Brown Peter: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
Brown Peter: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13623] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I have sat in my office for a large part of the time and listened to the debate on the Electoral Finance Bill. I am waiting for the National Party to say something positive not necessarily about this bill but about controls on election expenditure and the way elections are administered. If we listen to those members as many of the general public do we get the impression that they want no rules whatsoever. National proved that the rules that applied in 2005 were inadequate. They did not do the job. The rules that are currently in vogue which applied in 2005 did not do the job. They allowed the Exclusive Brethren to spend $1.2 million on pushing the National Party’s cause and that is not only unethical but also downright dishonest. 
Those members over there have confused the public big time. The public think that as individual members of the public they will not be able to criticise anything. They think they will not be able to play a part. They think they will not be able to talk on talkback radio or write letters to the editor. That is absolutely ridiculous. The public will still have all the freedom to do what they want and say what they want in the electoral process and so will any organisation. But once that organisation gets into promoting a political party it has to be registered. If that organisation wants to put one foot in the water and get into the political process it has to be registered. Then it can spend up to $120000 promoting whatever it wants. That is not enough for that crowd over there. They want the crown jewels and everything. Let me say to those members over there that New Zealand First is determined to make politics honest and we are determined to make the process honest. The process we have now the process we had in 2005 is not honest. The National Party proved that. The National Party took advantage of the process and this bill will rectify that. 
What the public has been fed by the National Party is an outright disgrace. It is a total distortion of the truth and I cannot see any merit in the National members doing that. I honestly cannot see what they can gain by going out and telling members of the public that their freedom of expression will be curtailed. In fact they are saying more than that; they are saying they will lose it totally. What absolute rubbish! 
Let me make this quite clear. The part we are now dealing with deals with the penalties. We have heard at length National members speaking about the penalties and all that goes with that. But most of the offences the public think are offences—which the National Party has fed them—are not offences at all. This bill will give people more freedom and it will restrict the ability for organisations and political parties to control the vote by investing huge amounts of money. That is the underlying purpose of this bill—to put some financial controls on the political process so that a fair vote is a true vote. 
It is a sad day in this Parliament when we cannot recognise that there are problems and loopholes and work together collectively to address them. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: We weren’t asked! 
PETER BROWN 
: I know for a fact that several members of the National Party were on the Justice and Electoral Committee that addressed this bill. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: I was one of them. 
PETER BROWN 
: He was one of them. He sat there and made no contribution whatsoever and then he comes here and says he was not asked. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: That’s right. We were excluded at every opportunity. 
PETER BROWN 
: This is beyond belief. He sits on a select committee and makes no input whatsoever? Is that what the member is trying to tell us? That is absolute poppycock. Let me just read from the select committee report—the select committee that that member was not asked to participate in yet he sat there full-time addressing issues. It states in the explanatory note of the bill: “As the royal commission on the electoral system wrote it is illogical to limit spending by parties if other interests are not also controlled.”