Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe.Stuart Smith: Under pressure Andrew?DEPUTY SPEAKER: Proper names please—even in interjections.Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: Madam Speaker thank you for allowing me the opportunity to contribute to the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) first reading. Can I please remind the House that in December 2018 the Minister of Justice the Hon Andrew Little wrote to the Justice Committee asking them to examine foreign interference in our electoral system. That's almost 12 months—actually we are in the month of December 2019. My point is that the Minister has actively raised an issue in the Justice Committee—Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.Hon Tracey Martin: Oh here we go!DEPUTY SPEAKER: I beg your pardon.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Madam Speaker we're actually in quite a difficult position in that the Justice Committee has had extensive evidence correspondence and advice to which the member is referring that is actually privileged to the committee. I actually think it would be helpful for the debate for all of the evidence associated with this very issue to be able to be debated with a bill that's under urgency. The member's comments are out of order in that they breach confidential correspondence of the committee. I don't want to hold her up because I'd much rather that we're quite open. I seek the leave of the House for all advice reports and minutes on the issue of foreign interference before the Justice Committee to be able to be referred to in the debate on this bill.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before I put the leave I will seek some advice. I'm sorry to hold you up. I'm just checking. The House is the master of itself but whether it can overrule a select committee is a point that I am getting checked by the Clerk. So I just ask for a little bit of patience while we just check that.Hon David Parker: Speaking to the point of order could I also ask—DEPUTY SPEAKER: If it's going to be helpful.Hon David Parker: Madam Speaker I would also encourage you to check whether within that proposed remit from the Hon Dr Nick Smith he is proposing that evidence that may have been heard in secret be disclosed to the House.Hon Dr Nick Smith: That is actually a very fair point of order. There was some evidence that was heard by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service that should remain confidential. My point is that all the evidence that in the normal course of events would become public could be able to be referred to which would be the minutes. It would be the submissions from officials. It would be the correspondence from the Minister of Justice to the select committee which the member who spoke had referenced too. That would normally be privileged to the committee and not released until the select committee reports.Hon Andrew Little: Madam Speaker can I assist the House too. Given that this issue arose from a claim by the speaker on her feet Meka Whaitiri that there was correspondence from me it is a matter of public record and there have been many articles that I wrote to that committee asking them to inquire specifically into the issue of foreign donations foreign interference and foreign influence. The question of all the other evidence is not a matter of public record but the fact that I wrote is.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can I speak further to the point of order because it is relevant?DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't really want to get into a debate. I was going to ask the member if the correspondence from the Minister was in the public arena because it would be on the website but we're sort of past that now with the member—[Interruption] sit down sit down—seeking leave to publish all the documents and I'm just not sure that the House can overrule a select committee in that circumstance. I'm just trying to get that now.Hon Dr Nick Smith: There's a classic example of the Minister's comments that have just been made that create a difficulty for the debate because it was actually the Electoral Commission itself in its advice to the committee that sought we inquire into the issues of foreign interference prior to receiving the Minister's letter and all that information is relevant to the debate.DEPUTY SPEAKER: You're now arguing for your leave. I am just waiting on some advice about the procedure.David Seymour: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is this going to be—I don't want to hear any arguments for or against.David Seymour: Well it might be helpful to consider—DEPUTY SPEAKER: You all have this strange idea of what's going to be helpful to me. Go on then—go on then.David Seymour: —that one of the implications of the leave that Dr Smith is seeking is that in effect the private deliberations of that select committee would be brought forward. I think it's bad enough that we're sitting under urgency on this; it would be worse to undermine the genuine considered process that's going on at the committee at the same time.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Which is exactly why I was taking the time to get some advice because the implications are quite serious. So the House can make the decision but it has to be very clear about what it is deciding. So the Hon Dr Nick Smith has sought leave for all the—do you want to be exact?Hon Dr Nick Smith: I think it might be helpful to the House to be very clear: that all correspondence and particularly the advice from the Electoral Commission and the justice ministry on the issues of foreign interference be publicly released and be able to be referred to in the debate. So for instance we've received advice in the committee about the very issues in the bill by the Electoral Commission and the justice ministry. It seems an unreasonable constraint that in debating this bill that deals with those very issues we cannot refer to that. So that's the specifics of the leave that I'm seeking to enable this debate to be more meaningful.DEPUTY SPEAKER: So the House is clear on the leave that's being sought; I'll put that. Is there any objection?Hon Members: Yes.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now let's be clear then that the request that the member is referring to is publicly available it's on the website it's given in public—Hon Dr Nick Smith: No that's not correct. It's correspondence to the committee.Hon Andrew Little: Well it's been referred to publicly.Hon David Parker: It's been in question time.DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is a difference between referring to the fact that there is a letter and then speaking about the letter in the debate. All right? The contents of the letter—OK.Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: Can I apologise to the Speaker and the House if I've taken time up on this really considered bill. The point is foreign interference is an important issue. It is an absolutely important issue and I want to acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee but also just acknowledge the significance of why we are here under urgency to address foreign interference in the New Zealand general election come 2020.I'm proud of the Minister of Justice and thankful to the Minister that he's taken foreign interference in our elections seriously. I actually think that he has got the balance right in terms of acknowledging the areas that we have to address through this bill and giving the electors and the Electoral Commission time to focus on banning foreign donations. That's essentially what this bill's intent is. I want to thank those members on most sides of the House that support the intent of the bill.The front end of the bill clearly outlines that we are making amendments to the Electoral Act 1993 that only apply to parliamentary elections not local body elections and that donations over $50 from overseas persons in any form will be banned. Just to be absolutely clear in the bill we talk about the overseas person" definition as per the Electoral Act 1993 and to be crystal clear for members in the House that is "an individual who—(i) resides outside New Zealand; and (ii) is [neither] a New Zealand citizen [nor] registered as an elector; … (b) a body corporate incorporated outside New Zealand; or (c) an unincorporated body that has its head office or principal place of business outside New Zealand". So it's very clearly spelt out in this bill that not only are we banning foreign donations over $50 from natural ordinary people but the definition of an overseas person is clearly spelt out.The bill then goes into the role of party secretaries to take all reasonable steps and there have been previous speakers that have asked the question: "What's reasonable?" Clearly the tools which party secretaries will be provided will be worked in conjunction with the Electoral Commission around what are reasonable steps. I'm thankful for the member from Epsom who talked about only having 11 donations so far for his political party online. So that's 11.David Seymour: Today.Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: Today—well maybe it'll go to 12 by the time we get to election for that particular member. But let's be really clear around the importance of this bill and what it's attempting to do because I think it's really important that we do go into next year's election clearly spelling out that foreign donations are not wanted in any parliamentary election in Aotearoa New Zealand.Now I too want to address the issue that members particularly on the Opposition side have raised around the process. So we've all got agreement apart from the member from Epsom that this bill will be supported but there have been some comments around process and I just want to address the fact that yes there is still the inquiry being considered by the Justice Committee. I want to acknowledge the hard work of the Justice Committee. I want to acknowledge all the submitters that have appeared before the select committee and the work that the committee is doing to bring finally a report to this House. I think there's been ample time in that process for all members of the select committee to make a contribution on this particularly important matter of foreign donations in our electoral system. I want to welcome members on that side when we get to the committee stage of this bill to speak up on what particular parts of the bill they have issues with—the members over that side have talked about process and about rush and about urgency. We do have the process in this Parliament as a committee of the whole House to scrutinise that bill when we get to the committee stage. So I want to look forward to members on that side other than the Hon Dr Smith. I want to welcome the members that sit on the Justice Committee to take a call around how we can improve the bill.The bill as the Minister's outlined clearly sends a message to foreign donors that we don't want them in our general election next year. It talks about the role of the party secretary it talks about ensuring what we are saying about overseas person but it must be seen inside of a wider electoral reform programme that the Minister also outlined in his first speech. That's why this bill is being addressed under urgency because it's important to the public it's important to this side of the House particularly that we send a clear message that foreign donations over $50 are completely banned. We look forward to an honest election come 2020. I commend this bill to the House."