Smith Nick: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:13138] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Peter Brown let the cat out of the bag when he said we need this bill to protect us from the Auditor-General. That is what he said. That was the cheek of his comment. If an average member of the public cheats on the taxpayers’ money it is the Auditor-General who catches that person out. If an official who works in a school uses the school’s money for a purpose other than educating kids it is the Auditor-General who gives that person the ping. If a doctor who works in a hospital does not use the public money as intended for health that person gets pinged by the Auditor-General. But the Labour Party and its mates like Peter Brown say: “No not those rules for us. We want to be able to protect ourselves from the Auditor-General looking into the ways in which we wish to rort public money.” 
Just to show how extensive the contest is I ask members to remember that the public money that is voted each year is $17 million. The amount of money that a party is able to use legally is only $2.5 million. So what members opposite seek to do is to use public money in a way that has never lawfully been previously allowed and at the same time shut down people using their own money. It is a true disgrace and an attack on democracy. If we lived in a country like the United States which has a constitution this measure would get overruled in terms of the principles of free speech. If we lived in a country like Australia or the United Kingdom we would have the check of an upper Chamber. In New Zealand we do not have that. That is what saddens me so much—Labour members of this Committee are so prepared to abuse our fragile democracy by simply abusing the powers of this bill to try to rort the next election. 
I also want to respond to the bizarre point from Peter Brown that somehow he in his mind can justify two different definitions of electioneering. Let us put it plainly. This bill says that electioneering is only that which explicitly seeks support—that which explicitly seeks support for a vote. Then we have this other bill the Electoral Finance Bill which says: “No no if anybody expresses any opinion on any issue at all it is electioneering.” I ask Mr Brown why that difference in definition is so significant. It is significant because it says that when we stand hand on heart and say: “Oh we won’t use parliamentary money for electioneering.” we can say absolutely everything bar “vote”. As long as we do not use the word “vote” we can rort the public purse for all it is worth. 
But it is even worse than that. We have a limit that has been considered by all parties of this Parliament to be fair for yonks and that is that we are to spend only $20000 in the last 3 months of a campaign. But there is a sneaky little clause in the Electoral Finance Bill that says that publicly funded ads will now be exempt. Let us be honest about what that means. In my case for example that means that I get a constituency allowance of $65000 under the bulk-funding system. I can spend all of that in the last month of the campaign but anybody who wants to stand against me as MP for Nelson is restricted to $20000. 
Labour members say that that is a fair contest. I say that that is garbage. I say that that is a rort and I cannot believe that those in the Green Party in New Zealand First and in Labour can somehow pretend that passing a law of that sort sets up a fair contest to hold the privileged position of being a member of this House. The truth is that they are undermining this valuable democratic institution. It is only by a fair contest for the privileged seats in this House that we can truly say we have a democracy. What they are doing with this bill is turning this Parliament into a closed shop. They want to make it too hard for those who would challenge because they want to maintain a monopoly on Government and it is wrong.