Brash Don: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading 
Brash Don: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5774] 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 This House has rarely seen more cynical and self-serving legislation. If this bill passes in its present form there will be no legal obligation on any political party to pay back the money that was stolen from taxpayers—none at all. Let me say that again: if this bill passes in its present form— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. On behalf of Katherine Rich and other National Party members as well as other members of the House who have stayed within the old rulings of the commission and accidentally stepped outside authorised expenditure I object to being called a thief. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Again members were calling out during that point of order. Members know there should be silence during a point of order. I thought that comment was part of the debate. The member has taken a personal reflection at being called a thief—is that correct? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I have taken a personal reflection at the member saying that the money was stolen. I am one of the members who made an error by taking the rules as they had always been and as they were confirmed to me by the Auditor-General. He subsequently changed his mind. The money was not stolen and I say that on my behalf and on behalf of Katherine Rich who did exactly the same thing as I did. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is not making a direct accusation to the member or to a party which the member cannot do—he cannot use those words. But that is not really what he did. 
Katherine Rich 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Mr Mallard’s interest in my well-being is rather touching but I am a bit unaware as to why he keeps including me in the debate. That member knows he is not able to seek leave on behalf of other members. He is a member who has been in this House for a long time so I would have thought that he would be aware of that. I take offence at being continually included in the debate when there is no reason for that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Again that is not a point of order because of the non-direct reference. I have ruled that no direct reference was made to a member. Is Katherine Rich taking direct offence? 
Katherine Rich 
: Yes I am taking direct offence at inclusion. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has taken direct offence. Would the member please withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I apologise to my colleague Dr Brash for interrupting his speech. You have just given a couple of rulings Madam Assistant Speaker and I just draw your attention to the fact that again you have given those rulings while being seated. If you do that it will make things quite difficult for us this afternoon during what is going to be quite a robust debate. If you want to retain order in the House I urge you to obey the Standing Order and stand when you want to make a ruling. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: If one reads the Standing Order carefully one sees there is no requirement on the Speaker to stand. What it does make clear is that when the Speaker stands everyone else is to be quiet. There is no requirement for you to stand. Over the years some Speakers have stood all the time some have stood some of the time and frankly in the case of some people one cannot tell the difference. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is quite right. I tell the Hon Maurice Williamson that I gave exactly that ruling quite a while ago. 
Dr DON BRASH 
: If this bill passes in its present form there will be no legal obligation at all on any political party to pay back the money that it has in deference to the sensitivities of Mr Mallard misappropriated. For that reason primarily the National Party will be voting against this legislation. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member cannot make a direct allegation against a member about misappropriation. I said before that the member had not made such an allegation but this time he clearly has. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. What Dr Brash said was effectively “in deference to the sensitivities of Mr Mallard” and he referred to the money having been misappropriated. If it helps you Madam Assistant Speaker I will table the Auditor-General’s report which talks about the money having been misappropriated. That is not an aspersion against the Minister; it is a fact. It is the only reason that we are here to discuss this bill today. To say that we cannot mention that has to be absurd. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: That is not what I said at all. I said: “when it is made against an individual member.” The member cannot say that about an individual member. He can certainly say that in the context of the debate. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. He did not say it about an individual member. He said “in deference to the sensitivities of Mr Mallard”; he did not accuse Mr Mallard of misappropriating funds. The fact is that the Auditor-General’s report talks about the Labour Party having misappropriated funds. If Mr Mallard wants to say that by virtue of his membership of the Labour Party he is affected well that is only a matter of fact surely. If he is also offended by the fact that the Auditor-General did put that in the report then I guess that is the reason why the Government has brought in the legislation—to tell the Auditor-General he is just a plonker and to go away because the Government does not want to know about him. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I take the point Mr Brownlee. I would just remind members that they cannot make accusations against individual members. 
Dr DON BRASH 
: I repeat: we will be opposing this legislation because in its present form it imposes no legal obligation on any political party to pay back the money that has been misappropriated. We will be moving amendments to make the passage of the bill conditional upon every political party repaying the money that has been misappropriated. 
The Labour Party has been trying to avoid this issue for over a year. I came across a press statement issued by my colleague Simon Power on 5 September 2005— 
Hon Member 
: Before the election? 
Dr DON BRASH 
: —before the election last year in which he drew attention to the fact that the pledge card issued by the Labour Party bore the parliamentary crest. And he asked whether that could mean it was funded from taxpayers’ money. Of course we now know that it was. When Simon Power raised that question at that time he was quietly ignored by the Labour Party. But we know that 3 or 4 days before that the Chief Electoral Officer had warned Mike Smith of the Labour Party by phone that the pledge card was an election expense. On 2 September last year—3 days before my colleague discovered it—the Labour Party received that advice in writing. Initially Labour Party members accepted that the pledge card was an election expense and then of course they changed their minds—just after the election. 
At the beginning of this parliamentary year I drew attention to the fact that $446000 spent by the Labour Party on its pledge card was almost certainly an improper use of taxpayers’ money. Then a few months back we had the draft of the Auditor-General’s report. At that point neither I nor anyone on the Opposition side of the House knew precisely what the Labour Party’s obligation was in that draft report—we did not have it. But we knew from the criteria listed in the document that we had that the pledge card at least would have been caught by the Auditor-General’s ruling. 
So what happened? Well the Labour Party started to make excuses. It said the rules had changed. The Auditor-General said no they had not changed. The Labour Party said the rules were unclear. The Auditor-General said no they were not unclear. The Labour Party said everybody had been doing it since 1989 and $350 million was at stake here. Helen Clark told people to move on because it was a beltway issue and nobody cared about it outside Wellington. Then Mike Williams the president of the Labour Party said the party had made such expenditure in 2002 and 1999 so it was OK. The situation is worse than that. Not only was that an admission that because Labour had sinned before it thought it could sin again without penalty but we now know that in 1999 the pledge card did not carry the parliamentary crest and was published with material saying it was proudly supported by members of the Labour Party. That raises some very serious questions about whether the public and Parliament were misled about where the money came from. 
Now we have a bill that validates what has been done so there is no legal obligation at all on political parties to pay back the money that has been misappropriated. Helen Clark says that Labour will pay it back but we know that sometimes Helen Clark makes “commitments” that she has no intention of actually honouring. I think back to when she first became the Prime Minister. She said her objective was to get New Zealand into the top half of the OECD within 10 years. Well 6 or 7 years on she is hoping we have all forgotten about that because of course she has not a dog’s chance of actually achieving that objective. When she talks about getting this money paid as a target for this financial year is that a target or a commitment? Why will she pay anything back after the law has been changed in order to make what is currently illegal legal? 
Not only is that the case but this bill at clause 7 proposes a new definition of “funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes” that would clearly allow the Labour Party pledge cards to be OK. In order to be counted as electioneering material has to explicitly ask for a vote explicitly ask for membership of a party or explicitly ask for money. Under that definition of electioneering the pledge card would be legal. 
We should also however note that even if this cynical and self-serving bill passes in its present form it does not get Labour off the hook for having breached section 214B of the Electoral Act. That section makes it a corrupt practice to knowingly spend above the legal limit. We know that is exactly what the Labour Party did. It had a limit of $2.38 million; we know it spent at least $2.8 million. It was warned by the Chief Electoral Officer that it was at risk of doing that. Even the Labour Party’s own auditors said that if the pledge card was electioneering expenditure then the Labour Party had breached the cap. I think of what happened to my poor friend Bob Clarkson. He was taken to court by a Minister in this Government who thought he might have overspent slightly the $20000 electoral limit. Bob would have forfeited his election to the seat of Tauranga had he been found to be guilty. He was not guilty—the court found he was not guilty. The Chief Electoral Officer the Electoral Commission the Auditor-General and the Solicitor-General all accept that Labour spent more than its legal entitlement in the 2005 election and nothing in this bill will change that fact. 
Passing this bill into law will remove any legal obligation that political parties may have to pay back the money that they owe. The National Party has paid back the small amount of money that was inadvertently used by a small number of my colleagues. ACT has paid back the money that it inadvertently used too and I congratulate the party on that. The Maori Party has paid back the money that it inadvertently spent. The Progressive party did not spend outside the terms of the rules at all. Why? Because Matt Robson said the rules were entirely clear. Let me congratulate the Progressive party the ACT party and the Maori Party. We had very careful people running our money and I call on the Labour Party and the other parties that have not yet paid back the money they owe to pay it back and to pay it back now. 
The Labour Party stole the last election by the slimmest of margins by breaking not one law but two laws. The very least it can do is to pay back the money that was misappropriated and to pay it back now.