Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
Electoral Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17249] 
Electoral Matters Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 Amendments to Electoral Act 1993 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 At 7 minutes to 5 this Tuesday evening this Parliament is about to debate the most self-serving electoral manipulation that I have seen in 14 years of Parliament. The Minister is casting himself as the Huey Long of New Zealand politics who wants to give to himself the power to regulate the colour style shape and design of every other party’s electoral signage in this country and—what about this—it may only be used for the purposes of ensuring it does not endanger the safety of road users. Well what we have learnt from the Government’s quota ticketing policy is that it is the behest of the Government that counts the most rather than road safety. 
What is wrong with Supplementary Order Paper 310 is that it not only cuts across the Government’s much-vaunted partnership with local government by removing all discretion of local authorities relating to the erection of election hoardings it now gives the power to a Government Minister to make recommendations to the Governor-General which she will rubber stamp that will allow the Government to decide the design layout shape and colour of electoral hoardings. In no other part of the Electoral Act does the Government have the power to regulate the activities of its political opponents but that is what will happen with new clauses 7A and 7B. It is a self-serving electoral manipulation that opens up our electoral law to the sort of Louisiana style of politics that brings democracy into disrepute. 
I tell the Minister that it is anti-democratic for a partisan Minister to set the rules for people’s election hoardings. Regardless of this false caveat of not affecting the traffic this Government is trying to give itself a power that could be used against its political opponents. Blue is the sign of preference for Transit advisories in many parts of the country. When the Minister travels into his electorate he will see significant numbers of— 
Simon Power 
: That would be a first. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It would be a first for that Minister and I have to tell members that Craig Foss has probably knocked on another couple of hundred doors in Hastings today. This Minister wants to give himself a power that no other party has ever sought in this Parliament and that is to regulate the activities of its opponents. Can members point to one section of the Electoral Act where Ministers can regulate the activities of their opponents in a way that can benefit the Labour Party? There is not one section. 
The National Party will also be using this debate to point out that Harry Duynhoven would have been out of this Parliament had this new section prevailed when he applied for a Dutch passport. Remember that? The Prime Minister said it was only a technicality. This bill would still see Harry Duynhoven out on his ear if the Speaker were bold enough to make that decision because it would be the Speaker’s choice to make. The bill states that a member of Parliament would be out on his or her ear but there is an exception if he or she renewed a passport or travel document. Mr Duynhoven did not renew his passport; he had had it taken away from him. He applied for a passport while he was a member of Parliament. Even though the Prime Minister tried to minimise it by saying: “Oh it is only a technicality.” the fact is that even the Government has admitted that what Harry Duynhoven did was an offence and it was this Parliament and this Prime Minister who let him stay in this Parliament. This bill would not fix that. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I suggest that the member Tony Ryall read the report from the Justice and Electoral Committee on this bill. 
Rod Donald 
: It was unanimous. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: It was unanimous—absolutely unanimous. It was unanimous because there was no dissenting opinion in it. The National Party was represented on the committee by none other than two members. Let me refer Tony Ryall to the fact that Clem Simich and Richard Worth were on that select committee— 
Darren Hughes 
: Dr Richard Worth! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Dr Richard Worth. What did the select committee say unanimously to this Parliament? Let me read the select committee report to the member Tony Ryall so that he can hear it probably for the first time and perhaps begin to comprehend it: “We are concerned that variation in local authority rules can unnecessarily impinge on free political speech and add to the costs of advertising.” That is what the National Party signed up to; that is what the report stated unanimously. [ 
Interruption 
] The select committee then went on to state and Wayne Mapp should listen to this as he will learn something maybe for the first time: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines for hoardings at the Committee of the Whole House stage (if his discussions with the Society of Local Government Managers have not had satisfactory resolution by that time).” The select committee carried on to state unanimously: “We propose that minimum levels could be set where appropriate for size content and display period.” and colour. I just want to say to that that is the recommendation from the select committee. 
I have taken the select committee at its word—unanimously encouraged by the National Party—and done exactly that. That is what Mr Ryall has conveniently overlooked—as will Dr Nick Smith because he is unbelievable. Not even the High Court in New Zealand could believe Dr Nick Smith. It found him to be unbelievable so no one else will find him to be believable. Having done that we went through the law and we saw—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I know what the member is going to say— 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: That member accused me of being gutless. I resent that bitterly. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I will rule on that because I heard the comment myself. The member knows he cannot imply that a member lacks courage. I ask the member to withdraw. He is a longstanding member. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Having endured the Minister’s outrage over a comment made by a colleague on the Opposition side of the Chamber I waited for you to bring the Minister to order firstly over his comments regarding Dr Nick Smith and secondly over the fact that those comments were well outside the scope of Part 1. I noted that you started to reign in the Minister but then refrained from doing so. If we on the Opposition side have to endure points of order from Minister Barker then I ask that you apply the same standards to the issues raised by him and leap in as appropriate to bring him to heel when he makes inappropriate remarks during a very tightly worded part of the bill—in particular when he hurls innuendo at a colleague on the Opposition side of the Chamber. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Under Speakers’ ruling 43/3 a member is entitled to reply to comments made by the previous speaker. However I take on board what the member has said. This is a rather robust debate and relevance is something that the Chair takes into account. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Having been asked unanimously by the select committee including the National Party members on it—there is no minority report in here; I have read the report thoroughly—I came back with Supplementary Order Paper 310 in my name to do exactly that. 
There are several safeguards on that Supplementary Order Paper. Firstly before a regulation goes as a recommendation to the Governor-General there has to be agreement by at least half of the parties in Parliament. The second caveat on it is that at least 75 percent of all members of the House have to be represented. Why are we trying to do this? We are trying to set a standard time of 2 months and a standard hoarding size which has never been applicable before and to remove from some of the local authorities the ability to put restrictions on what can be on political hoardings. If we are to remove the restrictions that others may have then we have to state what will be on them so we are doing it in the positive way. That in my estimation is a temporary fix because the election is coming up very shortly—[ 
Interruption 
] Some time between now and then—and I do not have another electoral matters bill that can go through the House before the next election. If one were to be introduced tomorrow and referred to a select committee it would sit waiting in that committee for at least 6 months and it simply would not be possible to give effect to it before the election. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Fix it. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: We are going to fix it now. 
Secondly I would say that once we have gone through the election we will have a review of the Electoral Act and the regulations will I suggest become law at the following election. So after the next election we can regularise this matter in a more structured way in primary legislation. I am not the happiest person at having to do it by regulation but there is another safeguard—a safeguard that is currently lounging on the Opposition benches in the form of the chair of the Regulations Review Committee. If the Government is to put in vogue regulations then I would expect that when the matter goes to the Regulations Review Committee Mr Worth’s eagle eye will spot anything that is offensive to the National Party and bring it back to the House immediately. 
Darren Hughes 
: Why doesn’t Nick Smith have confidence in Richard Worth? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The junior Government whip has a very good question. It seems to me that the National Party does not have confidence in Mr Worth being able to scrutinise this legislation. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Don’t be stupid! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: If that member thinks I am dumb then he is unbelievable. It is all right to be accused of being dumb but I would hate to be accused of being unbelievable—or to be found to be unbelievable. 
This measure is something that has been negotiated with all the other parties in this House and I am very sorry we could not negotiate it with National because it was found to be untrustworthy. I handed a very preliminary draft to Mr Worth in confidence. Within minutes the deputy leader of the National Party Mr Gerry Brownlee attempted to table it in the House. It was given and accepted on the basis of confidence— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Stop cheating. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: There was no question about it. I say to that member that if something is accepted on the basis of confidence and it is found that that confidence cannot be respected then it should be handed back. The confidence should not be betrayed. I make the point to the member that there are moral issues involved here. One is integrity—personal integrity. When one accepts something in confidence one accepts that. [ 
Interruption 
] The member Nick Smith keeps barking out that I would not know what integrity is. He is the member who went before the High Court against someone else and the High Court did not believe him. The High Court found Dr Nick Smith to be unbelievable. The National Party has put itself out on a limb because it was found to be untrustworthy. People who give things in confidence expect things to be dealt with in confidence. I say to each of the other parties here in the Chamber that we can negotiate and sort out these issues but the National Party has wound up on a limb on this particular issue because it was found to be untrustworthy. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want Parliament to know exactly what this Associate Minister of Justice is asking us to do. In the most sensitive area of law electoral law the Government is going to cheat on the rules and late in the process without any public process introduce a sneaky dirty Supplementary Order Paper to change one of the most important parts of election campaigning—that is election hoardings. I tell Mr Barker that when he abuses parliamentary process and runs around sneakily with a Supplementary Order Paper that most New Zealanders would find offensive I make no apology at all for letting the public know the way in which this Labour Party Government will pull off an electoral rort. 
The Government is saying here that there is one set of rules for everybody else when it comes to the Resource Management Act and signage but that when it comes to Parliament we will write the rules to suit ourselves. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Franks that if a local council wants to put up a hoarding to advertise a school gala then it has to comply with the Resource Management Act. That will not be the case if one is a political candidate. Why do we want to have special rules just for ourselves? More important why is Mr Barker not prepared to subject his Supplementary Order Paper 310 to a public submission process? This Supplementary Order Paper says that when it comes to MPs— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: You asked for it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well let us just deal with that. Let me read what the Justice and Electoral Committee report states: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines …”. Are these guidelines? No they are new law. This is special law—not guidelines for local authorities. The Supplementary Order Paper states that all citizens in New Zealand have to comply with the Resource Management Act except if they are parliamentary candidates. If the Minister is genuine in representing this measure as being part of special provisions for elections then why does it not apply to local elections? We have just had elections for district health boards and for councils. Why does it not apply to them? 
Darren Hughes 
: It’s for political parties in general elections. They cover the whole country. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Darren Hughes the “Albert Einstein” of the Labour Party says it is because local council candidates stand for only one district where there are rules. Well that is not so in the case of the Wellington Regional Council or the Auckland Regional Council where a candidate may be standing in seven or eight districts. Neither is it the case if one is standing for a district health board. That argument does not stand up. 
The reason that Rick Barker is passing this special set of rules now without any select committee process is that he wants to rig the election for the Labour Party. Let us see how far it goes. Why is it necessary to regulate the colour of election hoardings? Is there anything in the committee’s recommendations on guidelines that says it is proper for Mr Rick Barker and his 19 Cabinet colleagues to regulate the colour of election hoardings? Mr Barker is saying that it would be quite permissible under the Supplementary Order Paper for Cabinet to decide that we could have red election hoardings only. That would be the sort of dirty trick that Rick Barker would try to pull off. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Read the Supplementary Order Paper! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I have read the Supplementary Order Paper. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There is a longstanding convention and I would have expected you to step in and make the point by now that the Minister in the chair does not object because of his advantage with regard to the microphone. He has done it at least eight times. When will you bring the Committee to order? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I was aware of that and if the member had observed what I was doing he would have seen that I had my finger on the mike so that the Minister could not be heard. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: So that is a new Standing Order? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I am just saying that I had my finger on the button. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Regardless of whether you have the finger on the button that controls the microphone that is placed in front of the Minister Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings remain. In fact you have ruled from that Chair on a number of occasions in recent weeks that the Minister sitting to the right of you may not interject while a member is on his or her feet. Whether those interjections are amplified is not the point; the point is that the Minister sits in a position of advantage and it is entirely improper for that Minister to take advantage of that positioning to interject on members who have the call. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has made his point. I did call the Minister to order and maybe I should have done so earlier. The member is correct. It is a convention that Ministers do not take advantage of a live microphone. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I continue with the absolute cheat going on in Parliament in respect of this Supplementary Order Paper and the regulation of election hoardings. The Minister says it is all hunky-dory because the Regulations Review Committee can review the regulations that allow him to tell us that we all have to have red election hoardings. Well let us be real. What is the average time it takes the Regulations Review Committee to deal with such a complaint? The average period of time is 18 months which would be well after the fact that he had cheated himself into winning another election. It is a very poor check. It would be outrageous for Parliament to pass law and say that even if it is bad law it is OK because the Regulations Review Committee can review it. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I thank the Minister in the chair Rick Barker for making Supplementary Order Paper 310 available to New Zealand First about 6 weeks ago or even more and for the discussions that have taken place since that time on the issue. There was a change to that Supplementary Order Paper and I appreciate the discussions that took place on that as well. 
There has already been public debate on the issue of course and that is referred to in the report back of the Justice and Electoral Committee. The last sentence of the commentary on the bill with regard to the proposal we are now considering states: “We note this proposal corresponds with a recommendation in our Inquiry into the 2002 General Election report; namely that: ‘Amendments to electoral legislation for the 2005 General Election include national guidelines on hoardings.’” That was a public review. It was held by the Justice and Electoral Committee. It went on interminably and everyone had his or her say. That committee reported back unanimously to the House—and I am referring to a recommendation in the 2002 general election report—that it wanted national guidelines on hoardings. That is what the Minister has done. New Zealand First would have been the first to object to any cheating that might have taken place. I think that claim from the previous National Party speaker was totally uncalled for. This discussion took place absolutely openly. 
I think all of us know that when we have general elections different councils have different rules. If one is in say the Helensville electorate one has only the Rodney District Council the Waitakere City Council and the North Shore City Council to cope with—only three councils. But invariably one has three different rules. Signs may be up to 3 feet high or must be below 3 metres or must be below 2 metres. There are rules about the places to put signs. There are all sorts of rules from different councils. It is very confusing. All one is trying to do is hold a general election—the most important thing that the country could ever want—and one is stuck with all these administrative regulations that pour out from councils which seem to have people whose job is to makes one’s life as difficult as possible. 
All that the National Party spokesperson Dr Smith is doing is supporting these councils having all these regulations. New Zealand First wants to see a reduction in regulations. This Minister is really being hammered to reduce the number of regulations. Here is a bill that makes things simpler for general elections and the National Party is opposing it and saying it wants things to remain as they are or be even more difficult. I would have thought that the Nelson National Party executive would be absolutely delighted to have this legislation because it would have to have only one sign. 
This measure cannot be done secretly because it has to go back to the political parties for them to discuss as the Minister has indicated—half the parties in the House or 75 percent of the members of the House. The National Party these days is not big enough to stop it on its own—of course maybe that is what is upsetting the member and from the way things are going it will not get any better! That means that no political party other than the Labour Party could object to it on its own. Other parties would have to get together and lodge an objection. New Zealand First is quite happy to work along those guidelines. Here in the Committee today for example only one party is objecting to this legislation and that is the National Party. All the other parties want to see simplification of how one runs an election and that is all that this particular Supplementary Order Paper does. 
I was quite happy with the first suggestion and just as happy with the second suggestion which was not quite as good. But it has all been out in the open. There has been no hiding of anything. Some bureaucrat somewhere perhaps in Nelson has got in touch with the local member Dr Smith and he has said that he will support that local bureaucrat in Nelson. Well I just say that Parliament should make the decisions as to how we run parliamentary elections. There have been two reports from the Justice and Electoral Committee supporting this view. Both were unanimous. I am sure that Mr Worth will ably look at this matter in the Regulations Review Committee should it come up. I am also a member of the Regulations Review Committee and we can— 
Richard Worth 
: A hard-working committee. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is a hard-working committee that looks at every regulation that is passed in this country and does more per minute in terms of scrutinising the law than any other committee in the country. It is a very hard-working diligent and highly qualified select committee—if we all say so ourselves—ably led by Mr Worth. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party will certainly support the proposal restricting the powers of local bodies. I think the National Party is probably on its own on this amendment. I have looked hard at it and the ACT party has looked hard at it. We cannot understand National’s position quite frankly. We do not want to see local body fiefdoms with all the irregular forms that would come out of that. I think the 75 percent test that is proposed here is appropriate and the ACT party will be supporting it. 
What is a curious thing though in this bill is the reinstatement of the pre-Duynhoven situation. What we really have in this bill is a restating of what the law said prior to the extraordinary accommodation that this Labour Government did when it used its majority to subvert all principles of electoral law to accommodate Mr Duynhoven. The proposal here states that if a person does swear allegiance to a foreign power or head of State while in office then that does create a vacancy. 
And it should. Indeed Mr Duynhoven should have resigned. There should have been a by-election. I believe he would have won it and we would have wished him well in that. But as a matter of principle that is what should have happened. It was a very bad day in this House particularly from a procedural point of view when we saw people sitting on their hands delaying an action that should have been triggered automatically to declare a vacancy. That did not occur and that was very bad. It was bad for Parliament and bad from a constitutional point of principle. The ACT party just flags that. It is very interesting that the law having being changed to accommodate Mr Duynhoven it is now being changed back to what existed prior to that accommodation. That will be seen by many people to be the duplicitous act that it was. It was a very bad day in our history when that occurred. 
The ACT party is also quite concerned about the broadcasting aspect. We have long opposed the election-broadcasting provisions. We believe that they are unnecessarily restrictive and punitive. It is not really the business of the State to prescribe them to the extent that it has. Since 1996 when ACT was first in Parliament we have continued to oppose those provisions and we certainly oppose them as they stand in this bill. 
We also note that Electoral Commission membership is still done under the old first-past-the-post formula. I see that “Captain Wayne Mapp” is acknowledging that point and good on him. The two main parties are using the tyranny of their majority to impose a situation that is reflective of a first-past-the-post Parliament. All other parties whether it be New Zealand First ACT the Greens the Maori Party or whatever should have an independent voice—whether it is under a collective umbrella or whatever—on the Electoral Commission membership. It is a very bad reflection on the bill that in this closing month of 2004 the Labour Party and the National Party are using the tyranny of their majority to continue what is clearly a first-past-the-post Parliament arrangement. It is a cosy little arrangement between the clubs. 
No minor party in Parliament can really rely upon those two major parties to represent its interests—not in the cold fire of an election. We know that is unreal; it just does not happen. Even if a party might be a potential coalition partner— 
Richard Worth 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This debate is on Part 1 not Part 2 and for the last substantive period the member has been talking about Part 2. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Speaking to the point of order I point out that this is included in Part 1. The member who raised the point of order is mistaken. To be precise it is included in new clause 4A. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that and he can continue. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: It seems that member is very confused about this point but perhaps he will have a chance to address it later on. I was talking about the tyranny of the majority—of the two main parties in this Parliament the Labour Party and the National Party. It is a disgrace that they have used that tyranny in an electoral sense to reserve their dominance total say and monopoly of the Electoral Commission membership. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I have found this a particularly interesting debate over the period since June last year when it first began or at least it first began for me and my family in June last year. I have been aware that on the last few Sunday nights an excellent historical drama set in 1660s England about the reign of Charles II has been shown on television. At the conclusion of that drama was a little clip on what followed which was that the Scottish King James II— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: He wasn’t Scottish he was French. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Sorry I am corrected. He was a French king. My history is not great. I can tell members the history of motoring things with great clarity but I am not too good on the history of kings and queens. However the next bit I know very well which was that Prince William of Orange became the next king of England. Prince William of Orange became King William III the husband of Queen Mary. Why is that important to our Parliament? Every day that we all take part in this Parliament most of us walk past a large painting in the lobby entitled “The Peaceful End of the Glorious Revolution” which was of course that which installed King William III and Queen Mary. It was the signing of the Bill of Rights by that Dutch Protestant King of England King William III on 16 December 1689. 
Why is that important for us? That particular Act was pretty important for a whole bunch of reasons. However an Act that followed which was much more important to this debate was the Act of Settlement 1701. That Act again passed by King William III was to ensure that the Catholic faith never ever in the future got anywhere near being enthroned in England as a king or queen of England and to this day that is how it has been. Why is that important to us? It is important to me. My good fortune is that I am the only New Plymouth MP ever in the 150-year history of that seat to actually have been born in New Plymouth. That is an interesting fact. What is even more interesting and I only discovered much later is that by another dint of good fortune I also happen to be born Dutch. My father’s arrangements to become a New Zealand citizen had run into some sort of glitch and they were not formalised until 3 weeks after I arrived. I do not think I arrived early. My mother always said that I arrived feet first late and noisy so I guess I have continued in that vein ever since. 
Tony Ryall alleged before that I had broken the law—presumably a deliberate act—by applying for a passport from the Netherlands that led to this entire debate. He then went on to allege that I would have still have broken the law under the new Act because I had my passport from the Netherlands previously removed. All of that is totally wrong. It is factually wrong. I did not do either of those things. If the National Party says something often enough presumably it will believe it. We can understand that but it should not expect the public of New Zealand to fall for that nonsense. It is simply untrue. 
Ken Shirley just alleged that I swore allegiance to a foreign power. That is also wrong and also simply untrue. I did not do either of those things. As I said by dint of good fortune I happened to be born Dutch. I was also born in New Zealand and I happen to be a New Zealander of which I am very proud. When I am travelling overseas I regularly promote the virtues of New Zealand. Long before I was an MP I did that. In addition because I happened to also be born Dutch like many other New Zealanders of my generation whose parents immigrated to this country—incidentally my mother was born in Taranaki and was a New Plymouth person—we had a right that the Dutch Government decided to take away in March 2005. That right was to confirm our Dutch citizenship. It was not to get anything new but to confirm what already existed. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: An act of allegiance? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: No it was not an act of allegiance but simply to confirm that we had been born Dutch citizens as well as New Zealand citizens. Around 30 members of Parliament in this House either hold or are eligible to hold dual citizenship and many of them will have dual passports. It is important to get one’s facts right. I simply did what any other person in my position would do and that was to ensure that my children had a right to Dutch citizenship if it applied. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This bill is a shadow of what it should have been and the Government knows that. This bill should be addressing substantive matters such as State funding of political parties and some of the matters raised by Mr Shirley such as a proper donations disclosure regime so that we could have “look through” laws that expose what the Free Enterprise Trust gets up to in relation to the National Party. Notwithstanding those concerns however the bill does make some progress. One point of progress and a bit of a late running point is the Supplementary Order Paper that I notice 92 members of this Chamber supported. Ironically only the National Party appears to oppose it and I guess that is because its biggest fear is that its support will stay below 25 percent in this Parliament. 
 It is obvious that if National members had any confidence in themselves they would expect to win more than 25 percent of the vote at the next election and therefore would be able to block any regulations that they did not like under the amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper relating to election hoardings. But National members have already given up the chase not only to win the election but also to even get above a quarter of the vote. Quite clearly their concerns are totally unfounded in relation to the hoardings. The rules are very tight and I am pleased that the Minister was willing to accommodate many of our suggestions that we made to make them so particularly the one about the rules having to be in relation to the purposes of traffic safety and for no other reason. It is good to see that some other parties got some clear restrictions in place too. 
There were extensive negotiations with parties over this Supplementary Order Paper and therefore I find it extraordinary that the National Party seems to be on its bike about this one especially when there was a request to standardise hoardings after the inquiry into the 1996 election and that was repeated after the 1999 election and again after the 2002 election. So it is good to see that Labour has finally fixed that problem notwithstanding the fact that National members today do not seem to be singing from the same song sheet as the National members on the select committee. 
It is even better to see that the Government is finally dealing with the bureaucratic problems of the Broadcasting Act and I will come back to that when we get to Part 2. Suffice it to say that it has been a long and sorry saga. 
The other long and sorry saga that this bill fixes is that it confirms that members of Parliament who were born outside New Zealand or who have entitlement by reason of their parents’ birthplace are allowed to become a citizens of their home countries without having to leave our Parliament and that they are entitled to renew a passport of that country without having to leave our Parliament. I think that is very sensible very reasonable very fair and very consistent because as we all know during the debate over “Harry’s law” a previous Parliament amended the law to allow a member to become a dual citizen as a result of marriage without losing his or her seat. So it is entirely consistent that we have now enshrined permanently in this bill the new rules around dual citizenship. 
The only people who should be losing their seats as a result of this legislation are the National and Labour representatives on the Electoral Commission—and they are National and Labour representatives. It is absolute bunkum to claim that they represent the Government parties and the Opposition parties. Those two people are there to represent two parties and two parties only and it was good to see that that point was agreed to at the select committee when I put forward a minority report—or should I say it was good to see that ACT and United Future agreed with me. New Zealand First came back to say it wanted its own seat on the Electoral Commission and never mind the rest of us. 
But the point I want to make is that the potential for abuse from what Dr Smith was going on about is nothing compared with the undue influence that National and Labour representatives have over the allocation of broadcasting funding and broadcasting time during the election campaign which is why I put forward an amendment today and I look forward to the support of all parties in this House to get rid of the National and Labour people on the Electoral Commission. It is totally inconsistent in a modern democracy with more than two parties in this Parliament to have only two of those parties allowed to determine the allocation of election funding and broadcasting time. That should cease. It is ironic that we have an amendment today to stop those two parties being on the commission for the purposes of offences against the Broadcasting Act but they get to dish out the lolly. It is time that that law was changed. It is time that all parties in this Parliament got up to speed and got rid of the offensive provisions in the Electoral Act that give the two-party club extra power. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to devote my time on this occasion to talking about Supplementary Order Paper 310 which contains the new provisions of clause 7A. Those provisions were not directly before the select committee and therefore submitters did not have an opportunity to comment on them at that stage. Notwithstanding the fact that those provisions were not in the original bill they have been signalled in respect of the report of the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Inquiry into the 2002 General Election and in particular the Government’s response to that. I note in that response that the Government said it would discuss this with local authority organisations in particular the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers before recommending any amendments to the Electoral Act. I know that some correspondence took place and that the select committee was aware of that but that it was also aware that not much progress had been made. Then as we got close to reporting back to the House the local government organisations indicated that they were too preoccupied with the local body elections to have done much about it. 
We therefore support the Government’s move to make some provision in the bill for the standardisation of election hoardings. I know that it is an intrusion into local government affairs and into the powers of Transit in terms of the use of highways and jurisdiction over highways and to some it could be seen to be a degree of self-interest. But we are dealing with elections that are on a national basis and whilst it may have been appropriate for different electorates to have different rules during a first-past-the-post regime—because in that case the contests were from electorate to electorate—in the MMP environment where the list vote is a national vote I think it is important that there is some consistency in the use of signage during the election period. Otherwise we could get into a situation where one party was disadvantaged in electorates that it had a strong hold on through different rules in terms of signage. 
Therefore I think it is appropriate that there is some standardisation in this respect for the limited period of time that comes before elections. In particular the select committee recommended in its report that the Government address the issues of signage in three respects: size content and display period. With regard to size this Supplementary Order Paper provides for a limit of 3 square metres and that fits with the standard size 2400 x 1200 or 2.88 square metres that most billboards have adopted. I know from my experience as secretary of a political party that that is a normal size with corflute boards and will therefore accommodate that as a maximum size with the ability obviously to go smaller. 
Secondly the display period is limited to a period of 2 months prior to the election. That is not to override any other regulations that local authorities may have that may extend that period but at least in terms of this Supplementary Order Paper and the consistency of signage and allowance for signage it is restricted to a 2-month period so that the intrusion into normal local authority affairs is not too severe as far as time is concerned. 
The contentious issue really was the content. United Future did have some serious reservations about the idea of the Government by Order in Council determining the design layout shape and colour of signs. One can imagine that a Government might decide that all billboards should be in red or in blue just in order to manipulate the system. However there are very large protections in the Supplementary Order Paper that satisfy us that that abuse will not happen. The first is the fact that the provision for an Order in Council must be limited to matters that would look to the safety of road users. So effectively the Supplementary Order Paper can restrict limitations only to the extent that it might endanger the safety of road users. That is of course a fairly broad statement and it could be interpreted restrictively in ways that did count against a political party and therefore United Future was pleased to see and encouraged the other restriction and that is that parliamentary leaders of at least 50 percent of the parties in Parliament representing 75 percent of members must agree. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 We should not let the Government get away with its explanation of Supplementary Order Paper 310. Just for starters I point out that this Supplementary Order Paper arrived at the National Party caucus this morning. There has been some suggestion that this is a negotiated position and that National has been fully involved in the development of this Supplementary Order Paper. 
Darren Hughes 
: The National Party knew about this weeks ago. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: Not so. This Supplementary Order Paper arrived this morning. There has been no opportunity for consultation and no opportunity to look at what the ramifications of some of these clauses might be. As the Minister—if he is frank enough to acknowledge this—might say there have been significant changes between this Supplementary Order Paper and an earlier draft Supplementary Order Paper that was before Parliament. 
But it is actually much worse than that. I believe that the Minister perhaps unknowingly misled Parliament when he read from the Justice and Electoral Committee’s report on the Electoral Matters Bill. What was said then and what the Minister failed to properly identify were these words about electoral hoardings from all members of the committee: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines for hoardings at the Committee of the whole House stage if his discussions with the society of local government managers have not had satisfactory resolution by that time. We propose that minimum levels”—and I emphasise “minimum levels”—“could be set where appropriate for size content and display period.” 
Now three points immediately emerge from that particular passage. First of all we are talking about guidelines. Second we are talking about minimum levels and third we are talking about three elements: size content and display period. But what do we find in this Supplementary Order Paper? First of all we find that these provisions are not guidelines. They are proposed regulations. Second we can try to see whether minimum levels are referred to in this Supplementary Order Paper—but they are not. There are no minimum levels being contemplated at all. They may be maximum levels. 
Then when we look at the three elements I identified—size content and display period—we find that a significant rewording has occurred. We are now by this particular Supplementary Order Paper to contemplate regulations covering design layout shape and colour—a quite different set of parameters. So it is mischievous for the Minister to contend that in what emerges in this Supplementary Order Paper there is an accurate reflection of what the committee unanimously decided. It is quite wrong for him to assert that in some way there has been an inconsistency of position in what National is saying in respect of this Supplementary Order Paper. 
But there is a further and very significant point—that is it was within the contemplation of those who sat on the select committee that we would be talking about guidelines for hoardings in a more general way than is currently proposed by this bill. But what we are looking at is quite clearly partial treatment of politics and politicians and that should never be the case. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Preferential treatment. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: That is preferential treatment says Dr Mapp behind me and that is quite right. What has been exposed in connection with the signs and hoarding controls—whether they are bylaw controls or controls proposed through district plans—is an inconsistency in council districts. That inconsistency in some cases requires applications to be made by way of non-notified consent. In other cases applications should be made by way of notified consent. It is wrong in principle that politics and politicians should be preferred yet that preferment is what the Minister has set out to do in this case. There has been no opportunity of course for the select committee to look at this Supplementary Order Paper and the thrust of what is proposed I would suggest goes far beyond what should reasonably be contemplated in the short period of time we have in which to consider Part 1 in the Committee stage. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I want to talk about two points. The first arises directly from the speech given by the Hon Harry Duynhoven. I know that Mr Duynhoven earnestly and seriously believes the factual content of everything he says. I understand that that is his belief. The question is however whether it is a correct interpretation of the events and I suggest to Mr Duynhoven that it is not. No one has suggested that Mr Duynhoven committed a crime. It is perfectly legitimate under New Zealand law to apply for the passport of another country if one is entitled to do so; we have a rule of dual citizenship. However the action of doing so was a breach of section 55 of the Electoral Act. That is incontrovertible. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: The action of doing what? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The action of applying for a passport. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I didn’t apply for one. I have never applied for one. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The reality is that that was demonstrated by the fact that this Parliament passed legislation to rectify that very event. Now Mr Duynhoven has said that he did not apply for a passport—“he applied for nationality” may be a better way of putting it perhaps. But he undertook actions that were in breach of the Electoral Act—in short in breach of the very grounds by which one can be present in this place as a member of Parliament. If that had not been the case there would have been no correcting legislation. 
Our problem is not per se with the fact that Mr Duynhoven did that but rather with how the matter was corrected. There were two ways of doing so. The first option—and one I might add that is often undertaken in Australia—is a by-election. One perfects the wrong by going back to the people and seeking a fresh mandate so that the deficiency is not evident any further. Usually it is the case in Australia that when that happens the person is actually elected. The problem that Mr Duynhoven has now is that he is a member of Parliament by virtue of legislation not by virtue of election. Surely that is an awkward and a somewhat embarrassing situation to be in. 
The extraordinary thing is that when the Justice and Electoral Committee examined that whole area of law its members did not change it in such a way that would have enabled Mr Duynhoven’s situation to be legitimate thereafter. Of course that was the proposal by the Government initially—that it would just pass a law to fix up Mr Duynhoven’s situation because after all all the law would be fixed up so that anyone else in that situation would be able to do exactly the same thing. It was just a minor technicality essentially when put like that. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s what she said; she said she would fix it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: What the Government did effectively was to fix Mr Duynhoven because he is now in the invidious position of being the only person who has done an action that firstly required legislation to fix it and secondly still leaves him in an exceptional position in terms of the legislation proposed here. The legislation that is now proposed states that one is not in breach of the law if one renews a passport or travel document. As Mr Duynhoven has said he was not renewing a passport or travel document. He was making an initial application for nationality— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry but I take exception to that. The member knows full well that I said in my speech that that was not the case— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but if he is claiming misrepresentation then I suggest he look up Speaker’s ruling 35/3. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Perhaps I ought to conclude my speech by saying that Mr Duynhoven had a clear choice. He could have gone down the path of legislation with all the bankruptcy that that implies or he could have gone to the people for a fresh mandate. I am sure that on reflection Mr Duynhoven would have preferred the latter course. That is the reality—that on reflection maybe that is what he would have preferred. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 I will pick up on the point that Dr Wayne Mapp made because I think it is pivotal to what this legislation is about. Members may recall that Mr Duynhoven was discovered to have pledged allegiance to another State and to have— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: That also is wrong and incorrect. The member will withdraw it. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Well frankly after Mr Duynhoven applied for a Dutch passport— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Wrong too! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: —and had it presented to him with his photo in the paper that was when this Parliament became aware of the fact. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Wrong too! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Mr Duynhoven says: “Wrong too! Wrong too!”. It sounds as though there was no problem whatsoever. If there was no problem whatsoever why did we have special legislation? As I have said in this Chamber before Mr Duynhoven somehow got himself into a position whereby Parliament had to pass special legislation. That was because he breached a provision of the Electoral Act that states that if one puts oneself under the care and protection of another sovereign one breaches that Act. If members receive a travel document that means they have some sort of allegiance to a foreign power then that is a breach of the Act. The matter was given to the Speaker to consider and he considered and considered it. Then lo and behold while the Speaker was considering it the Government said it would introduce rushed special legislation in order to clarify the breach of the law that was committed by Mr Duynhoven. 
My assessment of what happened is that the Dutch Government removed citizenship from foreign nationals and then decided to reinstitute it. Mr Duynhoven applied for a passport. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Wrong! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: What did he apply for then? 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Nothing except confirmation. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: He applied for confirmation of his passport. What happened then was that that the Prime Minister said that that was a slight technicality. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: You’re a disgrace to Parliament. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I am a disgrace to Parliament? I have never had to have special legislation passed in order to guarantee my place in this Parliament. If Mr Duynhoven enjoyed the support of the people of New Plymouth why did he not go to the people? Why did he not put his mandate and his breach of the Act before the people of New Plymouth? I will tell the Committee why he did not. The Prime Minister was running scared of the people of New Plymouth on the seabed and foreshore issue so she said that the matter was of no consequence. She said the fact that Mr Duynhoven had applied for a passport was of no consequence whatsoever and the Government would pass a law to stop it from breaching the Act. 
This bill has no impact whatsoever on Mr Duynhoven’s breach of the Act because it makes it clear that if a member of Parliament applies for a passport or travel document then that is a breach of the Act. Is that not what the special legislation for Mr Duynhoven validated? It was to validate not only his breach but everybody else's breach of the Act by virtue of renewing or applying for a foreign passport. It is clear that the Prime Minister has admitted with this legislation that the breach that Mr Duynhoven made was untenable. She simply has not changed the rules. If it was just a trivial legal technicality then the Prime Minister would have changed the rules. She has not done so but has in fact confirmed the law in respect of Mr Duynhoven. That means that if Mr Duynhoven breached the law again today in the way that he breached it previously the Speaker would have to declare his seat vacant. I am sure that the Speaker could consider and consider the issue and then we would have more rushed legislation. But the fact is that the Duynhoven breach of the Electoral Act remains as a stain on this Parliament because special legislation had to be passed in order to let that member keep his seat. That is a serious matter. 
DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Rod Donald to clause 4A be agreed to: 
to insert the following new subclause: 
1ASection 8(4) of the principal Act is amended by repealing paragraph (b). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 17 
Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 98 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 310 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to insert new clauses 7A and 7B be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 90 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 25 
New Zealand National 25. 
Amendment agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments to Broadcasting Act 1989 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 This part deals with amendments to the Broadcasting Act. One of the problems with these kinds of rules generally is that they become highly prescriptive. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There was an oversight on my part on the voting before the dinner break. I have not discussed this with the senior Government whip but I seek the leave of the Committee to amend National’s vote from 27 to 25. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. I ask the member whether he refers to the vote on Part 1 as amended being agreed to. 
Simon Power 
: It was for all votes taken from 5 minutes to 6. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I point out for the benefit of listeners that Part 2 is about amendments to the Broadcasting Act. I know I will probably be breaching the Standing Orders but I say to the young people in the gallery tonight that this is an important part of the way that elections are run. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is breaching the Standing Orders. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: This issue is about the way that our country has allowed public funding to help the democratic process. For a long period of time we have allowed free broadcasting to political parties at the time of an election. Typically there is an opening speech a closing speech and then time for advertisements. As soon as we get into that kind of situation of course there is a necessity for detailed rules so that everyone is treated equally. On top of that we now have multiple broadcasters. One of the issues that the Justice and Electoral Committee had to deal with was the fact that not every broadcaster is actually interested. Broadcasters will ask themselves: “Is it relevant enough to our listening audiences for us to broadcast the opening and closing speeches of the leaders of the respective parties?”. I suppose one could say that the public broadcaster acknowledges that responsibility. 
I have to ask some deeper questions. Although National is supporting this part this whole issue invites some profound and fundamental questions. I raise this matter because I was on the relevant select committee between 1999 and 2002. We heard substantial submissions on this kind of issue. One question the select committee asked at that time—and I know its work has informed the current select committee—was: “At what point do we say that this has all become too complicated and that it would be better to allow the parties to take that allocation of what is in effect public funding and spend it as they please?” The free-choice approach would be to say that rather than forcing political parties to have a certain amount of time on radio and television we would give them an allocation—determined on a number of formulae based on representation in the House polling and so forth so as to get some sort of fair formula—and then to leave it to the political parties to determine how they spend it. 
I believe that at some point this Parliament and the relevant select committee will have to seriously address that question. We are locked I guess in a paradigm whereby for television and radio there is a set allocation and a formula-driven approach for each of the parties and that is how it is done. Under the current legislation we have to deal with the fact that there are ad breaks and all that sort of thing and there have to be detailed rules around all that sort of stuff so that no one is disadvantaged or advantaged by that kind of process. At what point do we say that that is no longer workable? 
I know that Mr Franks will remember the submissions made by various submitters between 1999 and 2000—and no doubt much the same submissions were given more recently—that it is becoming increasingly difficult in a more complex broadcasting environment. We are no longer in the situation whereby just Television One TV2 and TV3 are free to air. We have multiple channels. A number of the Sky channels are also free to air. The role of the Internet was hugely important in the American election in particular. It profoundly influenced the outcome of that election. Yet our legislation does not recognise those kinds of things. [ 
Interruption 
] DrudgeReport.com was hugely important. I think it is probably time for a back-to-first-principles review of this area. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I want to respond briefly to a couple of points. Firstly in response to Dr Mapp yes it is fair to say that this bill does not take a back-to-first-principles measure on any of these things. This bill is very modest in what it sets out to do. It sets out to tidy up a number of the technical issues around the broadcasting provisions in the legislation which have been there for quite some time and have been reported on by select committees after the last 3 general elections. By putting this bill through I was simply trying to tidy that up. I accept the point Dr Mapp made that we need to have a more general look at the Electoral Act at some point in the future. Hopefully we will get some agreement on how we will do that and how soon. There are not only broadcasting issues but a range of other issues as well that the select committee has discussed from time to time. I believe it is timely to come back and have a broader look at electoral matters and I would be keen to see the select committee do that. 
The second issue I raise is the amendment put forward by Murray Smith to clause 18. I have been asked by Mr Smith to have a close look at it and I have done so. I have consulted my officials. Clause 18 amends the amount of time from 30 days to 50 days. It seems that the Justice and Electoral Committee has considered the issues raised by the amendment quite seriously and thoroughly and has extended the time in which bills can be paid from 30 days to 50 days. As the select committee has come back with a unanimous view on that and that is its recommendation I am reluctant to make any changes. I am persuaded by the select committee’s position. Fifty days seems to me to be fine. 
Dail Jones 
: Working days? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Working days. It is a long time and I am happy to stay with that. The last thing I will add is again in response to Mr Mapp. I accept that this is a modest bill and that we need to make some more fundamental changes later on. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Before I call the next speaker I will inform the Committee of the altered results for the votes on Part 1. The result for the vote on the closure motion is now Ayes 71 Noes 45. The vote on the amendment in the name of the honourable member Rod Donald to clause 4A is Ayes 17 Noes 98. The vote on the Minister’s amendments is now Ayes 90 Noes 25. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Part 2 does some minor tinkering with the election broadcasting provisions. Many New Zealanders will probably be a little contemptuous of us fiddling with this stuff at all because it is a part of an election process that turns them off. We know that the television stations do not clamour to offer time for political debate even though typically television is a place for debate and contention. The television people tell us that when election broadcasts run their audiences drop away. 
 In this part the Justice and Electoral Committee has fine-tuned some of the processes on the assumption that a scrupulous appearance of fairness is actually consistent with free political speech. What the committee tried to do some time ago and should have been doing with this legislation and did not was look at the whole theory of control of election broadcasting. 
This part regulates something that in most countries is regarded as elementary free speech. Few New Zealanders are aware that political parties in New Zealand cannot even pay for time on radio and television. Even within the spending limits—because many people are afraid of a massive spend-up; they fear that elections can be bought despite the evidence from around the world that that is not very easy—we cannot choose to allocate the funds we are allowed to spend to television and radio. Yet television and radio are clearly where most of the public discourse that sticks in people’s memories takes place. 
So we have an impoverished political debate. By depriving political parties and candidates of the right to speak through radio and television in effect we confer a veto power on journalists. The editor of TVNZ who makes the lead decisions on what the issues of an election are to be has an authority and a weight that virtually no other Western democracy allows. In other countries parties can fight it out. They can choose what the issue is and by their advertising force other parties to respond. New Zealanders have seen the effect of our system over 20 years. It is a system in which the majority of New Zealanders felt that no one in Parliament ever spoke up for them about the treaty. They saw an entire industry created by consensus between the two main parties that could not be challenged because the media consensus was consistent with the consensus of the two main parties. 
So we have in the Broadcasting Act—only tinkered with in this part—a regime for an absolutely derisory amount of time for political debate. The debate is governed and controlled by the people who decide whether there will be a “worm”. It is not genuine debate because the journalists in their news coverage decide what the real issues will be. 
The select committee laboured hard and came up with the recognition that it had done very little. Our most pathetic recommendation is: “We encourage the industry to work with the Electoral Commission to develop a code of practice.” What a cop-out! The ACT member—myself—dissented because that is a deeply constitutional issue. Why should the Electoral Commission be developing a code that could prescribe even further constraints on free political speech at election time? The detailed existing prohibitions should have been abolished in this bill. There has been a very minor relaxation. 
The two major parties of course benefit from the tightly limited time. In fact even Labour and National under the arrangements reflected in the bill hardly get the amount of time to cover the issues facing the country that a supermarket would devote to selling a new dog roll. If we think of an advertising campaign of six or seven short and tightly constrained appearances that has to cover all the issues facing a country at an election we can see how contemptuous this Parliament has been and this legislation is of freedom of political speech and the ability to argue the issues that worry the people. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to speak to my amendment to this part. I will refer firstly to the report back from the Justice and Electoral Committee which states: “The United Future and ACT members consider that there should be a discretion given to the Electoral Commission to pay accounts after the 50-working day period.” We stated: “Circumstances could arise where accounts might not be received by the Electoral Commission through no fault of the broadcaster political party or Electoral Commission. In that situation the current provision would result in the broadcaster being left out of pocket with no legal ability to recover their debt.” 
I will give an example. We envisage that if we go to the full term the election will be held next September. The 50-working-days rule means that accounts have to be in and paid by the middle of December about a week before Christmas. I can imagine that the Maori Party for example—which is likely to get $75000 worth of funding based on last term’s allocation—may decide to spend all its funding on Maori radio. It may wait for the invoices to come in and they may trickle in in October with perhaps an outstanding one that does not arrive till November. In that case $75000 worth of debt would be sat on. Then because of Christmas looming and the busyness of that time the person in the Maori Party who is responsible for sending the account to the Electoral Commission may overlook doing so until December suddenly realise that time is short and rush it off to the Electoral Commission where the account arrives 1 day beyond the time. Under clause 18 of the bill the Electoral Commission has absolutely no discretion to pay the account and the broadcasters would be left out of pocket to the tune of $75000 with no ability to recover it. Maybe an account is sent to the Electoral Commission and somehow gets lost in the post and it is not the Maori Party’s fault that it is not paid. Whatever happens we would be in a situation where because this bill provides a straitjacket to the Electoral Commission with no flexibility whatsoever we would have $75000 worth of debt to several Maori radio stations that could not be recovered. That could be the death knell for those radio stations. 
Fifty working days is a reasonable time—10 weeks in fact—to get the accounts in. But in circumstances such as those I have described it may be that whether it is 5 working days or 100 working days deficiencies mean that it simply does not happen through no fault of the broadcaster and yet the broadcaster is heavily penalised by being unable to recover the money. That could easily be remedied by the amendment I propose which would give the Electoral Commission the ability to determine at its discretion that given all the circumstances the account ought to be paid. If the commission still had the money in its pocket—if it had not handed it back to the Crown—then it could make the payment albeit that the account had arrived a day or even a month late. That discretion is I think a prudent thing for the Government and Parliament to grant because at the end of the day the consequences of non-payment could be serious. The amendment really provides no harm to anybody at all. It seems to me that when we give those sorts of authorities to Government organisations we ought to build in whenever we can some degree of flexibility and discretion to take account of exceptional circumstances where something like the situation I have described may happen. 
Why make 50 working days mandatory? Nobody has put up any reason why the Electoral Commission should be bound to a fixed date like that and should have no discretion. There has really been no argument on that—and no argument from the Minister except to say that the select committee had decided that that should not happen so therefore he would go along with it. In the select committee we did not consider that issue for any length of time. Those who did support the clause simply felt that 50 working days was all that we needed to give. But I think this is bad law as it stands. Although the simple amendment to give discretion costs nobody anything it may save the Government a huge amount of money and embarrassment if a broadcaster were to go under simply because the Government had ignored this modest request. I commend the amendment to the Minister and encourage him to look again at the possibility of putting it into the legislation because I think it is a very a small change and would really do no harm. 
I do want to correct a comment that I made in my speech at the second reading stage when I said that New Zealand First only wanted itself National and Labour to be represented on the committee. I acknowledge that it wanted itself Labour and National to be represented and one representative of all the other parties. I do not think that improves the situation much but I do want to set the record right in so far as I did misrepresent New Zealand First’s position. Obviously if New Zealand First can get that while it is the third-biggest party that would be wonderful for it. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 There are two or three particular areas that I would like to draw to the Minister’s attention and seek his comments on. The first relates to clause 26 inserting new section 80A “Duty to report suspected offences”. The reason why I raise it with the Minister is that I seek his comment on whether there should be some element of discretion for the Electoral Commission not to refer minor breaches of the Broadcasting Act to the police. Members who have been in the House for any length of time will recall the debacle we had in 1996 when I think a quarter of the members of Parliament who were elected had their spending returns referred to the police. Their spending returns were referred to the police because of a myriad of minor technical details. 
For example I am aware that a number of returns were referred to the police by the electoral office because members had failed to put on their returns the street number of a company that they had paid an election expense to and a number of spending returns were referred to the police because members had failed to identify correctly the address or the name of the person to whom an election payment was made. As I recall the situation I think every party in the Parliament had members’ spending returns referred to the police. Now that was patently ridiculous because the electoral office did not seek that information from the members involved but the members had to put up with having their returns referred to the police and the uncertainty that was attached to that. Thank goodness the police exercised their discretion and decided that that was a complete and utter nonsense and a waste of police time. So I would like the Minister to consider whether there is an option for the Electoral Commission to either have opportunities for people to remedy any potential breaches or have some discretion in respect of minor breaches. New section 80A “Duty to report suspected offences” inserted by clause 26 does mean that if United Future as it did last time fails to put its spending return in on time but puts it in the next day or if United Future fails to state the address of a person to whom it paid a cheque then that return technically has to be referred to the police. Indeed that happened in 1996 and again in 1999. 
A second point I would like the Minister to comment on is why we are continuing with the charade of opening and closing addresses. I wonder why he is not prepared to entertain the idea of allowing parties the choice of whether to spend their resources on producing opening and closing addresses. Frankly there is such a plethora of media now that very few people tune into the opening and closing addresses. Some of them are pretty awful and they do not maintain the public’s interest. I suspect if we were to pick up on the point that Mr Franks raised about the opportunity for parties to successfully put their message to the voters we would realise the resources being spent on producing opening and closing addresses and the free time that is contributed to them would be much better spent elsewhere. So why can parties not have the choice of how that taxpayer resource is spent? 
I wonder whether the Minister can also comment on why we are continuing with the prohibition on paid election programmes in section 70(2)(c)(ii) of the principal Act which is amended by clause 13. Essentially that is a restriction on the ability of individual candidates to promote their election outside the election period. What that means is that candidates who have been selected by the National Party—such as Gil Stehbens who is going to be the next National MP in Rotorua or David Bennett the next National MP in Hamilton East do not have an opportunity to advertise their candidacy and their availability on the radio but sitting members of Parliament do. Sitting members of Parliament are able to advertise their candidacy under the cloak of their constituency services. I have been in parts of the country where electorate MPs advertise their availability on the radio which in my view skirts around the restrictions on the ability of individual candidates to promote themselves. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports this part of the legislation. About the only real issue is the one that has been raised by Murray Smith the United Future member. I understand the ACT party is likely to support that amendment if it is consistent with the report and I expect it would be. 
I have had the opportunity to listen to the debate on this issue. I was not at the Justice and Electoral Committee at the time; a member deputised for me while I was dealing with another piece of legislation. I am going to support the United Future amendment. I think it just adds that extra degree of safety. It is perhaps unfortunate that the member mentioned the particular party in question; it could happen to anybody. From the point of view of extra caution New Zealand First will support that amendment. There is really nothing else to say. It is largely a non-controversial measure and I do not intend to take up the time of the Committee any further. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I want to make some remarks about election broadcasting and in particular I will follow on from the comments made by my colleague Tony Ryall in respect of choice around opening and closing addresses and the funding required for those addresses to be made freely. 
I note in the commentary on the bill that the Justice and Electoral Committee had a job of trying to balance freedoms around the election broadcasting expectation while at the same time not wanting to prescribe too heavily on the political parties the exact measures. I listened with interest when Stephen Franks from the ACT party made the comment that other political elections enjoy much more freedom around the edges of these types of funding arrangements but of course are restricted in many ways by constraints that they impose upon themselves. 
If one looks at the US election recently held and in particular at the plethora of rules and regulations that was laid down when Senator John Kerry was to meet President Bush on the platform during the presidential debates we can see that there were rules covering such things as how far apart the podiums would be whether there would be one podium or two lecterns who would speak first whether the candidates would sit or stand what arrangements would be made about which topics would be debated at which debate that the first debate was on foreign policy and the second was on the economy and domestic policy and that they were not allowed to have an environment where those subjects overlapped in those two debates. Further concerns were expressed between the parties over things such as the number of questions that would be asked who would ask those questions—would members of the audience ask them—and whether each candidate would be able to chip in while the other candidate was speaking. Those sorts of rules were very tightly prescribed. It made the leader’s debate with Paul Holmes look like a bit of a walk in the park. 
But I have to say that for us then to form the view that other jurisdictions have much more freedom around the way they conduct these broadcast debates or political statements is not actually that accurate although to be fair in respect of those two presidential candidates I have to say that that was done by way of negotiation between the two parties as opposed to a set of rules that was set down. I think that the most intriguing thing though was that when all those rules had been set down when all the arrangements had been made and when the gofers had finished negotiating on behalf of the candidates for months on end both candidates walked out wearing white shirts and red ties! I thought that was quite interesting—completely immaterial to this bill but interesting none the less. 
In respect of the opening and closing debates broadcast during the election period in New Zealand new section 71 in clause 17 attempts to blend choice with prescription and as is so often the case it would seem to me that what some political parties would wish for is far more choice and far less prescription on this particular issue. In the end the political parties themselves are best placed to determine what particular market what particular sector and indeed what particular medium will appeal to their voters. It should not be left to the State to make those decisions completely on their behalf. In fact when one thinks through the logic of every party having to spend money on an opening statement and a closing statement it all seems a bit odd. Who could forget at the last election Winston Peters sitting behind his desk looking in his own mind one imagines seriously presidential and then holding up three fingers to recite a child’s nursery rhyme. Only if he had been forced to have an opening statement would he have restricted himself to such a series of bizarre approaches. Having said that I am sure the Rt Hon Winston Peters would have preferred the freedom to choose his own medium his own setting and his own time frame in which to make his opening statement in his own way. Whilst the select committee has tried hard to blend prescription with freedom we still are not left with a huge amount of choice. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to talk about the opening and closing addresses which are in Part 2. In doing so I begin by commending Television One and Radio New Zealand for voluntarily giving time to the opening and closing addresses. It is time that they give up and are not reimbursed for and I want to thank them for their willingness over the years to do that. 
The opening and closing addresses do play an important role. The election should really be a level playing field. At the time that the House rises and heads towards an election every party is at zero seats and approaches the election from the point of view of having to win representation from that point. But so much of our system is geared against that level playing field. In particular the funding that is provided for television and radio broadcasts is paid out on a proportionate basis—the larger the party the more money it gets and the more time it gets. To some extent that clearly goes against the idea that all parties approach an election on the same basis. There is some justification for it in terms of the allocation of finances from the public purse; arguably the distribution of public funding of election broadcasting on the basis of the public support for parties that has been shown in the past can be justified. But when smaller parties are unable to top up their funding by private funding to supplement that to bring them to a level playing field in my view it provides some distortion. 
I think the opening and closing addresses in contrast help to level the playing field. Although there is more time allocated at least all the significant parties get an opportunity to provide their opening and closing addresses at a time when the members of the public who are interested in the election and in political events may make up their minds. We know the power that there is in television broadcasting in particular. The ability to judge all parties over one or two nights on their opening addresses and over what has proved to be about a 30-minute period on their closing addresses does I think have quite an influence on helping people to make up their minds as to which party they will support. 
I think that in so far as we get the generous time of Television One and Radio New Zealand it was important when we were considering this bill to provide as much flexibility to them as we could and in particular to allow them advertising time in between the opening and closing addresses. The sacrifice they have made in the past in that they were prevented from obtaining advertising revenue during a time when they would normally expect it has been an extra penalty that they have paid. The Justice and Electoral Committee recognised that it was a penalty that ought not to be imposed on them and that it was not necessary for it to be imposed on them. 
I think it is appropriate that the restriction on election advertising stays because of the potential for parties to distort the opening and closing addresses period by using greater resources. Therefore I think it is wise to restrict that. However the select committee has left the discretion on the broadcaster in terms of judging to a large extent whether advertising in the grey area constitutes election advertising. But I think we can have confidence in the broadcasters that they will take a conservative approach to that. If they get advertising from a third party that looks as if it is a little close to promoting a particular party or suggesting that people not vote for a party I am sure they will take a conservative view and not allow that to happen. 
I think the changes we have made not only fix an ambiguity in the Act as far as advertising is concerned but provide a very good balance whereby the broadcaster is able to get paid for time but there is the limitation to ensure that there is not any distortion through advertising between the opening and closing addresses. Certainly I think one of the things that the Government needs to look at is this whole idea of the ability to top up funding. I also think that the process we should be adopting is that once public funding is allocated parties that get less than the largest party are able to use their own resources in order to top up funding because of the level playing field nature of our elections. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to be speaking on behalf of National on Part 2. I will start by saying if I may that issues touching on electoral legislation need to be treated with considerable care. New Zealand does not have a written constitution and in the developed world we are one of only three countries that do not have one. The other two happen to be the United Kingdom and Israel. 
I know that in the course of this debate National members have been looking with interest at Mr Murray Smith’s contribution in the form of the amendment that he has proposed—very late in the piece I would have to say—to clause 18. The whole issue of electoral broadcasting is of course a hot topic and the Justice and Electoral Committee was concerned not to leave room open for undue influence upon the perception of opening and closing broadcasts from both the placement or the content of advertising that might have political impact. I believe that the balance that the select committee has struck is probably reasonable in the circumstances. There is no doubt that the current position on advertising between opening and closing addresses is at the lowest ambiguous—it is certainly that. One of the things that the select committee did was to insert in clause 22 a new section 77A into the Broadcasting Act. 
It might be said that the public is not much interested in these things; it might also be said that there is no compelling reason for change. But certainly in the context of the developing dynamic of MMP it becomes increasingly important for the system at least to appear to be fair—even if it is not completely so. That is why those changes have been made. 
One of the things we did suggest was that industry work with the Electoral Commission to develop a code of practice. I am not sure whether the ACT member has taken a call in this debate but he is a very substantial contributor to the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee and he dissented from the position of the majority in connection with the broadcasting issues. I hope he is given an opportunity to talk about those sorts of issues. As a bottom-line position we need to be careful not to constrain or limit free media speech. 
I think the Committee certainly from National’s perspective will have to think more deeply about Mr Smith’s proposals. I just say I suppose by way of friendly caution to him that when in the Committee stage of a bill proposed amendments arrive very late there is no real opportunity for caucuses to reflect on what their significance may be. Even if they are of undoubted intrinsic merit there is no real opportunity for them generally to be taken up because of the need to align them with other provisions in the bill. 
I have spoken about electoral hoardings in the debate on another part of the bill and I do not seek to do that now. In simple terms National’s position is that it supports this bill. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: You are confused. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: I will respond to an invitation that has just now been offered to me by the Minister in the chair. He has made the suggestion that National is confused on these issues. I would just like to say to those who are listening to the radio and also to members in the Chamber that “confused” is something National never is. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Murray Smith to clause 18 be agreed to: 
to add to subsection (2A) in subclause (1) the following words: 
unless: 
(a)the Electoral Commission determines in its discretion that in all the circumstances the account ought to be paid and 
(b)the Electoral Commission has not repaid to the Crown the money that has been allocated to the relevant political party under section 74A and which would have been used to pay the account. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 30 
New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 90 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 309 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to clauses 19 and 21 be agreed to. 
Clauses 1 and 2 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The title debate is an opportunity to review the scope of this legislation. One cannot help but reflect on the fact that clause 6 in Part 1 is the source of governmental embarrassment. About a year ago the Prime Minister was saying that it would all be fixed and that a mere technicality was being perfected. For some unexplained reason the Government has changed its mind. I have yet to hear from any Government member why under this legislation—to be known as the Electoral Amendment Act 2004—the rules that effectively prevailed prior to Mr Duynhoven being in breach of the Electoral Act have been affirmed. Admittedly there is a minor change in that if a person already has a passport or a document issued by another Government he or she can get it renewed or re-issued. 
But I want to know why we are now in the odd situation of Parliament—I use that term collectively—having passed legislation exempting Mr Duynhoven from the 1993 Electoral Act not carrying over that exemption into this legislation. That is a fair question and one that I believe the public of New Zealand deserves an answer to. In particular I would like to hear the Government say what caused it to change its mind. The matter is hardly referred to in the report which simply recommends that the new section be clarified. It makes no reference whatsoever to its purpose in the first place. 
Also the report contains no reference whatsoever to that legislation having been induced by Mr Duynhoven’s breach of the law. I know that Mr Duynhoven took a call and gave a whole series of exculpatory statements but the fact remains that he was in breach of the law and this Government bailed him out by what has to be referred to as an affront to constitutionalism—by having a special piece of legislation. So one member of this Parliament was not actually elected by the people of New Zealand. One member of this Parliament is here because of partisan legislation. That is the constitutional affront. 
There was another approach that could have been taken and that was to hold a by-election. The Government refused to take that path and I would not be at all surprised if Mr Duynhoven rues the day he himself did not make that choice. Now he has to wait until the general election to find out whether he has the trust of the people—to find out whether he is elected by the people instead of by partisan legislation of this Parliament. [ 
Interruption 
] I say for the benefit of the Minister that that is the legal situation. Mr Duynhoven is here by virtue of legislation not the will of the people. 
The Minister ought to take a call because today we are dealing with the Committee stage of the Electoral Matters Bill which has as one of its central features the issue around Mr Duynhoven. This Parliament and the people of New Zealand deserve better than the Minister’s silence. It is reasonable when issues of high constitutional moment are being dealt with that the Government take at least one call to explain why it was legitimate to pass legislation to allow Mr Duynhoven’s breach of the Electoral Act to be perfected by legislation and why 2 years later that kind of action will not be able to be carried on henceforth. I ask the Minister why the Government has made that choice. He has the opportunity to explain. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 The Electoral Matters Bill is best broken into three major issues. The first issue which was dealt with in the last part related to broadcasting matters and amendments to the Broadcasting Act. Generally there was widespread agreement throughout the Committee on that part. It was a non-controversial part in the sense that the bulk of it was dealt with and agreed to by the Justice and Electoral Committee. A couple of amendments were offered by Murray Smith but there was nothing that was going to rock the world. 
However it is worth spending a bit of time on the other two issues that have been raised in this debate. My colleague Dr Wayne Mapp raised the issue of Mr Harry Duynhoven. I do not intend to traverse the issues already covered by Dr Wayne Mapp. I offer a slightly different perspective on that argument which is: who was Harry Duynhoven hiding? Who were the people behind poor old Harry Duynhoven—poor old Harry Duynhoven the public fall guy for any number of Government MPs who did not have the wherewithal to put their hands up and say in the House: “I am in the same position.”? 
Members can criticise Harry Duynhoven and have done so at length but another question has been avoided in this debate. Whilst the Hon Harry Duynhoven was pushed out the front who was hiding behind him? Where is that person now? [ 
Interruption 
] The member for the ACT party Stephen Franks says that even Harry Duynhoven does not know. I do not think that is right. I think Harry Duynhoven does know and I think it drives him nuts. I think it drives him nuts not to be able to stand up and simply say: “I took the fall for these other people. I took the hits publicly. I could have gone to my constituency and easily won a by-election.” Nobody in this Chamber can seriously put a case for Harry Duynhoven not winning that by-election. But who was hiding behind him? 
To some extent I have a bit of sympathy for Mr Duynhoven. In my view he was hung out to dry. That is not to say that what occurred was right. In fact Dr Wayne Mapp has gone to some lengths to discuss why the processes around Mr Duynhoven’s particular case were deeply and constitutionally wrong. But that does not excuse those who got off scot-free. I remember sitting in this Chamber when the House was in urgency and asking David Benson-Pope who at the time was the Government senior whip: “Who else is there?” I sought leave for Mr Benson-Pope to tell us who the other culprits were. Every other whip in this Parliament stood at some time as I recall and said that they had checked and it was not one of theirs. We asked the chief Labour Party whip who at the time was David Benson-Pope to stand and make the same declaration but he would not make it. 
This bill is about letting those other people off the hook while Harry Duynhoven was sent out to take the hit for them. The other issue which caused some controversy at the commencement of this debate was that relating to powers around design layout and colour of hoardings. I finish by saying that there cannot be one rule for MPs and another rule for everybody else. If the law is wrong we should amend the local government legislation and the Resource Management Act. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I hope that Mr Power gets another call because I can see that he has a lot of explaining to do of the National Party’s position on the provisions of the bill we are debating which essentially tell local authorities to get their sticky fingers off free speech during elections. But I go back to the other provision that he addressed very well which is the reversal of the Duynhoven amendments. 
Part 1 reasserts the importance of loyalty among members of Parliament. Most of us thought it was elementary that New Zealand voters are entitled to expect that when they elect members of this House those members will owe allegiance to New Zealand to the Queen in right of New Zealand and to the people without a conflict of interest. It was pretty straightforward and it has been in our electoral law as long as anyone can remember as well as being in the electoral law of other countries. Now this bill is reinstating it with a minor qualification. It states that there can be a residual loyalty or association with the country of place of birth from which a person came and that one may renew a passport issued by that country before one took office without being deemed to have signed up one’s loyalty to another country. 
Do members recall the scorn that the Prime Minister placed on the Electoral Act’s requirement that people not swear allegiance to a foreign power? She called it an anachronism—an “antiquated technicality” I think the words were. 
 That shameful episode when the Speaker of this House failed to carry out a statutory duty and delayed declaring the vacancy to enable the Government to rush through the legislation that Mr Power has just described probably hid a multitude of people who had signed up allegiance to other lands. I do not think there is anyone in Labour who would still be so blind as to have signed up to the Comintern or to the Communist Party as one might have expected not so many years ago but undoubtedly there must have been more than poor Harry Duynhoven who had signed up allegiance to a foreign power. 
I have no doubt that in the panic they were in if he was alone they would have let him swing at that time. There must have been others to cause them to do something as constitutionally offensive as changing the Electoral Act to get rid of a loyalty requirement and now to reinstate it—because funnily enough it proved not to be an antiquated technicality. Funnily enough when the Justice and Electoral Committee was looking at this provision we were all of one mind that it was important that people not have divided loyalties that it is significant when someone signs up to a foreign power and that it could be relevant to the New Zealand voters that someone has a citizenship that gives them a bolt hole so that they could muck things up here and then disappear to go and live somewhere else because they do not really care. 
It is perfectly open to New Zealand voters to elect a foreigner to this Parliament if they wish as long as they have New Zealand nationality but they need to know what they are doing. It is perfectly rational that the Electoral Act should say: “If you sign up to another power then give the voters a chance to reconfirm your mandate or decide that they would rather have someone who had undivided loyalties.” So to reinstate this under the bland heading “Electoral Matters Bill” means it is a very sad day for something as boldfaced as this. I thought the Government would have been more imaginative. I thought it might have come up with some other changes to the citizenship requirement. For example if this Government really wanted to suddenly assert loyalty why did it not overhaul the dreadful provision that allows non-citizens to vote in New Zealand? In my opinion citizenship should be a privilege. 
This bill instead of simply reinstating the law before the Duynhoven amendment with a minor modification for citizenship from one’s country of birth should have dealt with the offensiveness I see when non-citizens can come here and vote for our Parliament without having any necessary allegiance to this country. They can preserve all their options vote and go back home again leaving a shambles behind them or vote for benefits that they have never had any part in producing. I believe we do not take our citizenship strongly enough and it is time to change that. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 In considering the title I must say that I am a little bit disappointed in the number of speeches that have come from National that have really relitigated the past in terms of Harry Duynhoven’s situation. I am also concerned at the attacks from National that I have perceived on Harry Duynhoven over this issue. I think he acted with integrity throughout the process. He was the unfortunate victim of a law that perhaps was not all that it ought to be. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee did get the opportunity however through this to readdress the issue as to what the qualification should be for membership in the House of Representatives. Really in essence what the select committee came up with was to say that there needed to have been some positive act while an MP and that it ought to have involved allegiance to a foreign power or State. That was the essence really of what we came to and I think that is probably the right balance as far as that is concerned. 
I want to address the fact that the title the Electoral Matters Bill really understates how minimal the bill is in terms of the alterations it makes. My concern is that the Government did not take the opportunity to make some other changes to the bill at the time and only took a very minimalist approach when it looked at making alterations. 
 I draw the Committee’s attention to a couple of matters that have been in urgent need of amendment and that this bill could have and should have addressed. They are matters that relate back to recommendations in the select committee reports on the 1996 and 1999 general elections. I note that the select committee’s report on the inquiry into the 2002 election listed 20 matters that had arisen in previous reports that we felt needed attention. The committee then listed another 12 matters that we felt were additional recommendations that ought to be taken into account. 
Obviously some of those matters have been around for a long time without being addressed and whilst the Minister has indicated that he will look at a thorough review it is impractical for that to happen before the next election—it is impractical for it even to be looked at before the next election. Certainly it will not be implemented before the next election. So we will be looking at at least another 3 years before some of those pretty essential matters are addressed. 
The most important recommendation in the select committee’s report is recommendation No. 17 which stated that the Broadcasting Act should be amended to include a clear distinction between an election programme promoting a constituency candidate and an election programme promoting a political party. That was reinforced by new recommendation No. 6 in the report which indicated that clarification be provided on whether a constituency candidate’s broadcasting may promote a party or its list and whether a party’s broadcasting may promote a constituency candidate. That is a huge area of confusion as I know from my position of having been involved in the last three elections mainly from an official point of view as secretary of a political party. When we get to the situation of what a constituency candidate can advertise and what a party can advertise there is a huge amount of uncertainty. I think that that could have reasonably been cleared up without too much effort and placed in the bill. 
We face silly situations such as whether a constituency candidate can even have the party logo on his or her advertising without falling foul of the provisions that require that separation. There is difficulty particularly for radio broadcasters as well as other people in authority in determining whether what is being promoted by way of a programme is really something that should come out of party funding or something that should come out of the constituency candidate’s own funding. That desperately needs to be cleared up. Certainly United Future’s point of view is that there should be flexibility so that the constituency candidate and party can nominate to a large extent where it will come from. In the MMP environment it is simply silly that a constituency candidate cannot even put a party logo on his or her advertising which is the narrow interpretation of the provisions that has sometimes been taken. So that is one thing that could have been fixed. The other one that also directly involved me was recommendation 20. The select committee was looking at section 71A of the Electoral Act. 
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to. 
The Committee divided the bill into the Electoral Amendment Bill and the Broadcasting Amendment Bill  
divided into Electoral Amendment Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill 
pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper308. 
Bill reported with amendment.