O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): The broadcasting time spent on opening and closing addresses by political parties at election time is substantially wasted these days because those advertisements are not really watched by very many people. Whether there is an All Blacks test on at the same time or not people just do not watch them any more.So the bill enables parties instead to use public money to communicate with voters through other means—in particular through the digital media as well as other broadcasting means. It does that by removing the requirements for the broadcasting by Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand of opening and closing addresses so that parties would instead then be able to use an equivalent allocation of funding for internet advertising in addition to television and radio advertising as is currently permitted.There is nothing wrong with that; that is fine as far as it goes. But there is a problem. The bill provides for the appropriation of public money to fund those election programmes and advertisements and the Electoral Commission as we know is responsible for deciding how the money is to be allocated to parties.The bill generally re-enacts those existing provisions relating to allocations to the parties and the Electoral Commission must allocate to eligible parties in accordance with these statutory criteria and they are these: (a) the number of persons who voted at the preceding general election for a party and its candidates; (b) the number of persons who voted at any by-election held since the preceding general election; (c) the number of members of Parliament a political party had immediately before the end of the last Parliament; (d) any relationships that exist between one political party and another; (e) any other indications of public support for a party such as the results of opinion polls and the number of members of the party; and (f) the need to provide a fair opportunity for each registered political party to convey its policies to the public through broadcasting. So those are the criteria.Because of that New Zealand First is going to have to oppose this bill unless the Government undertakes that it will also legislate to change those criteria. This is because we think they are unfair we think they are archaic and not a good fit for MMP elections we think they are uncertain and complex and most of all we believe they give a massive advantage to the big parties. So the medium-sized parties like the Greens and like ourselves we see as being disadvantaged.I would like to just read out the amounts of money that are actually involved in those allocations for opening and closing addresses. In 2014 National was allocated $1053622 Labour $919829 Greens $401380 and New Zealand First got only $200690. Even the tiny Māori Party got $100345 while the one-member ACT Party still got an incredible $76930. There is no clear proportionality involved in those figures and goodness only knows how those specific amounts were actually calculated.New Zealand First has written to the Minister saying that our support for this bill would not be given unless those criteria were reviewed but we have not had a response. So that leaves us in no other position than to vote against this bill because we see that this legislation is only doing half the job and the job will not be fully done unless and until those criteria are altered.This is not the first time this has been raised. I remember it being discussed at the previous election not just by us but by other submitters as well. So there is also a significant degree of support both among political parties and the public for changes to those criteria.The particular provisions that we would seek to be changed are these: first of all replaced Part 6 section 78(2)(b) must be deleted because by-elections are poor indicators of nationwide support for a party. By-elections are fought on an array of different circumstances. That—Chris Bishop: If you say so.DENIS O'ROURKE: I can show that to be the case because on the one hand National got a hiding in Northland when Winston Peters stood there but I think that could be in contrast to other by-elections like one that is about to be held in the relatively near future. So you can see that the circumstances in which by-elections are held are widely different from each other and nothing much can really be drawn from them except the particular issues around that by-election. They are not a good means by which the support for a political party should be determined for the purposes of the allocation of public money for advertising.Section 78(2)(d) should also be deleted because relationships between parties—such as between Labour and the Greens—are actually completely irrelevant. I fail to see how a relationship between one party and another one could have any relevance whatsoever on the allocation of funds for advertising at a general election.Section 78(2)(e) we feel must be amended by deleting the reference to the words any other indications of public support for that party such as the results of public opinion polls" because opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate—notoriously inaccurate. Time will not allow me to do it but I could go through the last two or three elections to show how grossly inaccurate those opinion polls were as far as New Zealand First was concerned. In fact when I was first elected to this House in 2011 the opinion polls said that New Zealand First had 3 percent. In fact we ended up with almost 8 percent—more than double what the opinion polls said. That is just one of several good examples of that. There are good reasons why some parties poll differently from others. New Zealand First for example tends to get its support more from the older cohorts of the electorate and opinion polls do not reflect that. The way that they carry out polls means that that shows that our support is not properly measured and there are other reasons that I could give as well. So although National could reasonably expect a considerable financial advantage from this proposal if those criteria are not changed there would be a corresponding disadvantage for parties the size of New Zealand First and I think the Greens as well.So I think the enthusiasm from National for this half-baked approach where only some of the changes required are being made actually shows that National sees where its particular advantage is and is not willing to fairly look at this as far as all parties in this Parliament are concerned. That is why New Zealand First will not support this bill unless those criteria are also reviewed so that we would then get an opportunity to discuss that and to propose changes to them. Unless that is done this particular bill is going to result in an even more unfair allocation of public money for broadcasting for political parties at the next election than we had even at the last election and that was bad enough. As I say this is a half-baked bill. It is one that is OK as far as it goes but the point is it is doing only half the job and if it does that it is going to make the situation worse and not better.So that leaves New Zealand First as I have said in the position that we have no choice but to oppose this bill but we will certainly be taking a lot of notice of this at the select committee stage in particular. New Zealand First will be putting forward at the Committee of the whole House stage a number of Supplementary Order Papers aimed at rectifying the situation so that National cannot do what it intends to do just to get another advantage for itself and disadvantage for the smaller parties in the Parliament."