Borrows Chester: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
Borrows Chester: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13662] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on clauses 1 and 2. I suggest that maybe the title of the bill should be “We Lost and We Just Can’t Accept It Bill” because in our area most of the noise has come from Labour MPs who lost their seats to National Party people—now members of Parliament. They cannot accept that they lost because they did not do the work. They want to believe—and they truly believe in their illusion—that their seats were stolen from them by the Exclusive Brethren. Well if we look at the pamphlet put out by the Exclusive Brethren we see that the one naive mistake they made that separates what they did from whatever the unions did was to put a false address on it. They thought they were so smart that they could get away with putting a false address—or an empty section should I say—on the form authorising the pamphlet. But the guts of the pamphlet was exactly the same as what the unions had put out. So we have the naive Exclusive Brethren and we have the unions. 
It is really interesting to consider exactly how the unions go about raising their funds. I have a mate in the Dairy Workers Union who prior to the election went along to a meeting where somebody stood up and moved that the union give $10000 to the Labour Party. With his best mate standing for National in the electorate my mate said: “Only if we give $10000 to the National Party.” What happened? Two bloody great big union delegates got out of their seats up the front and came and sat down one on either side of him—tipping out the people who had been sitting there—and put their hands on his knees. It was not that they were snuggling up to him; it was to make sure he would not get up and say anything else. What that says to me is that the Labour Party is quite happy to accept extorted money. It is quite happy to accept money that is extorted but it is unhappy when in an election campaign other people accept support that is freely given—or so we were told in a television documentary that was done soon after. 
To have the address of an empty section on a pamphlet is naive but it reminded me very much of a couple of things the Labour Party did— 
Hon Annette King 
: It was deceit. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Deceiving? Deceiving like what? Well it was deceiving for instance to have certain dead people vote in the Wairarapa election in 1987. Labour was caned for that. Another little deception was the misuse of the Privacy Act whereby in the last election campaign Labour got the names and addresses of State house tenants from Government records wrote to every one of them and put out its propaganda. No Labour Party members have ever stood to justify that action of Labour as part of its strategy for that campaign. It just goes to show that their morals are lopsided. 
Then they talk about anonymous donations. They cane the National Party for apparently receiving anonymous donations without their ever accepting or explaining that in 1999 they accepted $800000 worth of anonymous donations. And what do you know? They did it again! In 2002 they accepted $350000 worth of anonymous donations. But hey that is OK! And what do you know? They did it again! In 2005 they got just about $300000 in anonymous donations—and that was OK! The only thing that really winds them up is that they did not get as much as National. Well what do you know! The reason for that is the tide is going out; the tide is going out for Labour. Its members understand that. 
Another thing they have never explained is the $800000 worth of taxpayers’ money they took from their leader’s office budget to use for their pledge card and for other parts of the campaign—$400000 for that. Did they explain that? No they did not nor will they. They accept that they were wrong. They have even paid it back. Well that is not so bad. Maybe New Zealand First could take a leaf out of their book. So they have paid the $800000 back but have they moved through this legislation to make sure that that cannot be done again? No they have not. Why not? Apparently they are as pure as the driven snow; they are the only ones on the right side of anything. 
They cannot accept that they lost those seats because they did not do the work or were seen as useless. They never showed up. Throughout the 7-month campaign run in Whanganui I twice saw one of the most vociferous critics of the Exclusive Brethren. She did not have it in her!