Mapp Wayne: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5836] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 This legislation would have to be one of the most cynical bits of chicanery that this Parliament has seen for many years. Why do I say that? The Government had choices. It could have for instance validated just 3 months but what has it done? It has tried to pretend that for 17 years this Parliament and the Parliamentary Service have participated in illegality. That is a completely cynical manoeuvre. They know it is not true. They know that is a lie but they are trying to perpetrate— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I just want to point out that this is going to be a robust debate and I accept that but there are still limits and the member just transgressed beyond that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Yes I think I heard the member say what you indicated Dr Cullen. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I withdraw and apologise. Labour members know that that is the most cynical manipulation of the law that this country has seen. What is more they expect to be able to just wipe the proceedings from our courts as if they never mattered. 
One of the most important things we have in this country is independent courts—courts that examine what Governments do. People in the House and in this country can cite decisions of the courts from over the years— 
Fitzgerald v Muldoon 
 the New Zealand Maori Council case. These are cardinal decisions. They set out the rules for the future they set out the limits of parliamentary power. I have no doubt that in the case of  
Darnton v Clark 
 the court would have made a declaration that the spending was fundamentally unlawful. It would have set out the limits of parliamentary power. That is how democracy works. On the one hand we have Parliament which makes the law but on the other hand we have the courts which set out the limitations on parliamentary power. 
This Government wants to completely overturn those fundamental constitutional principles. It wants to set itself up as the complete arbiter of all the law. It is as if it thinks it has papal infallibility. It wants to pretend that the unlawful becomes lawful—as if it never was unlawful. That is a cynical manipulation of the public and the public sees it exactly for what it is. I want to point out to the former Attorney-General that this is a view shared by the editor of the  
New Zealand Law Journal 
. For instance in September this year he said that there were two severe threats for the future of our democracy. One was the State funding of political parties; the other was retrospective legislation validating Labour’s chicanery at the last election. 
So what are we seeing here today? We are seeing a Government shoving this bill through in urgency with no consultation with the public and using a cynical manipulation of parliamentary procedures to put through retrospective legislation validating its thievery at the election. I find that abhorrent. 
I find it appalling firstly that we are spending this time in this Parliament today in the pretence that every single party for the last 16 years has done something unlawful when that is not true. The Auditor-General focused only on 3 months. He made that perfectly clear. The second thing I find reprehensible is this Government’s cavalier approach of removing the right of citizens to have its cases heard in the courts and to have judges declare what the law of the country is and how it should be interpreted so that we now have a Parliament that places itself effectively above the law. That is wrong and that will be judged harshly by the public in the future.