Barker Rick: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Barker Rick: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13470] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I will take just a brief call to reassure the member Anne Tolley that if she looks at Supplementary Order Paper 162 at the proposed amendment to clause 17(a)(i) of the Electoral Finance Bill she will see that the words there state: “To omit ‘writ day’ and substitute ‘the 21st day before polling day’.” 
Anne Tolley 
: It’s 3 weeks. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: It is 3 weeks—a significant improvement and a significant advancement—and it meets the requirements of the Electoral Commission and the Human Rights Commission to be as close as administrably possible to polling day. 
I am pleased to be able to advise the member that both the Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission say they endorse the amendment. That is my advice. They have said the amendment is fine. I just want the member to get up to date. 
The next point I want to bring up is the point raised by the member Chris Finlayson who talked about a placard. I am pleased to be able to advise the member that the placard is currently provided for under the current Electoral Act. If people are carrying a placard then it should be authorised by the party they are promoting. 
The next point I want to raise was raised by Judith Collins who noted that a substantial number of amendments to this bill had been raised. I say to that member—and this is her point of criticism—that if we had not raised a substantial number of amendments she would have criticised that too. Some of the amendments here are very important and some are drafting amendments. The one she highlighted is in Supplementary Order Paper 163. The proposed amendment to clause 14(3) states in ordinary type “To omit ‘non-contesting party’ and substitute” then in bold type “ ‘non-contesting party’ ”. She said it is a ridiculous amendment. 
The point about this amendment is that the convention is to put things in bold type to highlight to people reading the legislation that there is a definition somewhere else in the bill. This is a drafting error. It should have been done at the time. There are many other drafting technical errors that should be corrected. I am pleased to see the National Party is echoing support for making sure the bill is well drafted. 
The last point I make to members is simply that in all of the discussions they have had so far they have not identified the main point. I come back to what Rodney Hide said. This is not an issue about the National Party or about the Labour Party; this is an issue about all parties. The issue for all parties here I say to Mr Hide is to make sure that the public has an assurance that when people give money to a political party they know where it comes from. 
The threshold in New Zealand is reasonably high. In other countries there are lower thresholds. The public have a right to know who is putting money into which political parties and what are the consequential changes in policy. I think it is a fundamental right of transparency for the general public. 
The second very sensible thing about the bill is that if we put a cap on candidates—like we have currently—and a cap on political parties then we need to have a cap on third parties. As we saw at the last election some people because the rules are slack are prepared to play the rules to the nth degree and have other people campaigning on their behalf so that it does not touch their budgets at all. 
This bill is about fairness to everybody. It is about transparency openness and making sure that all people in the electoral system are treated the same. Candidates are capped parties are capped and third parties are capped. That is it. When the money moves people need to know who is paying it and where it is going to.