Penk Chris; Rurawhe AdrianCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Mr Speaker. Electoral Amendment Bill" it says and in brackets after that it says "(No 2)". I presume that's because it's the second such-named bill that we have on the Order Paper and not because that would be a description of the process around introducing this legislation but No. 2 none the less it is. I think it's worthwhile distinguishing between the process and the substance of this bill. There will be much said about this today no doubt and I say "today" in inverted commas—if the Hansard people would indulge me in that way—because today will be not only the calendar day that is today but also tomorrow will be today and that's because urgency as set by this House means that the legal fiction of Parliament is that actually tomorrow will be a continuation of today's business. We'll be rushing through today in Parliament terms this entire bill from start to finish from go to whoa and that is an extraordinary thing. It's an extraordinary thing to see acknowledged so bluntly that this place does not represent the real world when we think about the fact that we're going to be considering this bill in urgency in the parliamentary sense of that word but there is clearly no urgency about it in any real-world meaning of that phrase. Just in relation to that I'd just note that the legislation isn't going to become effective until next year so if there were any argument about needing to rush through something to avoid a flood of foreign donations in the time that it takes Parliament to consider a short process—perhaps instead of a week or two it may be a very truncated select committee process—well that in fact is not needed. So we can discard that possible objection very readily. Staying on the process before I move to the substance—so the shonky process before we get to the reasonable substance—it's extraordinary to me that Green and Labour members have supported the urgency motion and indeed have proposed it in the case of Labour members via the Leader of the House because I haven't been around very long but I do remember before the time that I came into this place those parties' members would routinely be outraged as the use of urgency for some relatively meritorious situations I'd have to say. Certainly in the case of a piece of legislation the ink of which is still drying in my hand it having been introduced only as recently as 11 o'clock this morning or so it seems absolutely extraordinary that we should be in this position of having to consider and give consideration to it at first second and third reading with a committee stage thrown in for good measure. The process and the substance of the bill in a way are two different matters as I've alluded to but they do actually connect at the point where we have to observe if we're a responsible legislature that the likelihood of cock-ups in the substance increases with the poor process essentially. So the likelihood of shortfalls anomalies and unintended consequences in the legislation increases in inverse proportion to the amount of time that we spend on it. Obviously within reason it's helpful to spend more time not less on a matter that is significant and if the other side of the House is correct in saying that this is a very significant bill—and to some extent they're right; the issues are significant—then surely it behoves them to acknowledge the importance of having a reasonable process where we give members of the public as well as members of this House the opportunity to have their say on its various provisions. It's also not clear why we're doing one aspect of electoral law with such a rush—literally so urgently—when other aspects are not only not raised in the legislation but presumably will be considered at a more measured and reasonable pace. So the anomaly there in terms of having a piecemeal approach where the various different moving parts are moving at different speeds takes some getting one's head around. Let's turn though from the process to the substance and it's worth acknowledging—as my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith has done so—that there are some worthwhile aspects to this. National is not averse to tightening the law around foreign donations. Indeed as he mentioned it was something that he was on the public record regarding earlier in this year and in fact that's something that we support as a matter of principle. Without breaching the privilege of the select committee proceedings in the Justice Committee I can say that that's a matter which we've been carefully considering the way ahead along with Government members and we'll have some positive and constructive things to say about that in due course. I suppose it's worth adding the caveat again as to process that we'll do our best as part of that process to the extent that we're not undermined by the unilateral dropping of legislation as we've seen today. Let's think then about what the bill actually does. By its own statement under the general policy statement "The Bill makes several changes to the Electoral Act 1993 to send a clear signal that only those who are part of New Zealand's democracy [etc.] should participate in our electoral system." Well that's fine as far as it goes and it's good as far as is goes actually but we should examine that reasonably clearly in the context of a clear signal that the bill says it's going to send. We need to do more in this place than merely send clear signals. We need to have hard and fast rules that actually have the intended effect. I'll get on to some of the detail of that as best I can within the current allotted time but if not then I'll have other opportunities later today—multiple opportunities in fact considering we are rushing this thing with such indecent haste.But for now I will echo the words of my colleague Dr Smith in relation to what's being advertised as a ban on donations. Well if what we have is a ban on donations under this bill then we already have a ban of donations because all that is actually happening is that the threshold is simply being shifted from the current $1500 down to $50. It's a significant shift to be fair but the nature of the thing is the same in either case. So either they are already banned and we're re-banning at a different level or it's not a ban at all; it's just simply allowance being moved. So either way it sort of seems a bit disingenuous for the bill to be sort of characterising its own operation in that way.Another matter of substance is in relation to the fact that the bill doesn't apply to local elections only to parliamentary elections. So again without getting ahead of the select committee process it does seem slightly anomalous. In fact I could observe anyway without having any sort of knowledge or involvement in that select committee process that it seems rather strange not to take the opportunity to amend local government legislation as well in the same way. And I don't know—I genuinely don't know. It's hard to make a guess really what the Minister's going to come up with next. It might be that there is the equivalent of this about to drop. Maybe we'll get that at 11 o'clock next Tuesday—a surprise in amongst the Christmas cards. But in any case it's not something that's being done or even attempted here. Again it's a piecemeal approach that we're seeing from the Minister and the Government in this regard.The wording of the bill is just really interesting and no doubt we'll get into the substance of that—the real detail of that—in the committee stage later this evening and tomorrow morning which will still be today as I've explained in the strange kind of parliamentary way. One of the key phrases that jumped out to me in the short time that I've had to consider the bill is the phrase "all reasonable steps". That's the test of action that must be taken by a party secretary or a candidate in determining whether a donation is legitimate essentially. The Minister of Justice has done an extraordinary thing in outlining what he considers to be the case when it comes to considering what is a reasonable step. He said "Well that relates to the amount of money and you know you could make an argument along the lines of proportionality." Fine. But he actually went so far as to name a specific donor to another party—my party in fact—and actually said that he would be directing his officials or rather the Electoral Commission I suppose to consider more carefully than other cases whether or not it had breached the law. That's an extraordinary thing for a Minister of the Crown to do at least one who is serious about maintaining separation of powers and not treading on the toes of those who have a quasi-judicial function. So that was very disappointing to hear said aloud in this place.The final comment that I'll make within my allotted time is just around the onus about how certain one has to be about whether a donation is permissible or not. It's a pretty weak threshold but nevertheless there's enough in here that we can indicate we'll support throughout the day's proceedings albeit that we're pretty outraged as to process. It's utterly inexplicable—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."