McCully Murray: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
McCully Murray: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5806] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 The bill and the circumstances in which the House finds itself tonight should invite members opposite to reflect. Indeed it should make all members in this House reflect because we in this Parliament have a unique role. We have unique powers and with those unique powers go some unique responsibilities. Yet today we find ourselves not just legislating under urgency; we find ourselves legislating about ourselves. 
I invite members opposite and those who want to prop them up in this Chamber to apply a very simple test. It is this: if the Auditor-General’s report concerned the actions of private citizens or a private organisation or even of a Government department or local authority and that organisation or local authority had breached the terms of the Public Finance Act would we be here tonight rushing a bill through all stages on the first available parliamentary day to address that matter? Would we be here tonight under urgency using the extraordinary powers of this House to rectify the matter on the first available day? Would we be trying to avoid the select committee process by which every other measure that goes before this House is subject to scrutiny? No we would not. Would we be trying to avoid any form of public scrutiny over the normal parliamentary timetable of a bill? No we would not. Would we see the lack of consultation with the parties that are affected by the law that is sitting on the Table of the House because parties on this side have not been subjected to any form of consultation in the way that any ordinary New Zealand citizen or organisation would enjoy that consultation about a measure that touched their affairs? No we would not see it happen were it not for the fact that this legislation suits the affairs of the New Zealand Labour Party. 
Today as a consequence of that fact we see that this Government has no hesitation in hijacking the legislative process hijacking the parliamentary process and the parliamentary timetable through urgency; in reducing the normally non-partisan role of the Minister responsible for the Parliamentary Service and of the officers who serve in that service to the role of pawns of the Labour Party and their mates—all to serve the narrow partisan interests of the Labour Party and its friends. That is an abuse of this Parliament. It is an abuse of the legislative process. It is an abuse of the confidence of the New Zealand public who elected the representatives who sit in this Parliament. It is an abuse of that confidence. 
Worst of all these are actions that are driven by a motive that should never be allowed to rear its ugly head in this Chamber. It is naked shameless unprincipled self-interest. It is the very thing that we commit ourselves at the commencement of each day of sitting that we will put aside in the interests of the public we are here to serve. That is what is driving this Labour Government in taking this bill through the House under urgency tonight. 
This measure has some important implications. First of all as a result we will see State funding of political parties in a significant way introduced into the New Zealand law. That is something most New Zealanders are opposed to; something that New Zealanders will have no say about because we are doing this without consultation with them and in many ways without their knowledge. We certainly do so without their consent. 
This is also bad legislation because it places politicians above the law. We are simply passing this measure because unlike any other class of New Zealanders we can. We know that it is wrong and members opposite know that it is wrong. That is why of course we are doing it under urgency. The way in which this measure is being handled politicises the Parliamentary Service Commission which has now some decades of history running this institution. It politicises that institution in a way that members opposite along with others will learn to regret over time. And that is not a threat; that is a promise. There is no going back from that. 
Let us be clear about one thing as this measure goes through the House in the space of these 2 days. Some parties in this Parliament despite what they might say have absolutely no intention of paying back the money they have unlawfully taken from the public of New Zealand. That is the reason for this bill. This bill is being passed so that those parties will not have any legal obligation to pay back the money they have taken unlawfully. The New Zealand First Party knows full well that it votes for this measure tonight so that it will not have to pay the money back. It is galling to sit in this Chamber and hear Mr Brown tell the House that the New Zealand First Party will meet all of its lawful obligations as it participates in passing under urgency a bill that will ensure that New Zealand First has no lawful obligations at all. Even Mr Brown can work that out. 
There is only one reason for the rush for the urgency for the avoidance of public scrutiny for the avoidance of a select committee process—that is because some people in this Parliament have no intention of meeting the obligation they have to the New Zealand taxpayer to pay the money back. By the end of this week they will have no legal obligation to do so. 
We do not have State funding of political parties in New Zealand and there is a reason for that. The public is opposed to it. The public has always been opposed to it. That is why for three successive elections the Labour Party has hidden the fact that taxpayers have picked up the tab for the centrepiece of its election campaign—the Labour Party’s pledge card. Members on this side are pretty suspicious; those of us who have been in the Parliament for a while are deeply suspicious about the Labour Party and we think all sorts of terrible things about Labour from time to time. But it did not cross our minds—it never ever crossed our minds—that the Labour Party would have the sheer gall to use taxpayers’ funds to purchase the pledge card which has been the centrepiece of not just the last election campaign but the last three election campaigns. 
Members of the press gallery have asked us almost incredulously: “How can it be that you people haven’t got on to this before?”. We have had to give them the honest answer that we simply did not think that even the Labour Party could stoop so low as to use taxpayers’ money to fund the Labour Party pledge card. We did not ever think it was possible. Nor did many of the institutions that guide our society think that it was appropriate. It is deeply revealing as a result of the revelations we have seen in recent days that the Parliamentary Service officers did not think it was the right thing to do either. Those officers paid over the money they were obliged to only because they had a gun to their head from Heather Simpson. They were told absolutely: “Pay up or you know what consequences will be coming your way.” By the end of this week the Labour Party pledge card will be able to lawfully be paid for with taxpayers’ money. That is the fundamental change in the law that clause 7 of this bill will make. 
 I conclude by regretting most sincerely the shabby politicisation of the Parliamentary Service Commission that has seen this bill come to the House. Normally when we pass a bill we have procedures that ensure the bill sits on the Table for a while so that all of the parties that will be affected by it will know what will happen to them that they will have their ability to have a say that we have a select committee process that we have transparency and that we pass bills over weeks and months not over hours and days. That is because transparency and accountability to the public are fundamental principles of the way in which this place operates. 
But because of the naked self-interest of the Labour Party all of that is being put to one side to pass a bill that suits certain members of this House. That is an outrage. It is an outrage that the Minister responsible for the Parliamentary Service Commission has been prepared to engage with the Minister of Finance in that process and make her officers do the same. She has sold down the river members of Parliament on this side of the House and she will never ever regain our confidence as a consequence. She will never regain the confidence of members on this side of the House in relation to the administration of the Parliament. Her use of Jack Hodder and Chapman Tripp who foolishly lent their names to this enterprise is very much a matter for regret. That was a shoddy piece of work on their part. Even the Attorney-General will know that that is the case. 
The New Zealand public are not silly. They know what is going on here. They have worked it out. This is one giant nail in the coffin of this Government. These people will be down the road and the sooner the better.