Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:11006] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I rise to thank the Minister of Justice for his contribution to this debate and to reassert Labour’s support for this bill the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill. We think that it is a good measure. The objectives described in this bill are certainly ones that we support. We certainly feel that the new Electoral Commission which will take over the functions of the Chief Electoral Officer and the current Electoral Commission will improve confidence in our electoral system. The timetable is challenging. I think the Minister indicated that with 1 October I think it is intended to be the date when the new commission takes effect. I believe that it was right for the Government to make the decision to hold off the second tranche of administrative changes until after that process is established and for the remaining functions to transfer to the commission after the holding of the next general election. That makes very good sense indeed. 
However it would not be appropriate to end the contribution I am making on this bill without reinforcing the deep and abiding concern I have about the impact of this new body having to focus its attention on its first general election—its knowing that many of the personnel will be the same personnel and knowing that they will want to do that really well for the first time—and at the same time having to administer an incredibly important constitutional referendum with no spending limits on third parties. That is a serious issue which this House needs to take a good look at. Even though that provision is contained within another bill the fact that this commission will be looking at the detailed application of MMP and different parts of MMP if MMP survives the referendum means that is right and proper that we raise this in the debate on this bill as well. 
If MMP as a system of electing MPs into Parliament is retained then this commission will have a vitally important role. It will be one that we have previously assigned to a special committee of Parliament chaired by the Speaker and in this future case under the Electoral Commission. I personally support that. It is better to have an independent Crown entity taking up that role. The public can have confidence in that. That will be one of the advantages that we will go with into the referendum on MMP. But the strong disadvantage that we will continue to have is that people can spend anything to achieve their objective. I am sure they will not be as unsophisticated as putting paper bags over the heads of a few unidentified list MPs which was the best they could manage last time. This time the campaigning will be much more effective and it will be tied up with an election campaign which will be a pretty major test between two parties and the other parties competing perhaps for the second to last time if we end up without a proportional system in Parliament given the timetable that has been proposed. I am just reinforcing how important it is to have caps on spending on the referendum. I am very strongly of the view that we need to have caps on spending on parallel campaigns as well. But on that note I am pleased that the bill is receiving its final reading. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.