Bennett Paula: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13544] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I will speak particularly on clause 55B. I am quite delighted that the Minister Annette King is actually in the chair because I have some questions about the clause as well. So I am looking forward to going down that track on the actual clause. 
The clause quite adamantly states that Government departments State-owned enterprises Crown entities Crown-owned companies and other instruments of the Crown cannot promote an election advertisement. I am not really sure why this clause was put into the bill and I would be interested in hearing from the Minister the reason for that. I presume it was to try to dispel the National Party’s absolute concerns that those State-owned enterprises and Government departments were going to be advertising by stealth political advertisements of the Labour Party by pretending the advertisements were policy and using the funds for that. We have been taking quite an interest in the communications budgets of those departments to see whether that is true. 
But the Government has finally twigged that this provision would include Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Radio New Zealand and there was the fear that it would prevent them from broadcasting campaign openings and closings. So the Government has introduced a Supplementary Order Paper to avoid doubt with an amendment that does not prevent any broadcaster from broadcasting an election programme or prevent TVNZ or Radio New Zealand from broadcasting opening and closing addresses. So the Government has tried to cover up the issue with that Supplementary Order Paper and I note that that is why it has done that. 
I wanted to ask the Minister why there was no regulatory period. This regulation could run continuously not just for the 3 years but overall because the legislation does not specify any regulatory period. Reading the legislation I have some real concerns that it could mean that certain persons and bodies may not promote an election advertisement. 
I think what is most important about this clause though is the determining of what an election advertisement is. That has to be a key point and it is certainly one that is ambiguous and one that should be causing us all a bit of concern. Election advertisements can cover the opening and closing of a campaign and it can be the ones we pay for and in which we are restricted on what we can show on TV. Well we already have those provisions; that law is already there. What parties can spend on election advertising via the media is very clear. Spending is regulated and the regulations have been working. Certainly we have had some minor upsets in the past with some of the smaller parties and candidates feeling they were not getting as fair a go as others but the regulations have been working and I cannot see the need for us to be regulating further on that. 
So this provision has to be about what an election advertisement is. And there is the absolute belief that in election advertisements we will see Labour spending the Government’s money and spending it via Government departments to push its own advertising and its own message. But New Zealand has woken up to this and New Zealand will no longer be treated like a fool. It will no longer sit back and say that it is perfectly acceptable for the Labour Party to spread its message via the Government message—via the farce of “20 hours’ free” via the KiwiSaver messages we have seen and via the increase in communications budgets that has come through and that we are seeing in the estimates for next year. 
It is not a big surprise to anyone that there has been a huge leap in communications personnel in Government departments. I ask the Minister whether we understand in relation to this advertising by stealth that this was the sort of advertising that Clare Curran was going to do. One has to ask whether that is the sort of spin that was going to go through which the Labour Party wanted to push via Government departments. Evidence of that is coming out on a daily basis; we are hearing that that is the type of message that the Minister for the Environment wanted to be pushed through the ministry. He wanted his message of Labour Party propaganda to be pushed via that department and that is indeed what Clare Curran was employed for.