Twyford Phil: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11026. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū):I want to talk to my Supplementary Order Paper 252 which is on the Table. It proposes an amendment to the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) that would change the formula for determining the campaign spending limits. It would have a very specific effect only for Auckland for the Auckland mayoralty. It would have the effect of reducing the campaign spending limit for the Auckland mayoral campaign which is currently at about $580000 down to on the current figures $376000. So I want to speak to that Supplementary Order Paper and really invite members in the Chamber today to look seriously at this amendment and consider giving it their support.When the Auckland Council and the Auckland super-city were established in that legislation the campaign spending limits were set at a level that I believe is way too high. For a contender in a mayoral contest to be able to spend more than half a million dollars—in fact close to $600000—in the last 3 months of the election campaign I think sets the bar far too high. It sends a signal that our democracy in Auckland is for sale. The Auckland mayoralty has I think been recognised as one of the most powerful positions of elected office in the country and to deter possible candidates who do not have pockets deep enough to spend that kind of money in the last 3 months is I think bad for democracy. It is a blemish on the legislation and the rules that surround the Auckland Council and electoral arrangements. Labour members argued then that that figure was far too high and we said at the time that it would be much better if a lower limit had been set. What we suggested was a limit of around $380000. That would have been approximately the total of all the campaign spending limits from the legacy councils that were dissolved to make way for the new Auckland Council.This bill has some really important provisions in it. Although it is not perfect by any means Labour is supporting this bill. There are important principles of disclosure transparency and limits on political donations. Those are all fundamental principles important to a healthy democracy but it is also important that we have limits on campaign spending. We do have them for parliamentary elections—both at the national level and at the electorate level—and not only is it appropriate it is essential that for an office like the Auckland mayoralty there are some limits so that the office of the Auckland mayor is not just up for sale to the highest bidder. That would be I think a travesty of our democracy.The amount currently that a candidate could spend in the last 3 months of an Auckland mayoral campaign is $580000. That is just too much. It is not reasonable to expect that the full range of candidates that we would want to see contesting the Auckland mayoralty would have to raise nearly $600000 to run their campaign. That is bad for democracy. My Supplementary Order Paper proposes a new formula. It uses the current structure that you see in the current legislation but it reduces the amount. The formula is based on both population and the number of electors and my Supplementary Order Paper would reduce the amount in the formula to $70000 plus 30c for each elector. If you apply that to the number of electors that we have in Auckland at the moment it would basically allow candidates to spend about $376000. Coincidentally that is approximate to the total of the spending limits for the seven legacy councils that made way for the Auckland Council.I want to note also in this debate that in the last Auckland mayoralty race both candidates—the successful candidate Len Brown and John Banks who features so large in this debate—advocated for campaign spending limits substantially less than the limit that is in the current legislation. Len Brown argued that the limit instead of being nearly $600000 should actually be in the region of $150000 to $200000. John Banks told Michael Field of Fairfax that he would have preferred a threshold of $100000. So John Banks who has many years of experience in local government who was a mayor of the former Auckland City and who was the unsuccessful candidate in the last Auckland mayoral election proposed a threshold of $100000. He said: “The problem is that if you put the threshold of expenditure too high you put the elections out of the reach of candidates.” and that “The problem is that I want to encourage as many people as possible to stand for the Auckland mayoralty. It is in the best interests of the democratic process.”So I call on Mr Banks to vote for this amendment to be consistent with what he said in 2009. John Banks is a politician who knows a thing or two about redemption. He has been transmogrified—he has been transmogrified reincarnated. He is the master of political reinvention. I put it to Mr Banks that supporting this amendment would be a way of snatching redemption from the jaws of disgrace.There is a question if we believe in limits of whether it should go lower. I believe that my amendment strikes an appropriate balance. It is important that in an electorate the size of Auckland a city of 1.4 million people candidates are able to spend the resources that they need to put up billboards to print direct mail letters and so on. But the limit must not be so high that a rich candidate with deep pockets can simply buy their way into the mayoralty by spending millions of dollars on television advertising and the like. It is important that we strike a balance between putting limits on big money in politics but it is also important that we ensure that we do not disadvantage future challengers in the mayoral race. It is true that there are certain benefits of incumbency particularly for popular mayors. They have staff they have the name awareness of having spent time in office and they have a media profile. It is important that challengers can spend enough money on their campaigns to make an impact and register their candidacy with the public.I do not propose that the limit be set any lower and I would submit to this Committee to members that it be about $376000 across Auckland. We are talking of an area a jurisdiction that is about the same as 20 parliamentary electorates and members will know that local parliamentary campaigns are able to spend up to $25000 including GST on their election campaigns at electorate level. So the limit that I am proposing in this amendment would be of an order of the parliamentary limits. Also as I have already said it is about the same as the total of the spending limits from all the old legacy councils whereas the spending limit that Rodney Hide inserted into the current legislation is almost twice that amount. It is unreasonable and it does not pay enough attention to the important principle of limiting the influence of big money in politics.If you look at the spending limits from the old legacy councils Auckland City had a limit of $70000 Manukau had a limit of $70000 Waitakere had $60000 Papakura had $30000 Rodney had $50000 North Shore had $60000 and Franklin had $40000. There are no other cities in New Zealand that have a limit on campaign spending of more than $70000—