Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First who support this Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) in dealing with this most serious of issues the potential for foreign influence in funding New Zealand election campaigns. This is our democracy. New Zealanders should decide New Zealand elections and there should be no room at all for outside interference for it is us and only us that have skin in the game.The only outrage that I have with this process so far is the fact that there is any pushback at all in the sense that foreign influence in our democracy has any place at all—Chris Penk: How's your foundation looking?MARK PATTERSON: Well I would remind you Mr Penk that there is only one party in this Parliament in front of the Serious Fraud Office for—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!MARK PATTERSON: —election irregularities and it is the National Party.So this is an evolving issue. We are seeing this all around the world. In Australia at the moment there are some serious allegations. We know that in the last United States elections there were some very serious implications there and Russian interference potentially in that election campaign. We are seeing this evolving around the world and it is of great concern. We have heard some very serious allegations in our own democracy from Professor Anne-Marie Brady of Canterbury University who has come up anecdotally over some standover tactics because she has stood up to try to expose some of the underlying influences that are potentially within our democracy. I commend her for everything that she is doing to expose some of those influences because they have no place in New Zealand's democracy.In terms of the urgency it is important that we get this through in good time. There is an election coming up. We have had a Justice Committee process that started in July of 2018. The wheels the gears of that have ground very very slowly. I'm not on that committee to comment on why that is but it does seem to be taking an extraordinary amount of time. So we need to get this lowest of the low-hanging fruit this absolute no-brainer of taking foreign funding out of our electoral process and get that under way as soon as possible.Minister Little outlined why that was. He has implored the Justice Committee to bring that report back so we can go through this process in another way but that has not happened and he has taken action and New Zealand First will support that. Of course this bill does provide some certainty in that. You know the election candidates are being announced now; they'll be out fundraising. They will now know that there will be a $50 limit. That's a de minimis amount that allows for things like raffle tickets or small gifts or donations. That is below any threshold that could imply any sort of influence so we do support that. It does put the onus on party secretaries or general secretaries to be more accountable to the Electoral Commission and it squarely outlines that line of command and responsibility.Of course the process that the Justice Committee is going through is very very important. It will look at wider reform. It will look at the local government situation that has been raised over the aisle. It will look at things like hacking. It will look at social media and influencing and disinformation that is becoming so prevalent through that forum. That is exacerbated by the breakdown of our traditional media as it struggles to compete for funding within this new paradigm.So we note that the Electoral Act 1993 that this bill amends actually goes back to the 1956 Act. The MMP was essentially bolted on to that 1993 Act so it's well out of its time in terms of how the modern world works. It is well past time that we had a root-and-branch overhaul and this as I say is the lowest of the low-hanging fruit this foreign donations part of that reform process. New Zealand First has absolutely no reservations at all in bringing in measures that protect New Zealand democracy for New Zealanders and New Zealanders only. So New Zealand First will be supporting this bill.