King Annette: Electoral Finance Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 3) Electoral Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
King Annette: Electoral Finance Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 3) Electoral Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:644;Page:14029] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Electoral Finance Bill the Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 3) and the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This legislation has been contentious with its passage marked by acrimonious debate and a campaign of misinformation. A major newspaper the  
New Zealand Herald 
 devoted almost a month to attacking the legislation and the Government in a campaign the like of which has not been seen since a Labour Government legislated to stop tobacco advertising. One cannot help but wonder whether the motives for the current campaign are not very similar to the last one. 
Much has been said and written about the legislation. A letter to the editor in yesterday’s  
Dominion Post  
summed it up for many people when it said: “Democracy’s not one dollar one vote”. An article in last week’s  
Otago Daily Times 
 also made some relevant points: “As much as we like to imagine that freedom of speech is an absolute it isn’t. There are several laws that proscribe it.” The article went on to say that a leading opponent of the legislation believed that an ideal democracy would let money be free to talk whenever and however loud it likes. The article stated further that the truth was that this man has “bags of money and no hesitation in using any amount of it to try to influence the course of our future democracy.” Freedom of speech and the freedom to buy speech are not the same things. 
This legislation demonstrates the Government’s commitment to democratic and transparent elections. The Justice and Electoral Committee the Government and the Parliament during the Committee stage listened to the concerns about the Electoral Finance Bill and made a number of changes that improve the legislation considerably. This legislation is about creating a fair transparent electoral system that puts all parties on a level playing field with clearly defined rules and safeguards to protect the electoral system from abuse. We do not want to see the Americanisation of our electoral system. This legislation does not restrict free speech; it simply restricts the right to purchase speech through advertising. This is being done to safeguard our democracy by keeping to a minimum the undue influence of money in politics. That is what a level playing field means and the Government believes that most New Zealanders understand and support this principle. The legislation makes changes that will help to bring New Zealand in line with other comparable democracies such as Canada and the United Kingdom. These reforms are important and are fair and transparent for our elections and that is fundamental to our democracy. 
This legislation has been debated extensively. The public engaged with it through the select committee process and the committee sent the summary of its recommendations to the submitters. That was a suggestion made by the Human Rights Commission about further public consultation. Members of this House have also made important contributions to the discussions. During the Committee of the whole House the Government made a number of clarifications and amendments to the legislation both to improve its workability and in response to matters raised following the select committee report. We have worked with the Chief Electoral Office the Electoral Commission the Law Commission and the Crown Law Office to make this legislation work. There has been favourable feedback from many submitters who had concerns with the bill as it was introduced. 
In addition the Government carefully considered the changes proposed by Mr Christopher Finlayson in his Supplementary Order Papers. I thank the member for his considered proposals for amendments—some of which have been incorporated into the legislation. The most significant clarifications and amendments proposed by the Government include narrowing the definition of “published” amending the cut-off date for listing as a third party ensuring full disclosure when donations are made by trusts and creating a mechanism for indexing expenditure limits. I will talk more about these in a moment. 
One area received attention during the final stages of this debate—that is the meaning of the phrase about an MP acting “in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament”. I realise from the debate that the view I expressed in my second reading speech about the interpretation of that phrase was too narrow. Although acting in our capacity as an MP clearly includes participation in the business of the House and electorate and other representational duties work in our capacity as members of the Executive and other party spokespeople it clearly also includes the provision of information and critical analysis to the electorate on issues policy options and services. This is clearly not a strict definition and that would be undesirable. However the lack of a strict definition does not mean there is not other guidance. MPs’ behaviour is also governed by the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Act 2007 and the Speaker’s directions and determinations. 
Narrowing the definition of “publish” particularly by removing the part of the definition that would have encompassed advertisements that were brought “to the notice of the public in any other manner” has helped to remove many concerns. The amendment makes it clear that the definition captures only advertisements that are distributed to the general public not door-knocking or speeches at public meetings and so on. In addition to these changes the select committee ensured that the definition of an election advertisement does not affect the issues-based related advocacy that non-governmental organisations carry out. Alongside this amendment a new and important change made during the debate has been a common-sense clarification that when a suspected offence is inconsequential and there is no public interest in doing so the Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Office have the discretion not to report the matter to the police. 
A third substantive change to the legislation is the cut-off date by which a third party can list with the Electoral Commission. It will be a fixed date. Submitters including the Human Rights Commission were concerned that the period during which third parties were unable to list as a third party was too long and therefore created a restriction on the freedom of expression. The bill as introduced and reported back from the select committee had writ day as the day after which listing was prohibited—around 5 or 7 weeks before an election. This has been changed to 21 days before an election. The Human Rights Commission has said it is now largely happy with the legislation. The purpose of this change is to ensure that there is a balance between the date from which all participants in an election are known and the ability for people or groups to respond to issues that arise close to an election. 
Another change to the legislation during the last stages is a new clause that will ensure that there is full disclosure when donations are received from secret trusts. The new clause ensures that a chain of trusts cannot be used to circumvent the legislation. If the recipient of the donation cannot identify the contributors of a trust donation when the contribution is over $1000 the whole donation will be sent back to the donors either for them to remove the contribution or to identify the contributors. Ultimately greater transparency about the source of political funding will lead to increased public confidence in our democracy. 
There are a number of other changes including an indexation mechanism whereby political party candidate or third-party expenditure limits will be increased by the rate of inflation. This will occur every 3 years by Order in Council and will come into force on 1 October in the year before a Parliament is due to expire. In the departmental report on the legislation the Electoral Commission advised the Justice and Electoral Committee to adopt a proposal like this in relation to the election expenditure. The amendments I put forward did not index the donation thresholds in the legislation but this was not something that the royal commission or the Electoral Commissioner recommended. 
This legislation does not restrict free speech; it simply restricts the rights to purchase speech through advertising. This has been done to safeguard our democracy by keeping to a minimum the undue influence of money in politics. We want to protect the ability of all New Zealanders to participate in democracy. We must ensure that those with limited resources can realistically compete with those who have very deep pockets. I commend this legislation to the House.