Collins Judith: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Collins Judith: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13539] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I will deal specifically with clause 22 of the bill and I propose that there be an amendment in relation to anonymous donations. But before I deal with that I need to correct some of the statements made this afternoon particularly by the Green Party contributor in relation to anonymous donations. 
Metiria Turei has referred to anonymous donations as if they are some sort of evil that needs to be dealt with and sorted out. Well I have some news for her—that is as a candidate and as the Clevedon electorate MP I can tell her that I do not want to know who has contributed to my campaign. I do not want to know for the very good reason that I never want anyone to be able to walk into my office and say that he or she paid me X amount of money so that I have to do something for that person. I never want to be in the situation of being an MP in the dock because I have been involved in some bribery case. I think that that Green MP over there who has never been an electorate MP might want to consider that. We never ever want to be in that situation and that is why in my party we prefer our candidates never to know where their donations come from. Well we might have an idea but we never really want to know. 
There is an old story which is true of a National Prime Minister who was approached by someone who had been a big donor. He said to that Prime Minister “I want to have this. This is why I donated for you.” and he was ordered out of the Prime Minister’s office right then and there. And that is the way it should be. If people donate to a party they should not expect anything in return because if they do that is actually buying politics. That is not what our people want us to do. They want us to do the best we can for New Zealand in the way that we have told New Zealanders we are going to do that. 
But in clause 22 we have a situation where there could be unintended consequences. Even though the Minister of Justice would like to believe there is such a thing as the law of common sense I can tell her that there is not. But there is I think a law of unintended consequences. One of the things that will happen is that under the anonymous donations clauses by the way the bill has been drafted a lot of donations will continue to be anonymous in that they will be put through trusts and unions. Anybody can donate to a union. The union can then go off and donate—oh gosh what—$170000 to the Labour Party and Labour will declare the donation as union funds. Where did the funds come from? They might have come from the membership but an awful lot will come through as secret donations. So it will not make a scrap of difference except that with the financial controller rules a lot of candidates will be required to know where these donations have come from. The provision will be anti-democratic not pro-democratic. 
To show just how badly thought-out this provision is I tell members that when we turn to the definition of “anonymous” in clause 22(2) we see that it means “a donation that is made in such a way that the financial agent who receives the donation—(a) does not know the identity of the donor; or (b) could not in the circumstances reasonably be expected to know the identity of the donor”. It should not be “or”; it should be “and”; otherwise it is just an utter nonsense. We will have people who say: “Well I couldn’t in the circumstances be reasonably expected to know but yes I do know.” in which case they will not be dealt with under this particular provision. So I suggest that the Minister consider that amendment and change the “or” to an “and”. Otherwise I think we will have a difficult situation. 
Hon Annette King 
: Clause 22? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is in clause 22(2)(a) and (b). 
Hon Annette King 
: The “and” and the “or”? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I will show the Minister after my speech. This is a very very important bill. It has been around really since the last election—for the last 2 years—and here we are right now in the Committee with the Minister and others coming up with proposals and changes and looking at what the National Party is asking to be done and saying: “Oh yes that might help.” 
The fact is that this legislation is too important to be left to the last moment. It is too important to be left until an urgency motion next week. It is far too important to be left as the sort of legislation the Green Party would like us to put forward where apparently everyone will be named and shamed for donating to the National Party. We have seen from this Government what happens to people when they stand up to the Labour Party. We have seen what happened to the women who worked in the communications area in the Ministry for the Environment. We have seen what happens. Other people have seen it as well. This is an anti-democratic bill; it is not pro-democratic.