Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Mr Chair. In this committee of the whole House stage of the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) it's important that we actually take what little opportunity we have to interrogate the detail of this to give the debate the dignity that it deserves—or actually probably quite a lot more given how truncated the process has been.Let me start by trying to understand a bit of what's in the Minister of Justice's head to which he alluded to in yesterday's debate about basically the interpretation of what he sees as an appropriate practice for prosecuting potential offences under this. Minister Little talked about a scenario where basically the more that a donation exceeds $50 the more scrutiny should be applied to a possible breach. That might be a reasonable sort of point for the Minister to make but I don't think it's reasonable for him to be pontificating on that in a way that suggests that decision-making bodies should take it into account but not have it included it in the law.So looking at clause 5 which as the Minister rightly says is the main sort of operative provision I would like the Minister or the Minister in his stead Peeni Henare to answer where in the definition section 207(2) of candidate donation" or "party donation" do we have reflected this idea of proportionality—that the higher the amount the more scrutiny would be applied. I'm happy that between $0 and $50 there's none because that's not an offence—that's fine; that's fair enough as far as it goes. But after that we've got on record from the current Minister of Justice who's introducing a reform bill—you know modest as it is—a suggestion from him about the way that the law should be applied and that is not recorded in the law itself. If the committee of the whole House stage is to have any meaning whatsoever then it must be that the Minister can actually explain what he means by that and more particularly his appetite for considering a change that we ourselves on this side of the House might put in if he's not willing or prepared to do it. I'm assuming that the Green Party or other coalition colleagues or support party colleagues haven't done so. That's a serious miss if that's something that's sort of on the table generally speaking in terms of the law reform but actually doesn't exist anywhere but in the Minister's head. So that's the first thing.The second question that I'd like to be answered by the Minister relates to the definition of "overseas person". We've got here in clause 5(5)(a) discussion of an individual probably a natural person—fine—who resides outside of New Zealand but it doesn't actually have any more detail about that. Does that mean simply that the person cannot reside outside New Zealand at the time that they make the donation? Does it mean that they must have resided in New Zealand to qualify as a non-overseas person? Maybe just during the election campaign period. Maybe during election year. Maybe during the three-year term for which the donation relates. Maybe since writ day if we want to get a little bit more refined. There are a number of different answers that could be given to that all of which might be reasonable.But the fact of the matter is that all we've got is just in the present tense an individual who resides outside New Zealand will be disqualified. Well does that mean that someone who is a New Zealand resident who goes overseas—perhaps on a holiday for example; just a private individual perfectly entitled to go overseas on a holiday—if they make the donation at that time that that is a donation by an overseas person? So these are pretty serious questions in terms of the way that the law will be applied and understood and I'd like to think that this is an answer that the Minister can give for at least a little bit of direction seeing as he hasn't troubled to spell it out more clearly in the legislation.I anticipate that the Minister might say "Well this meaning of 'overseas person' exists elsewhere." and it simply would have the same kind of interpretation applied to it. In the first instance I don't think that's satisfactory if that's sort of where he intends to go simply because the whole point of rewriting a law is that you do it in as clear a way as possible. Certainly loopholes and other shortfalls that can be identified at the committee of the whole House stage should be rectified at this stage so it would be a relatively easy Supplementary Order Paper—a stroke of a pen really. Again I'd offer to potentially do some work on that if he can indicate that he's amenable to that.But at the same time I also don't think it's appropriate for us to leave open this question about what it means to reside outside New Zealand simply by talking about the existence of another definition. If that's the approach then surely we should just say that an "overseas person" has the same meaning in some other statute or perhaps another—[Time expired]"