Hodgson Pete: Electoral Referendum Bill — Second Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Electoral Referendum Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:15853] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I cannot remember when the House last debated a referendum bill. I wonder whether anyone can. I think it might have been Winston Peters’ compulsory super bill may it not have been? That would have been about 10 or 11 years ago. The result went down rather badly. But none the less it is not so often we debate them. Certainly in the 1992 to 1993 period we had two referenda as we are about to with this round. So it is not so often but here we are. I suppose I should say at the outset some nice things because I forgot to say them the first time around. I endorse the remarks made by a number of people about the approach taken by the Minister of Justice from the outset of trying to get as wide a consensus as he reasonably could. He has been consistent in that regard. He has been somewhat successful. He has a really wide level of agreement—or perhaps it is best said that a number of parties are now equally unhappy about the result whatever it is. 
It is also the case that those parties that are a little more on the edge—the ACT Party on one edge and the Green Party on the other to give a couple of examples—would probably say that the outcome was not what they would choose but the process was not too bad. So that is the first thing to say. 
It is probably also fair for me to acknowledge that the Electoral Legislation Committee has worked very well. It has been chaired very well by a very able chair in the form of Amy Adams who I noted made some nice remarks about officials and I would like to do that too. That gets the nice stuff out of the way and it is important to say that so I thought I would say it first. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Here we go! 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Here we go! Why the hell we need a referendum in the first place I do not know. I really do not know where that promise came from. I do not remember it being part of the National Party manifesto. I could have been— 
Hon Simon Power 
: It definitely was. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Then a good question is why it was part of the National Party manifesto because there was no groundswell amongst the public for this. There was a groundswell amongst the public for something else and that was for amendments to the MMP system. They said: “Could we please keep the MMP system but tweak it a little bit.” Of course the problem with that mood in society is that society—under a little bit of interrogation—can never quite agree on what the tweaks are which is why we will need a review process. The review process is provided for in this legislation but it is provided for only if a whole lot of people really like MMP. It is saying: “If a whole lot of people really like MMP we’re going to review it; and if a whole lot of people do not we’re not going to review it.” That is one way of putting up the sort of residual difference or one way of explaining the residual difference between the Government’s position essentially and the Labour Party’s position essentially on the issue of the review of MMP. 
I am not standing in the next election so I should probably not announce Labour Party policy on the hoof but in the event of there being a Labour Government formed a year from now and in the event of the majority of New Zealanders deciding that they would like to try another system instead of MMP I would be surprised if the incoming Labour Government did not say: “OK we can do that but we will give you a new shinier MMP system to measure against this other variety that you think you might like to test it against.” I would think that would be the likely outcome. 
I do not want to get into too much argy-bargy with Mr John Boscawen and I do acknowledge his analysis of $300000 versus $5.5 million. I really think we need to add GST a few times to get to that $5.5 million but none the less he showed us how to do it. He took every possible limit and maxed them out and he got there. That is fair enough; that is a debating technique. It is not I think a realistic comparison but he does make a point that $300000 is a limit that in his view is too low. Fair enough but he lost me on his first sentence. He said that this legislation—which like the first one has a $300000 limit—is not good for the ordinary person. But I say that it is because the ordinary person is precisely the person who does not have $300000 to fritter around; that is just precisely the person who does not have $300000 to fritter around. It is the extraordinary person or the extra-committed person who does. Actually there is also the possibility of people clubbing together and I say good on them if they want to. 
He went on to say that his friend Mr McCroskie thinks that the limit is far far too low; not that Mr McCroskie wants to go anywhere near that limit himself but he thinks it is far too low for someone else. Well who is this someone else and why do they want to spend more than $300000 perhaps as much as $5 million trying to influence the plebiscite which is in essence a contest of political ideas? 
I think that probably the reverse also holds true: that in the referendum it is actually the politicians who need to stand back. If politicians are asked they should say where they are casting their vote and why. It is something I intend to do if I am asked. Perhaps I will be asked but I do not intend to spend a lot of time raffling a lot of chooks in order to raise a lot of money to promote a certain outcome for a referendum. In case anyone is wondering I will be casting my vote for a continuation of MMP. The main reason is that I think this is a decision that should be taken by the voters. It is their decision how they are going to elect us and that might sound a bit cute for some people but I hold it to be true. That is why one of the provisions in this bill is a real cracker—that is if I spend a dollar on this referendum advertising it will count against my political limits as well as my referendum limits. So both of my limits will be activated by that dollar spend. Both of them will be 1 dollar less by my expending 1 dollar. 
Amy Adams 
: But you’re not standing. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Have I got that right madam chair? 
Amy Adams 
: You have except you’re not standing so you won’t have an electoral limit. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I am not standing and the chair of the committee—the now-extinct committee—is perfectly correct. I am not standing so she and I are both extinct in a sense. On the other hand the idea that politicians can be a little bit limited by the fact that it will be counted against them twice is kind of nice. It happened almost by accident in the select committee to be honest because life became terribly technical at that point. I certainly will not bore the House with the details around that. 
I think this is unusual legislation. When the Minister introduced it I remember he was a bit disingenuous. I remember the Minister saying that this was the most transparent referendum legislation this House has ever seen—and he was right. In this legislation as introduced there is a requirement to register which had never existed before. What he was doing was trying to defend with his sophistry the absence of third-party limits. But we spotted that; so did the rest of New Zealand. The Government has behaved well—even graciously or sensibly or something like that—and from now on referenda will have reasonable limits. I for one look forward to that.