Tolley Anne: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
Tolley Anne: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13403] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 There was a headline in the  
New Zealand Herald  
last week that read: “Democracy under attack”. It was not about Pakistan and it was not about Zimbabwe; it was about New Zealand. 
I was a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee that examined the Electoral Finance Bill heard submissions on it and reported back to Parliament. I concur with that headline. In this bill democracy is under attack in this country from Labour from the Greens from New Zealand First from Jim Anderton’s Progressive party and from United Future. They connived they manipulated they stage-managed they bullied they outvoted and they controlled the entire process from start to finish. MPs normally find— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: It’s called democracy. 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: That is an interesting comment from Mr Woolerton. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What did he say? 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: He said it is about democracy. That is absolutely right. It was about whoever had the most votes getting their wishes in the select committee. 
Most MPs who go into a select committee process on a bill enjoy it because whether or not they are in favour of the bill there is normally an atmosphere where everyone takes part where everyone talks and where there is an opportunity to explore and discuss the proposed legislation. I have to say that the chair of this select committee Lynne Pillay and her Government cronies made sure that that did not happen in this select committee. We were not allowed to ask questions we were not allowed to take part in the debate we were kept on edge the whole time and we were kept out of the process. 
Electoral law has been previously developed on a cross-party basis. We have had to do that for the legislation to be endurable. The last thing this country wants is every 3 years for those who have the power to turn round and change the rules. It has not always been peace joy holding hands and singing “Kumbaya”. There have been some really strong opposing philosophies. But in the end because there has been a determination and an understanding that we need to have cross-party involvement there has previously been cross-party agreement to any legislative change. 
The process has been just as important as the content of the law. National ACT and Maori Party members when they were able to attend select committee meetings tried to point that out on many occasions to the members sitting on the other side of the room. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Did they listen? 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: No they did not. They shut us down. Even the officials made a plea to the select committee. After days of seeing this manipulation the officials appealed to the Government members to try to get cross-party agreement because that was what was needed to make the legislation endurable. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Record in the House what Marian Hobbs said. 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: When the official said that in his long experience cross-party agreement was needed for enduring legislation Marian Hobbs told him: “That’s our kaupapa not yours.” 
Wide political representation was essentially shut out. I note that the Minister of Justice made a big fuss in her opening speech today about how the Government had widened the representation on the select committee so that all parties in Parliament could be represented. It did do that but it was a sham. Like the process it was a sham because the meeting schedule was set up so that it actually shut out minor parties. By meeting every Monday from 9 until 3 or 9 until 6 which was when the substantive discussions took place small parties like ACT the Maori Party and even United Future were unable to take part in those discussions. They were unable to play an essential role in the development of this legislation. It was a sham; it was stage-managed again to look as if the discussion was cross-party when in fact it was not. 
With this bill being rushed bill through in such a short time frame there was no time to explore or discuss the substantive issues in it. My colleague Tony Ryall when he was talking about the regulated period tried to find out from the officials what the underlying policy reasoning was. He asked in a very reasonable manner again and again. Did we hear the underlying reason for the regulated period being extended out to almost one-third of the electoral cycle? No we did not. We did get an agreement from the Ministry of Justice officials that the people taking part in an election spend the majority of their money close to the election. That is the critical period. The officials admitted that. If Hallensteins is to have a sale in the weekend it wants to advertise the sale on the Thursday and Friday night. But when the officials were asked how they could then justify a regulated period that went right back to the beginning of the year they had no answer. In fact the chair shut down the discussion by saying that we were bullying and pressuring the officials and we got the proverbial “We have decided. Move on.” 
I move to speak about the donations regime. At one point the officials were halfway through presenting their analysis of the submissions that had been made; they were halfway through that process when the meeting started. We had already been told by the officials that this presentation was only part of their report and that the analysis of all the submissions relating to the donations part of the bill would be presented the following week. We got into the meeting at 9 o’clock and immediately the Greens put on the table—actually they did not put it on the table; they blurted it out verbally—a donations regime that they had made up. It became very clear in the discussions between the chair and Metiria Turei the Greens’ representative that the chair was well aware of the donations regime that was being proposed. The other Labour members were also well aware of the regime that was being proposed and actually New Zealand First members were aware of it too. 
We asked whether there was anything in writing. We were scribbling down notes on the very complicated regime that was being proposed while the chair was saying to the officials: “We want you to go away and draft this up. We have decided. You draft it up.” We were told there was a paper that had been made available to the members on the other side but it could not possibly be made available to National ACT or the Maori Party for obvious reasons. 
I am not sure to this day what those obvious reasons were. In fact National had signalled quite early on in the whole process that we felt that the donations regime was something we could work on constructively. We agreed that there was a need for transparency. We agreed that the public were concerned about the donations regime. We would have quite happily entered into any negotiations. 
I want to finish by talking about two particular issues. Firstly I want to talk about the Human Rights Commission which was almost shut out of the process. If it had not been for the constant work of the ACT members we would not have had an oral submission from the Human Rights Commission. The chair and the select committee would have missed that very damning report— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Deliberately. 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: —oral hearing—from the Human Rights Commission quite deliberately. Again there is misrepresentation of the Human Rights Commission’s position in the report back from the select committee because the commission’s most important requirement—even after changes had been made—was that this bill go back out for public submissions go back out for the public to have another say. The select committee by a majority of one voted that down. The Human Rights Commission says that in its own press release that it put out publicly yesterday. 
Secondly I compliment the Electoral Commission and its chief executive Dr Catt. I think she did a superb job. The comments and suggestions that the commission made on this bill were excellent particularly those around third-party spending. The commission had given it a great deal of thought and had an excellent rationale. The Electoral Commission still says we have got it wrong because the threshold is too low. It recommends that a threshold of $40000 is reasonable for a third party and would be easy for the commission to monitor. The commission’s press release today states that it does not know how it will trawl through community newspapers to find $12000 of spending—to find people who have to register. Another excellent suggestion was made by the Electoral Commission. It had done some work around what amount a third party might want to spend in order to run a campaign. The Electoral Commission recommended $250000 to $300000. But the Greens would not have it because it might drown out their voices. 
That is typical of this whole bill. It is about whose voice can be heard. National says everyone’s voice has a right to be heard. Labour says only their and their mates’ voices should be heard.