O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First has no issues with the Electoral Amendment Bill so I will only need to speak about the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and to explain why New Zealand First will continue to vote against it. There are two issues. I want to begin with what one submitter said and this submitter was a gentleman with vast experience as a broadcaster and he really knew what he was talking about. I think he made a very good submission. What he said fundamentally was that he thought that the opening and closing addresses should be continued free of charge by TV ONE and Radio New Zealand because they had a public duty to do so.I also think that those organisations have a public duty to do so. They whinge and whine about the cost of it and they say that not enough people are watching it but the truth is they are required to do this for only 2 nights in 3 years—2 nights in 3 years. Big deal! They should be able to handle that without going belly up. So they can do it as far as I am concerned and I do think it has a lot of value.I think that the political parties also have a public duty to make a formal opening statement in a campaign and a closing statement as well. I think it has been a good practice. If we do not continue that all we are going to get is tedious old advertisements especially those from the National Party. Who on earth wants to see them? For goodness' sake TV is bad enough without having to watch that kind of rubbish.A lot of play has been made about the fact that 25 percent fewer people watch those broadcasts than watch television generally. Well as far as I am concerned television is such rubbish these days that in fact that 25 percent is probably general and across the board; if not more. So that is one issue—that New Zealand First opposes this because there is a public duty for both those broadcasters and for the political parties to make formal opening and closing statements to inform the public about what their policies are and why the public should or should not vote for particular parties. But there is a second issue. The second issue is this: the bill does not alter the formula for the appropriation to fund election programmes and advertisements between the various qualifying parties. Nevertheless the Government has announced an increase in the total provision of $750000 to a total of $3.6 million. What will that mean? What that will actually mean is this: National will get an even greater share of the total than before and the smaller parties like New Zealand First will get even less—so you would not be surprised that the National Government is very enthusiastic about the bill because it is thoroughly for its benefit and not at all for the benefit of smaller parties like New Zealand First is currently.Before the bill was introduced the Minister did ask other parties for their views. I wrote to the Minister and said that we would not support it unless the criteria for the allocations between the various parties were reviewed but I did not even get a reply to that and that was not agreed to. So we can only suppose that the National Government wants to expand its funding gap with other parties not only by keeping the criteria as they were before but also by adding a further $750000 knowing that the National Party will in fact get the lion's share of that. That is what this bill is really about. The criteria for allocation between the political parties are in fact just as outdated as the provision claimed for opening and closing addresses as amended by this bill.The Electoral Commission is responsible for deciding how the money is to be allocated to parties and this bill re-enacts the existing provisions with no change—unfortunately. Currently the Electoral Commission must allocate to eligible parties in accordance with a thoroughly outdated statutory set of criteria and I am going to go through those. They are these: (a) the number of persons who voted at the preceding general election"—no problem with that; "(b) the number of persons who voted at any by-election held since the preceding general election"—I will have something to say about that in a moment; "(c) the number of members of Parliament a political party had immediately before the end of the last Parliament"—no issues with that at all that is quite sensible; "(d) any relationships that exist between one political party and another"—for some inexplicable reason; "(e) any other indications of public support for a political party such as the results of opinion polls"—for goodness' sake; "(f) the need to provide a fair opportunity for each registered political party to convey its policies to the public [through] broadcasting"—and that is fair enough.Some of those criteria desperately need to be changed because they are inherently unfair. They are archaic and not a good fit for an MMP Parliament. They are complex uncertain and most of all they give a massive advantage to the bigger parties and significantly disadvantage smaller parties. For example in 2014 the National Party was allocated $1530622. Labour was allocated $919829. The Greens were allocated $401380. New Zealand First was allocated only $200690. Even the tiny Māori Party got $100345 while the one-member ACT Party still got an incredible $76930. How can anyone claim that there is any fairness in that?Criterion (b) "persons who voted at any by-election" should not be taken into account at all. By-elections are poor indicators of what will happen at a future general election. By-elections are fought in an array of different circumstances and often years ahead of the following general election. It is a completely irrelevant consideration.Criterion (d) "relationships that exist between one political party and another"—what on earth has that got to do with it? What has it got to do with it that there is some kind of strange agreement between Labour and the Greens? What has that got to do with funding?Chris Bishop: No it's about the Alliance—it's about the Alliance.DENIS O'ROURKE: Why should that be taken into account? It simply does not make any more sense than the nonsense talked by that member over there.Criterion (e) "any other indications of public support … such as the results of opinion polls"—well just look at the record of opinion polls in New Zealand that constantly put New Zealand First at small level of support which is then blown away by the reality of the following general election. If you want any further evidence of that just look at what happened recently with Brexit. Look at what happened recently with the election of Trump as President and what the opinion polls said there. Opinion polls are utter rubbish and should never be taken into account for the allocation of public moneys for any purpose whatsoever.The public needs to understand what is really happening here. What is really happening here is that the National Party is trying to get a bit more money for itself and does not give a damn that small parties will suffer at the other end of the spectrum. That is neither fair nor appropriate and I will tell you this: the people of New Zealand are beginning to wake up to these facts and that will be another nail in National's coffin and that is a good thing."