Mackey Moana: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:13120] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on the commencement clause in what is a very important bill. I point out to the member who has just resumed his seat that when he was in Government and was making the rules he felt that it was perfectly fine to pass the Electoral Act of 1993 that governed how parliamentarians can spend their money as MPs to communicate with their constituents. When he was in Government he thought it was fine to be able to do the kinds of things that we have all been talking about doing here tonight; he thought that was fine. He did not have a problem. In fact he was a Cabinet Minister in the National Government that passed the very laws we are affirming here today. 
I also want to point out that what we are doing here today is exactly what the National Party wanted to do in the cross-party talks that occurred. It is exactly what National members wanted to happen until they saw a cynical and dishonest political advantage in trying to pretend that this was not the position they had taken the whole time. I have been sitting here listening to this debate. I say to the National members that they are not doing themselves any favours over this. It was fine for Bill English and Tony Ryall to stand up in this House and pass an electoral Act that allowed exactly what we are doing today and exactly what the members of this Parliament thought was the law until the Auditor-General’s report. Many of us disagreed with that report but we accepted it and we paid the money back. As we know just like that forward pass in a certain rugby game between the All Blacks and the French one does not always agree with the referee but one accepts the decision and moves on. 
We are debating a commencement date for something that simply continues what we have always understood to be the case since National passed the law in 1993. Those members stand up now and try to take the high ground as they always do from a base completely lacking in any moral conviction. They use much of their funding to close electorate offices so they can spend more money on pamphlets about themselves. I suspect that next year— 
Anne Tolley 
: Ha ha! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Anne Tolley can laugh. There were four electorate offices in the East Coast electorate under Labour; there are now two under National. But they are so cynical that I suggest we may see some opening next year in the East Coast electorate. Maybe we will see that as the National Party members decide they will try to take the moral high ground and say they are not spending any more money on promoting themselves but are instead opening electorate offices. I say that the public of New Zealand are far more savvy than that. They can see through it. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Look at your brochures. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I say to Mr Ryall that he was quite happy to put out pamphlets when he was in Government—he was quite happy to put them out before the last election—and I just say that people in glass houses should not throw stones. 
I will be watching with interest the next election campaign. That party over there has $7 million to spend. For every single pamphlet that goes out with the parliamentary crest on we will be telling the people of New Zealand: “This is the National Party that stood up and said this money should not be spent.” We will tell the public that it is the same National Party that stood up and accused other parties in this House of being corrupt for doing exactly what we have always understood the law to be and it is exactly what they have always understood the law to be and they are still happy to spend that money. There is a word for that and we are not allowed to use it in this House but the people of New Zealand know it. Mr Ryall is telling them all to be quiet now and to hush down because he knows they are on shaky ground. 
For every pamphlet that goes out next year with the parliamentary crest on it we will be saying to the National Party members: “Where are your standards now? Where are your high morals?”. We will remind them that they stood up in the House and called other parties corrupt for using parliamentary spending in the way we had always assumed we were allowed to. We are simply carrying this over until we can get some kind of cross-party agreement on how the rules should be set after the Auditor-General’s report. The National Party backed out of those talks when Labour said it would do exactly what National was asking for. When we said we would extend the provisions and do exactly what National had been asking for National backed out and said it would play political games on this issue. I say that that is not good enough. 
I say to the National members that they can bleat on all they want but we will be watching during the next election campaign. We will be watching that party which passed the very law we are now affirming in this House for every dollar of taxpayers’ funding that its members spend after they stood up in this House and said they believed this measure to be corrupt. So I say good luck to the National members in the next campaign because they will need it.