Copeland Gordon: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Copeland Gordon: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5819] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 On behalf of United Future members I say there is not much else we want to say about the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill because the ground was very adequately covered by our leader the Hon Peter Dunne during the first reading debate. But there are a couple of things I think we should respond to in terms of some of the information that has been placed before Parliament during this debate. In particular I want to comment on the—in my view—very simplistic analysis presented to the House by Rodney Hide in his speech. 
Rodney Hide suggested that his respect for the Auditor-General and his office and for that of the Solicitor-General would ipso facto lead to the conclusion that it was wrong for us to pass this legislation because somehow or other that would be disrespectful to the Auditor-General. He suggested that since the Auditor-General has declared the expenditure to be unlawful we should leave it for all time to sit in some kind of limbo in the Government accounts as unlawful expenditure. But I point out to Rodney Hide that the House faces a slightly deeper dilemma than that simplistic analysis. It is that in addition to having advice from the Auditor-General on this matter Parliament has also had advice from Treasury. Treasury has advised the House in its written report which has been tabled with the papers that expenses incurred without or outside an appropriation are in breach of section 4 of the Public Finance Act 1989. 
Now two wrongs never amount to a right. So I think it is quite illogical and it would really be quite crazy to argue that because a party—and this is certainly the case for United Future whatever may be the case for other parties—inadvertently broke the rules regarding electioneering expenditure as per the Auditor-General’s report based upon the opinion of the Solicitor-General we should then set about to deliberately break the rules and the law as set out in the Public Finance Act by failing to validate the resulting unlawful expenditure. Someone has really lost the plot in the analysis of the whole thing because all that we are doing here tonight is to go with the law—the Public Finance Act 1989 which obliges us to validate the expenditure. 
The unlawful or lawful nature of the expenditure as Peter Dunne so adequately described has nothing to do at all with the moral imperative of whether the money should be repaid. United Future as a party has resolved that moral imperative very clearly by saying that we intend to repay the money. We will do so irrespective of whether this bill goes through tonight or is defeated. We will repay the money because it is necessary to do so. Inadvertent though the unlawful nature of the expenditure may have been we acknowledge that there is a case to be answered in terms of the New Zealand public and that the only reasonable response to their concerns about what has happened through these unfortunate events is to make a repayment. That is exactly what we intend to do. I repeat those assurances tonight to this House and I say that that moral imperative from our point of view remains whether or not the expenditure is validated by this legislation. But because it would be wrong to deliberately breach the Public Finance Act 1989 we will continue to vote for this bill through the Committee stage and its third reading.