Tremain Chris: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Tremain Chris: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13581] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I rise to debate new Part 2B “Indexation of amounts” an amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 166 as presented to the Committee by Chris Finlayson. He has presented a number of amendments to the Committee tonight all relevant all to the point and all important to this wider debate. I congratulate Mr Finlayson on that particular effort which has been fantastic. 
I focus on the CPI and its importance to the relevant thresholds across all the different spends that this bill is proposing. The two thresholds are the $20000 threshold available to candidates and secondly the $120000 threshold available to third parties. Both of these thresholds are addressed by the amendment put forward by Chris Finlayson tonight so I will pay specific attention to it. 
The CPI has a huge impact on these thresholds. Let us go back to 1993 when the threshold for a candidate was $20000. The threshold is no different today but using the CPI to inflate the value of $20000 to today’s dollars it is $27000. So a candidate in the election in 2008 using the CPI as proposed by Chris Finlayson would be looking at a spend of $27000. That is a significant difference in the ability of candidates to get their message across so it is very important that that issue is addressed. 
To show what an important impact the CPI can have I use a different example the Buy Kiwi Made campaign which is being run by the Government and which happens to have a threshold that is significantly higher than this one. The spend on that campaign is not $20000 but $6.3 million. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Good or bad? 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: It is a good spend. But let us look at the awareness threshold of consumers when that campaign came in: 27 percent of consumers understood the campaign. We spent $6.3 million to get to an awareness level of 39 percent of consumers. The point I am making is that we have had a huge level of spending—$6.3 million—to get a message across and the level of awareness has hardly increased. 
How could we get an awareness message across to a wider audience on $20000? If the threshold is not measured against the CPI over a period of time that would reduce our ability to effectively communicate a message to our audience. It is simple marketing. A candidate is out there trying to create awareness. Over time if the level of the threshold whether it is $120000 or $20000 is not measured against the CPI then that candidate is unable to communicate the same message at the same level that he or she would have otherwise been able to communicate. This is an important part of this amendment. This amendment has been justly brought forward by Chris Finlayson and it is one that we should pay attention to. 
Another key point is that the CPI threshold level is exacerbated by the extension of the electoral period to 1 January. Previously the threshold of $20000 could be used over a 3-month period which worked out at about $8300 per month. If we extend it to a 9-month period then we are down to about a $2000 spend per month. If we bring the CPI into that remembering that our $20000 is about $13993 in 1993 dollars then our average spend without the CPI inflation adjustment is just reduced and reduced so getting a campaign message across to a wider audience becomes increasingly difficult. That is totally unfair and that is why I support Chris Finlayson’s amendment to insert new Part 2B “Indexation of amounts”. 
A couple of key arguments have to be taken on board. If we do not increase the limits by making adjustments in accordance with the CPI then our $20000 spend in 1993 which should now be worth $27000 is not worth that amount. We are nowhere near spending $27000 next election year are we? We are nowhere near it. We are still at a level of $20000. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.