Mooney Joseph; Salesa JennyJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill at its third reading. This is a sad day it is a Labour Government that is using the power that it has been given by the New Zealand public to screw the scrum in its own favour rather than playing by the rules of the game that had been agreed on a bipartisan basis. And that is a very important part of our democratic framework. We have an agreement a constitution of conventions in this country that when we do things that affect the democratic arrangement—the way that people choose their Governments—we only change those rules on a bipartisan basis. However Labour is changing the rules on its own accord without bipartisan agreement from the other parties.I have not heard a good reason for why reducing the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to political parties from $15000 to $5000 is going to make any difference. Let's keep in mind that New Zealand is one of the oldest continuous democracies on the planet. It is one of only 21 full democracies in the world at this stage. We have a unique place on this planet one of the only full democracies in this world and we need to make sure we only change rules which affect the way we choose who governs us very very carefully and we do so on a bipartisan basis.I do recall Labour did something similar back in 2008 when it brought in the Electoral Finance Act—again trying to screw the scrum in its benefit so it could have what it thought was a more beneficial system to give them a better chance of winning the election. I note the somewhat cynical view of this is that Labour is bringing this in for 2023 which just happens to be an election year. That is indicative of a Labour Government that does not have respect for the constitutional conventions that have made us one of the only 21 full democracies on this planet and one of the longest-standing continuous democracies in the world. I'm very disappointed that Labour has not respected that and is bringing in laws like this.The reality is that many people and businesses wish to remain anonymous—either because they value their privacy and they have good reasons for that which I'll touch on or because they fear retaliation from the other party in power at the time. That is the reality. We are a relatively small country with just over 5 million people. A lot of people do business with the Government and they don't want the Government to be aware that they don't necessarily agree with their ideology and would prefer to have a different party in power. That is their right to do so. Will reducing this threshold from $15000 to $5000 make any difference on that? Fundamentally no it will not.The other point is: valuing privacy. We live unfortunately in an era where people are facing trial by social media. So if people don't wish to be seen as being affiliated to any particular party they will be a lot more cautious about providing donations because unfortunately there is an increasing tendency not just in New Zealand but certainly in New Zealand as well where people are picking others who don't have the same belief system as them and attacking them by any means possible and using online mobs effectively to do so. That is something that we should be very very cautious about because it is incredibly important that people feel they can express their views and that they can support the political parties of their choice to reflect the values that they think are important and should be reflected in the way they are governed.In the time available to me I'll touch a little as well on an article from back in 21 July 2022 by Bryce Edwards which said that although National had publicly released their submission it was unclear from the Ministry of Justice why submissions were kept secret for other political parties. It also said that Labour did not provide a formal written submission. Instead the party's general secretary gave an oral representation to the ministry and it appears the records of that meeting are being withheld—the irony of a Government that is reforming rules around secret political donations in a very secretive way. That again is not healthy for a democracy and it begs the question why Labour is doing this.This is an unfortunate attempt to screw the scrum in its own favour rather than playing by an agreed set of rules and playing a fair game a fierce game and letting the best person win. This will become law tonight but this is a mistake by the Labour Party and the National Party strongly opposes it.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Helen White for five minutes.