Chauvel Charles: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6339. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Labour has actually had a bill in the ballot for a number of months that would substantially achieve the ends that this legislation would. I know because I wrote it. 
Louise Upston 
: Did you write all of them? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well I know that the junior Government whip likes to circulate the myth that I write all members’ bills but as is her wont she is just being too kind. The reality here is that we have heard all sorts of extraordinary claims from across the House including from the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee that the Government has moved with alacrity to deal with this situation. I think members might like to just remember the time frame here. On 1 August John Key said that the Local Electoral Act in its current form was literally an ass in this particular case. What happened? Well Grant Robertson got up in the House and sought leave to introduce the member’s bill that I mentioned and lo and behold the Government refused leave for that to occur. So this bill could have been introduced to the House in substantially the same form 2 months ago but it was not because some petty member on the opposite benches decided that it had to be done by way of Government measure rather than by a member’s bill. It could have been read and sent off to a select committee. We could probably have had the legislation back by now and dealt with. Instead it has dragged on until now. 
Later that day after leave was refused in what the media described as a surprise announcement the local government Minister said that work was already under way and it was making good progress on a Government bill. It was 6 weeks later that David Carter announced on Wednesday that although he did not have a bill ready it would be introduced early in the next month in order to enact the changes by May 2013. Lo and behold today we have the first reading of this bill. That is this Government’s “alacrity”—a very interesting definition of the term. 
An earlier speaker Eugenie Sage mentioned that the problem here arose not in the term of the previous Labour Government but when those members opposite or those of them who were here in the previous Parliament rushed the Auckland super-city legislation through under urgency. That member hit the nail on the head because that was the legislation that caused this problem. That was the legislation rushed through this House that saw mayoral candidates in our first and hopefully our only super-city start to spend the sort of money that political parties in and of themselves spend in an entire general election. Well of course there was the need to foresee that and to provide for proper regulation when the circumstances were created to allow that situation to arise. But it was not dealt with and we have now seen the consequences of that. We saw the fiasco that occurred over the Banks and Dotcom financing that other members have mentioned. So not only do I reject what we have heard about the Government proceeding with alacrity but it is absolutely unfair to lay blame for the situation that has arisen at any door other than the previous Government which rushed that super-city legislation through without thinking through the consequences of having super-city mayoral campaigns that would cost the sort of money that they ended up costing. 
I want to make one or two other points in conclusion. I think there have been a number of contributions about how this bill might be improved in the select committee process. I certainly look forward to that. I think the area of penalties does need a closer look. I think the issue that my colleague Andrew Little raised about whether this deals with the sort of split cheque donation issue also needs careful consideration. I think the issue of whether or not overseas donations ought to be permissible in local elections is one that the committee also ought to consider. But with those concluding words I do commend the bill to the House. I wish that it could have been before us earlier but we are at least now able to make some progress on this vexed issue. I hope we move with true alacrity to restore public confidence in the electoral process.