Tremain Chris: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — Second Readings 
Tremain Chris: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — Second Readings 
[Volume:669;Page:15851] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I rise as a member of the Electoral Legislation Committee which considered this legislation to round out the debate with a brief speech. I start by thanking the committee members who were involved and the Minister for bringing the legislation to the House. 
I make the point that in November 2008 the new Opposition leader Phil Goff said it had been a mistake to ram through the controversial Electoral Finance Act without widespread support and Labour would like to take part in a review. He then went on to acknowledge publicly that the Labour Party had made mistakes. So I was somewhat disappointed when I came into the House 15 or 20 minutes ago to hear Chris Hipkins on his high horse talking about National ramming through Mugabe-style legislation when in November 2008 his leader had clearly acknowledged that Labour had rammed through electoral legislation without widespread support. 
What we see in the House today is totally the opposite of what Mr Hipkins— 
Hon Simon Power 
: A 2-year process. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: Exactly. As the Minister says we have been through a 2-year process that has sought cross-party support. I accept that there are a few members in the Chamber such as those in the ACT Party who are not fully in agreement with where we have got to but to say we do not have majority support is anything but the truth. Through the Minister Amy Adams and members of the Labour Party we have reached a consensus here on what I believe is a fair and transparent process. 
What I also like about the process is that we brought into it some of the realities of electioneering. Often when we put these debates in front of officials they have not been out there and had to deal with raising finance. They have not had to deal with putting up election hoardings; they have not had to deal with all the issues that go with running an election campaign. So I think that having people like Darren Hughes me and Pete Hodgson who have been through a couple of elections brought a sense of reality to the process. Without labouring the point I refer to things like the cost of hoardings. We brought some common sense to that. In relation to the level of third-party promotion yes it is not at the level that ACT would like to see but there were submitters who thought that we should have only a $25000 level. That would not even pay for a couple of advertisements in the  
New Zealand Herald 
. How could that constitute the limit for a national campaign? 
There are things like the reduction of compliance around associated entities which is where I will finish my debate. It had been proposed that people who were making a donation would have to declare as donors all the associated entities companies or trusts that they were involved with. Quite frankly that was nonsense; it would have stopped donations in their track. People who had a number of different entities would have said they would not go down the track of declaring every associated entity just so that they could make a donation to a party. So I think we have reached some common sense there. I am really pleased to see that we have reached a transparent process that is common sense and will provide settled law going forward. Thank you.