Ryall Tony: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — Second Reading 
Ryall Tony: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13017] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 It was not until the end of the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech that it became clear that he is absolutely aware of why the National Party opposes the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill and it is because of its link with the Electoral Finance Bill. At the beginning of his speech Dr Cullen revealed the Government’s true agenda with this legislation and the Electoral Finance Bill. It is all about the suppression of Opposition parties’ ability to talk to other voters in election year. If one couples this bill with the Electoral Finance Bill then one has a marriage of an onslaught on the taxpayers’ purse to advantage the Labour Party in the run-up to the next election. 
One would not have thought from Dr Cullen’s speech that this is the party that stole $800000 of taxpayers’ money at the last election a party that knowingly breached the spending limits in the electoral system and a party that was warned by the Chief Electoral Officer that its pledge card paid for by the New Zealand taxpayer would have to be included in election spending. It did not do this because it knew that it would then have to report a breach of the spending limit. This party is standing on its high horse in other places in this building and saying that parties should not be allowed to spend more than the spending cap in an election period and that is the party that spent $800000 more than it was allowed to spend! It stole the 2005 general election because if it had not spent that $800000 it would not be the Government today. 
So let us not have the Minister of Finance pro tempore coming forward and saying that the National Party is not serious about this bill. He knows that the exact reason why we oppose this legislation is that it is in a marriage of political convenience with the Electoral Finance Bill in order to continue to rort the New Zealand taxpayer and to give the New Zealand Labour Party an advantage at the next election. 
Here is how the bill works. It expressly provides for members of Parliament to undertake their efforts and responsibilities as members of Parliament. That is fine. It puts in place rules that are a checklist a checklist that would allow for example a party to distribute a pledge card to all households in New Zealand with that party’s commitments on it. That is allowed under this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. Also allowed under this legislation is a poster that might say that the Labour Party will do x y and z. That is allowed under this legislation and a full page ad stating that only the Labour Party cares for the environment and paid for by Parliamentary Service will be allowed under this bill. “So what?” members may say. “Why is that a problem?” Well maybe that would not be a problem if it were not done during the 3-month election period. As the Auditor-General and Chief Electoral Officer said those sorts of adverts during the 3-month election period are electioneering and they must be included in a party’s spending limit. 
What happened? The Labour Party members stole $800000. They did not include that figure in their spending return and that is appalling. What did the police do? They investigated the case on the last possible day they could possibly investigate it. What that tells us is that this bill allows the pledge card to go ahead and what makes it worse is that if we marry this bill with the Electoral Finance Bill we see that those bills provide a blanket exemption for any spending by members of Parliament in their responsibilities as members of Parliament and that spending does not have to be included as an election expense. It does not have to be included as an election expense. So it just allows Labour to do the pledge card rort again. I hope the Labour Party does the pledge card again because it will remind New Zealanders of how Labour stole the 2005 election and how it spent $800000 of taxpayers’ money that it was not allowed to spend. 
What is worse the Chief Electoral Officer told the Labour Party that the pledge card should be incorporated in Labour’s election return and it did not do it. Labour members did not do it because they knew it would push them over the limit and it would be an illegal offence. But did the Labour Party members listen to the Chief Electoral Officer? No. They continued to spend taxpayers’ money in excess of the legal limit for any party to spend during an election. If the National Party had had the opportunity to spend $3.2 million on the election as the Labour Party did the election result would have been very different and those sad members opposite would not have had the opportunity to inflict themselves on the people of New Zealand for another 3 years. That is why we oppose this legislation. 
This legislation has to be seen in concert with the Electoral Finance Bill because the Electoral Finance Bill will legalise Labour’s pledge card for the 2008 general election. It will legalise Labour putting billboards up and down the country saying Labour will do this and Labour will do that. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Who did that? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: The Labour Party did that at the last election to the tune of $800000. What is worse is that the Chief Electoral Officer told the Labour Party that what it was doing would have to be included in its spending return. Labour members must have known that that would push them over the spending limit. David Henry wrote to them 2 or 3 weeks before the last election and warned them that the money spent on the pledge card would have to be considered as part of their spending return but they carried on and wilfully broke the law by spending over the limit for the election and they used taxpayers’ money to do it. New Zealanders will not forget how Labour stole the 2005 election by spending $800000 over the spending limit. 
What makes it worse as Mr Finlayson says is that Labour was warned 3 weeks before the election that that money would have to be counted in the spending limit but Labour ignored that advice and wilfully broke the law to try—successfully—to win the 2005 election. We will never let the Labour Party forget that it stole the election by breaking the law wilfully. It was only the fact that the police never got around to investigating in time that meant that senior members in that party were not facing criminal charges before the courts for a breach of the Electoral Act. 
The National Party says this bill is very serious when we consider it along with the Electoral Finance Bill. There is no justification for having one rule for spending by members of Parliament and another rule for the rest of the country. Allowing parliamentary funds to be used in this way as the Government is proposing to do by allowing the legalising of another pledge card is not only de facto State funding of political parties on a scale we have not seen before but it gives a huge advantage to the Government and to existing members of Parliament and it makes a mockery of the election spending cap. Under the election rules a political party cannot spend more than $2.4 million on election advertising—except for the Labour Party in the 2005 general election which spent $3.2 million. That is what Labour did. It knowingly broke the election spending limit to the tune of $800000. 
Under the Electoral Finance Bill parties in Parliament will be able to use their leaders’ office funding as an additional source for election advertising. It is not outside the 3-month or regulated period that parties in Parliament will be able to spend taxpayers’ money for an election purpose and get away with it; it is right up until election day. That is absolutely appalling because it is a complete contradiction of what the country expected when the Labour Party was revealed as having broken the law at the last election. 
Get this dead right I say to members—parties were allowed to spend $2.4 million during the 3 months before the last election; Labour spent $3.2 million. Labour spent over a million and a half dollars in the last month of the election. It spent $800000 knowing that this would count against its spending limit but it went ahead and did it anyway. That is the reason why the people of New Zealand join with the  
New Zealand Herald 
 in saying that there is an attack on democracy in this country and that the attack on democracy comes in the concert of this bill and the Electoral Finance Bill. The people of New Zealand agree with the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that this Government is attacking democracy in New Zealand and that will be its failed epitaph.