Donald Rod: Electoral Amendment Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Donald Rod: Electoral Amendment Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:622;Page:17336] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I rise to support the passage of this electoral legislation. It is excellent legislation as far as it goes. The most important aspect is the one that is least contentious and that is to fix up the rules around election broadcasting so that the Electoral Commission does not have to write to every single broadcaster in the country asking them what discounts they will give political parties only to get letters back from them stating that they will not give any discounts to political parties or their candidates that are any different from any commercial discounts that they already give. It will be of some relief to the Electoral Commission that we have finally tidied up this bureaucratic nightmare. 
I would have to say that it has taken this Parliament far too long to fix up this nonsense. I happen to have been on the inquiry into the 1996 general election where we recommended sorting out this matter then. A bill to sort out that problem was subsequently introduced into the House on 29 September 1998 under the former National Government. It had its second reading on 12 November 1998 and the committee reported back on 6 May 1999. For reasons that I cannot fathom the bill languished on the Order Paper throughout the remainder of the National Party term of office and right through under the Labour Party’s governance until 18 February 2002 where inexplicably the Labour Government at the time discharged the bill for no apparent reason. There could not have been any apparent reason given that all the provisions in that bill have now come back to this House in today’s legislation. So thank goodness the Government has finally seen sense and sorted out this particular nonsense. 
The other nonsense that the Government has wisely sorted out is the issue around the creation of vacancies for people who are entitled to dual citizenship. It is an excellent move that members in this House not only Harry Duynhoven but as he said during his speech in the Committee stage perhaps up to 30 members of this House who are entitled to dual citizenship or who hold a passport of another country will now be able to maintain that citizenship and renew those passports without any fear of being evicted from this Parliament. 
On behalf of the Green Party I have no regret saying that we did the right thing in supporting the legislation to stop Harry Duynhoven being kicked out of this Parliament. It would have been an outrageous injustice for him to have had to relinquish his seat even though he had not broken the law and even though he would certainly have won a by-election. But now we have fixed the law we have tidied up that particular anomaly and it sits alongside the other amendment that was made several years previously I understand for the benefit of another member of this House either current or former who married someone from overseas and therefore was entitled to dual citizenship. A tidy-up was made perhaps given Mr Mapp’s interjection for the benefit of someone in the National Party at that time. So I guess it is a case of one all on that particular matter. 
However the major anomaly that still exists in relation to electoral matters that this legislation does not address despite my moving an amendment yesterday that I am sure was supported by both the ACT party and the United Future Party is the issue around the old two-party club having representatives on the Electoral Commission. It is an absolute outrage that National and Labour each have a person on the commission representing their interests. Those two people allocate the broadcasting funding to all of the parties not only in this House but those outside this Parliament and allocate the time for opening and closing addresses to all of the registered parties contesting an election. That is simply not acceptable. It is archaic part of the first-past-the-post era and should be done away with. Without wishing to offend any of the people who have represented National and Labour I say that they simply cannot also represent the other parties in this Parliament simultaneously. 
At the moment we have the ridiculous situation of the United Future Party which has a confidence and supply agreement with the Government being represented by the Opposition member on the Electoral Commission which just shows how foolish that current provision is. So I do look forward to the day when that anomaly is removed and the Electoral Commission is a genuinely independent body that is not subject to any party political pressure. 
I also look forward to the day when the Government will proceed with its wider review of electoral legislation. That is something that should have taken place and should have been part of this particular legislation. Sooner or later we do need to grapple properly with the issue of State funding for political parties. More important we need to deal with the problems that we currently have around our rather woeful and inadequate donation disclosure regime. It is so inadequate at the moment that parties can merrily set up front organisations to launder donations without those donations having to be declared. 
To give members one example there is the Free Enterprise Trust which seems to give money only to the National Party. It does not even seem to give money to the ACT party although some would claim that those party’s members are more free entrepreneurs than National’s these days. Notwithstanding whom the trust should be giving money to the fact is that whoever gives money to the trust should be required to declare those donations so that party political funding is transparent and so that voters can see exactly who are the puppeteers for those parties that receive donations. I hope the Government will proceed with the donations disclosure regime amendment soon. 
Partly for the sake of ACT but partly because it deserves debate I also would want that inquiry to look into the full issue of the broadcasting funding regime. On the face of it there is an anomaly at the moment that the two old parties get the bulk of broadcasting funding which is self-perpetuating whereas every other party is barred from spending its own money to match the spending of the two old parties. Personally I do not think that that is fair although it is a matter of some debate within our own caucus. 
So in closing I look forward to the passage of this legislation. I am pleased that the Government was able to get it through before the cut-off date which I think was 8 December. If this legislation had lingered any longer the Electoral Commission would have had to send letters out to all those broadcasters for no apparent good reason. So let us hope that the legislation gets the royal assent in time to save them all that paperwork and all those postage stamps.