Walker Holly: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8967. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I would like to start my contribution in this Committee stage on the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) by thanking the Justice and Electoral Committee for I think a very constructive approach and process on this bill. I very much enjoyed being part of it. I think there are a number of sensible amendments recommended by the committee by consensus that improve the bill and strengthen it. They are a good example of how the select committee process can work collaboratively and how it should work more often in this Parliament to improve legislation. 
Broadly speaking this is a good bill that the Green Party supports. It brings some of the provisions governing candidate donations for local body elections more closely in line with the equivalent provisions governing general elections and parliamentary candidate donations and returns. It has obviously been prompted by a very high-profile example in the 2010 Auckland mayoralty elections with the Hon John Banks and his memory lapses around the anonymous donations that he received. It is timely for that reason but also regardless of that example these are important changes that we think need to be made in the interests of transparency and fairness. Probably the most significant change that the bill makes is the change to the anonymous donations provisions so that anyone who works with a candidate now and who knows the identity of someone who makes a donation of more than $1500 to that candidate must declare the identity of that donor to the candidate and that candidate must therefore record that donation in their return of expenses and donations. I guess that is what we might call the “John Banks provision” in this bill and it is a good change. It is a change that we in the Green Party support. 
 However we think the bill does represent a missed opportunity to more properly align the local electoral rules with the rules for parliamentary elections. In the second reading debate speakers on both sides of the House talked about this being the object of the legislation yet if that is indeed the object of the legislation there is much more we could do that would align the provisions governing the two types of elections. It is a missed opportunity that the bill does not actually do more in that direction. 
However on that note we are pleased to see the Minister’s amendments set out in Supplementary Order Paper 198 which do bring the bill a little bit closer to alignment with the provisions in the Electoral Act by requiring donors to disclose when a donation is funded from contributions the name and address of every contributor who makes a contribution of more than $1500 and the amount of the contribution the total amount of contributions received from contributors who make contributions of more than $1500 and the total amount of all other contributions. That requires the candidate to disclose in their return of donations and expenses the identity of any donor who has made contributions in excess of $1500. And those are contributions in cash or in kind. So it makes clear in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper that that contribution could be a monetary donation but it could also be a donation of goods and services. It is a good amendment. It does as the previous speaker Andrew Little said fill a gap that was left after the Justice and Electoral Committee had considered the bill and we commend the Minister of Local Government the Hon Chris Tremain for bringing the amendment to the Committee. The Green Party will support the Minister’s amendments. 
But we think there is still much more that this bill could do to align provisions for local body elections with those governing general elections. Supplementary Order Paper 200 in my name puts forward a set of more comprehensive changes that would enhance the fairness and transparency of local body elections and candidate expenses and donations. The measures in my Supplementary Order Paper mirror the provisions of the member’s bill in the name of my colleague Denise Roche which had been in the ballot for some time actually before this legislation was introduced to the House and that would we think be a better way of both addressing the concerns regarding John Banks—and fixing up the provisions around anonymous donations—and actually making some more comprehensive and wholesale changes to the law governing local body elections. 
Our amendments would more effectively regulate the influence of wealth in local body election campaigns and they would promote transparency and accountability. They would do that in a number of ways. The main provisions in my Supplementary Order Paper before the Committee at the moment are to introduce a cap on donations by any person or group of a total of $5000; to lower the threshold for the disclosure of anonymous donations to be declared down to $500 from the $1500 proposed in this bill; to introduce a ban on overseas donations; to introduce a pecuniary interests register for members of local authorities much as we as members of Parliament have to file our pecuniary interests register; and perhaps most important to regulate third-party spending in local elections. 
I want to spend a bit of time talking about the need for the regulation of third-party spending and about what a glaring omission it is that this bill does not address third-party spending. If we think about the Auckland mayoral elections in the post super-city environment we see that we have a hugely influential position in terms of a local body election that candidates are running for. There is a lot at stake in terms of who the mayor of our largest city will be. There are a lot of interested parties that have a stake in the outcome of who the mayor of our largest city is. There are a lot of organisations that may wish to actively campaign either for or against a particular candidate or ticket in those elections. Although that is particularly apparent in Auckland in the super-city those very same issues are at stake in many local body elections around the country where local groups organisations businesses or individuals have an interest in the outcome of the election and may indeed wish to campaign and spend their money campaigning towards a particular outcome in that election. 
There is very little in the current regulations or provisions that actually regulates the spending activities of third parties in local body elections and there is nothing in this bill that would rectify that. Some might argue—indeed some have put this argument to me—that local body elections are lower profile and less likely to attract substantial third-party spending and campaigning and that there is therefore no need for this kind of provision. That may well have been the case in the past I think but with the greater amalgamation that we have seen in Auckland and that we are perhaps unfortunately likely to see more of around the country I think we are likely to see only more interest and third-party activity in local body campaigning. Indeed we are seeing it already. I have used this example in the second reading debate but we know for example that there is a wealthy individual in Hamilton who plans to campaign against every single incumbent councillor on the Hamilton City Council and there is absolutely nothing in the current provisions to stop him from doing so or to in any way restrict what he can spend in that campaign. That just does not seem right if we have a piece of legislation like this which looks to set spending caps and actually regulate local body electoral campaigning in some way. 
We also see the increasing use of campaign tickets to campaign in local body elections. Again there is nothing to restrict third parties from donating to the campaign ticket and if a donation is not allocated to an individual candidate on that campaign ticket there is no limit on what can be donated what has to be disclosed or how it can be spent. So that is a real gap in this bill. It is a gap that the Justice and Electoral Committee recognised and we said in our report that further amendments to regulate third-party spending were absolutely necessary to prevent inequities in the future yet we have not seen them come through the select committee due to time constraints. The chair of the committee did actually express some hope in the second reading that the Minister of Local Government would bring amendments to that effect in this Committee stage. I note that that has not happened and I am very disappointed to see that. So in the absence of amendments from the Minister to make this change I urge the Committee to support instead our Supplementary Order Paper 200 because it does bring in regulations for third-party spending which are so needed and also it does more closely align the provisions governing local body elections with those governing parliamentary elections. 
The other area of concern which my colleague Eugenie Sage will speak about when she speaks to her Supplementary Order Paper 201 is around the provisions that this bill makes to allow the Minister to postpone or adjourn local body elections. We are concerned in light of the experience at Environment Canterbury that that is not an appropriate mechanism. Although it might be necessary to allow an adjournment to take place it should be the electoral officer and not the Minister who does that. My colleague Eugenie Sage will speak to her Supplementary Order Paper to that effect later in the debate. For now I would like to urge the Committee to consider the importance of regulating third-party spending in local body elections and ask members to look closely at my Supplementary Order Paper 200 and the provisions within it.