s heritage. We were the first country in the world to give universal franchise to it. We are the sixth oldest democracy in the world. We were the first country in the world to give women the vote. It is not enshrined in law in terms of a constitution so the custodians of democracy are the elected members of Parliament. That is our responsibility: to be the custodians of democracy. 
Today around New Zealand grave concerns are being uttered by a range of groups—including the Human Rights Commission and the Law Society—and in editorials on marches and on talkback programmes. This matter has absolutely consumed talkback programmes. The issue before those groups that threatens the fabric of democracy which we are custodians of is the Electoral Finance Bill. The bill is of grave concern. We have heard over the course of the debate on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill which passed its third reading this week that when the Government does something it is driven only by the motive of doing good and that there is no connection to Labour. 
I wish to relate to members an incident that I witnessed that gave me matter for grave concern and certainly dispels the purity of the utterances that Labour members have made. I came to Parliament in 1993 when Jim Bolger was the Prime Minister. As leader of our caucus he had one solid rule: if any member of Parliament or Cabinet Minister in the ruling Government of the time had a responsibility to hand out some money they were not to do it; it had to be done by an official. There had to be absolute separation so that the issue of pork-barrel politics was simply not an issue. Last year Invercargill celebrated the opening of a covered velodrome. It is one of only three in the South Island. It is a modest achievement for Invercargill which is a leader in a number of things. The Prime Minister was present with the Minister of Internal Affairs at the opening of that event. The first thing I want to note is that the organisers of the opening event were given very clear and explicit instructions that no National members of Parliament were to be acknowledged from the podium that they were not to be present in the official party and that the only people to be on stage were the Prime Minister— 
Jill Pettis 
: Rubbish! 
ERIC ROY 
: It is not rubbish. I was there; Jill Pettis was not. It is not rubbish. The only people of a political nature who were allowed to be in the official party were the Prime Minister the Minister of Internal Affairs and the named candidate for Invercargill who lost the safe seat of Invercargill for Labour. He was extolled on the stage as the candidate. That all goes along very nicely. During the occasion the Minister of Internal Affairs got to hand out a cheque for $1 million. This is pork-barrel politics of the very worst kind. It was quite clearly sold to those 2000 people present that it was the Labour Party doing this and that it was the Labour Party’s money. That was the implication. How was this received by the good people of Invercargill? Let me give members just a little illustration. You see it was the Prime Minister’s job to open the velodrome by cutting a ribbon. As she walked with pomp and ceremony towards the ribbon and on to the cycle track some wit in the crowd called out “On your bike Helen!”. I have to say that there was some applause for that statement. 
The claims that Labour members have made through the debate on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill that there is no connection to Labour and nothing the Government does is actually attached to Labour is absolute nonsense. Labour has had a categorical and systematic function of doing it. I say “On your bike Labour!”. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.