Hodgson Pete: Electoral Finance Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 3) Electoral Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Hodgson Pete: Electoral Finance Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 3) Electoral Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:644;Page:14049] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 It seems to me that this House has come almost to the point of a headless chicken phase. We have a man who has just given a speech about things he apparently believes in which he says that if this legislation had been passed earlier the abolition of slavery in the US would not have happened and the universal suffrage movement might not have happened. He gave that speech with passion so either he believed it in which case he is deeply in trouble or he did not believe it in which case he ought not to have given it. 
I say to a previous speaker my colleague Hone Harawira from the Maori Party that his assessment of history around electoral law is a different history from mine. I will give him my truth on what electoral law history is. Actually our colleague MetiriaTurei began it when she reminded us that over a hundred years ago our forebears put limits upon themselves as to what they might expend when they went for public office simply because the culture of that moment and the culture that persists today is that we cannot buy public office in this land—we cannot buy it. We can argue for it we can cajole and we can campaign but we may not directly purchase public office in this land. We can purchase whatever else we wish. We can purchase an offshore island a 14th motorcar a third farm; we can purchase whatever we like in this market economy. But we may not purchase public office. 
The member from the ACT party Rodney Hide said “one person one vote” when he was arguing in the opposite direction. He was arguing for “one millionaire one seat in public office”. You see the point is that the whole idea of one person one vote is that we are equal—I go down and cast a vote the member goes down and casts a vote the millionaire goes down and casts a vote and the pauper goes down and casts a vote—yet the member opposes this legislation. 
Let us take a little step back in history. First of all a hundred years ago £200 was the limit and it progressed. We got to the 1950s and we worked out how to draw boundaries fairly. We missed the gerrymandering season that infested all of the United States and still infests Australia to an extent especially at State level; we missed that. We decided to do it properly and the criteria we laid down in 1956 still prevails. Some of us have spent a bit of time on electoral law select committees. I have done 9 years and a number of people around this House have done a similar amount of time and have a bit of experience so they will support this history to date. 
Then we move to the point where we decided we would go for MMP. In 1993 we put law in front of the House the third reading was given and the assent was carried by the people in the 1993 election. They said “We want MMP.” Not only did they say that but they said “We want MMP even though Peter Shirtcliffe has spent a lot of money on trying to dissuade us.” We did not react then; we did not react as a Parliament. We said “We understand that the electoral coalition has to raffle chooks and that Peter Shirtcliffe has to go and see his rough mates but even then we will not react—even then we don’t mind a bit of money having a bit of a say.” 
So we went through to 2005 and everything changed. In 2005 not only was there big money but the money came not from within but from without. Not only was it big money from without but it was big money that was covert and not overt. This was an attempt to buy an election anonymously. Peter Shirtcliffe put his head on the block and said “I’m doing this and I’m proud to be doing it.” and he went and spent all of his big money. We said “That’s OK.” But along came the Exclusive Brethren and said “We are not the Exclusive Brethren. We are not doing this. We have not spoken to the National Party. We have not gone to see the electoral law folk to see how we can get around the rules. We have done none of that. We are simply a group of business people.” But the Greens outed them. Then as the months went by—in fact as the weeks went by—in the course of the election campaign 2005 Gerry Brownlee who was being noisy a few minutes ago went on radio and said that he knew nothing about it. He went on radio and said “I don’t know.” Don Brash went on radio and said “I don’t know either.” Then he said “I only know a little bit.” Then he said “I only met them once.” Then he said “I only met them once at a time. I might have met them more than once.” And John Key said “I don’t know anything about it.” 
But yes they did. You see it was a collusion. It was not a coincidence it was not a bit of happy circumstance and it was not serendipity; it was a planned collusion around the electoral law of this land. For more than a hundred years we did not try to put limits on third parties. We saw no reason to do that. Whoever had an interest—be they the SPCA the Chambers of Commerce the unions the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society Grey Power or Maori—could take part in the quest for the offices of the land and could do so without any regulation at all. All the while through the first of our centuries that was the way it was until the National Party’s secret mates came along. If National members want to know why we are standing here in the third reading debate passing this law I will tell them that they are the reason. National members did not say to the Exclusive Brethren “This is a step too far.” They did not say “Can you try to make it a quarter of a million instead of a million and a bit.” They did not say “Don’t go trying overtly to get around the electoral law.” And they did not tell the Brethren to out themselves. They did the opposite; they colluded. This was collusion in an attempt to win office. That is going too far; that is not tolerable. 
So we must join other Western democracies—although we have not until now—and start to regulate more in sadness than in anger I have to say. I do not think our country is better off for needing this regulation. But given that we need it we sure as hell are going to have it—just as Canada and the UK do. They have had to go down this path. I am sure they have done it more in sadness than in anger too. 
I will summarise. This country spent more than a hundred years not regulating third parties at all but regulating only candidates. It always regulated candidates but never anyone else and we got along OK. We got along with everyone’s little or medium-sized campaigns. We got along with Mr Shirtcliffe’s rich but overt open and out-there campaign. But the National Party decided that it would covertly use $1.2 million of someone else’s money offshore to try to help itself into office. The National Party needs to understand that that is beyond the culture of New Zealand’s electoral history. 
I ask my colleague from the Maori Party to hear that version of history and to understand it. I think his version of history is at variance with mine but that is how I see it. I do not think it is OK for this country ever to go to the point where we Americanise our politics and put our offices up for sale in some way or other. 
Mr Hide said that the truth will always out. Well I ask Mr Hide how an ordinary person a humble person or a modest person can have free speech when the airwaves are full with capitalists’ noise. That is what we were dealing with. Capitalism has its place because our market economy depends on it but we cannot use the riches of capitalism to buy a place in Parliament. At that point we have privatised the most public thing there is which is public office. So the line must be drawn. 
Bill English’s contribution which was a series of deliberate misinterpretations of the Electoral Act took us no further and John Key who opened this debate with the high moral pitch ended up sounding like a 13-year-old trying to read Shakespeare. It did not work. He got the round of applause that was pre-arranged but I could tell that the guy had not written the speech. He did not know how to pronounce “auspicious” and a few other words along the way. The truth of the matter is that these guys have to front up to the fact that they are the authors of their own misfortune. That is the truth of it. If it had not been for the Exclusive Brethren covertly attempting to buy office in New Zealand then we would not have had to be here. We have not been here until now.