Chauvel Charles: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1324] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to make a contribution to this debate and I begin by congratulating the Minister of Justice on his portfolio. It is a distinguished warrant to hold in the history of this country. When members on this side look into our party’s history we think of the names Palmer Finlay and Mason. We are very proud of those figures and the contributions they made to the job of Minister of Justice when they performed it. I know that the current Minister looks more to the tenure of Hanan for his inspiration and I think it is good for the lawyers in the House to know a little bit about the history of those who went before them in their roles. I wish Mr Power well in his role and I assure him that Labour will take a constructively critical approach to his tenure in the portfolio. 
In terms of the speeches that have gone before on this legislation I also commend the Minister on the tone of his contribution. It is good to hear that an open-minded and multi-partisan approach is to be taken on the fresh look at electoral law that is intended to apply at the election that must be held no later than the end of 2011. I certainly join other members who have expressed the hope that those undertakings so refreshingly given by the Minister will pan out over the legislative process because it is obviously important that we get this question right. 
I must say that I was sad to hear some of the other contributions that have been made in the debate particularly that of the Attorney-General Mr Finlayson. I was hopeful that we might manage to avoid extreme partisanship in this debate because of the tone that was struck by the Minister of Justice. Indeed from listening to Mr Finlayson’s speech if one were an uninformed listener it would be very easy to form the impression that the party currently occupying the Treasury benches was somehow the traditional guardian of the rule of law in this country. That would forget the very many abuses of important freedoms under National Party leaders from Holland right through to Muldoon. If one thinks about a number of those examples one can see that the picture that Mr Finlayson tried to paint is unfortunately a false one. There was the administrative disaster that was the 1978 election when over Labour’s protests the electoral roll was allowed to become badly out of date with chaotic consequences. There was the National Party’s implacable opposition to the enactment of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in 1990. There was the unfortunate decision prior to the 1993 election to make enrolment harder. This was opposed by Labour and it obviously had a disproportionate effect on lower-income voters who might have been expected to vote for this party. 
It would be very wrong to accept the picture painted by Mr Finlayson. Perhaps his partisanship is unsurprising given some of the hysterical contributions to the debate he has made concerning this legislation. I was looking at  
Hansard 
 and I saw his references to the Labour Party as “excrescence” and “lower than vermin” in the general debate on 28 August last year. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: That’s a very mature contribution. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well it is a shame given the promise made by that member in his maiden speech to observe a high standard of non-personalised debate but it is good that the Minister of Justice was able to set an example to the Attorney-General and show him how a debate on a quasi-constitutional matter really ought to proceed.  
There is one other matter that Mr Finlayson alluded to that I want to correct and it is something that is often said by that member. It is a criticism of his predecessor as the Attorney-General the Hon Michael Cullen over the absence of a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act inconsistency report relating to the provisions of the Electoral Finance Act. If one looks at the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act one can see that the Attorney-General has a duty to determine whether a provision is inconsistent in his opinion and if so to report to the House accordingly. On this occasion—and I remember the sequence of events quite well because I made myself familiar with it—the Attorney-General received advice from officials that in respect of the bill the question of freedom of expression was quite finely balanced as to whether there was a requirement for a report on inconsistency and that in the end it was a judgment call that the Attorney-General would have to make. 
As the Attorney-General considered the matter and the restrictions on freedom of expression contained in the bill relating to such matters as a regulated period he determined that they were justifiable in a free and democratic society. He went one step further; he then caused to be published all the advice that he received on that question in a publicly available way on the Internet so that the public were able to see the matters he had taken into account in deciding that it was not necessary to report an inconsistency to the House. Just because the present Attorney-General says that he would have taken a different course of action and formed a different view on this opinion it is no reason to criticise the former Attorney-General and then repeat criticism of him; he deserves better than that. 
 On the substance of the Electoral Amendment Bill my colleague David Parker has indicated the course the Labour Party will take so I will not repeat it. But I do want to make one or two other observations. I welcome the retention of the donations and the penalty regime that was contained in the Electoral Finance Act which this bill will accomplish. In welcoming that I acknowledge Green member Metiria Turei who sat on the select committee and was instrumental in coming up with the transparency of donations regime that we are retaining. I am not sure that she has had due credit in the House for her contribution but it is well deserved. 
In terms of the discussion that needs to occur going forward—on what law should be in place for the next election and to attempt to achieve a consensus that preserves the principle that the New Zealand electoral system should not be open to abuse or sale to the highest bidder—this House can be assured that members on this side will be making a vigorous contribution on those questions. 
I conclude my remarks by noting that just because we are reverting to most of the law applying at the 2005 election members on this side would not want to see a rerun of the manifest misconduct that was engaged in during that election. That has been described very well in this debate by Russel Norman and just now by Peter Dunne. I offer my condolences to the officials who are present in the Chamber for the fact that they will have to go through the exercise of reviewing our electoral law again in a space of a couple of years—I can imagine that they are looking forward to it with great relish. But I do express the hope that Parliament can achieve a new electoral law that does achieve transparency and encouragement of broad participation and that ensures all voters are of equal value whatever their economic status. In the past this country pioneered the enfranchisement of all our citizens regardless of race class or gender. I hope that we can honour and extend that tradition as we now consider what our future electoral law should be. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.