Wilkinson Kate: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
Wilkinson Kate: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:13115] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 I do not know whether members have read the latest  
Listener 
 editorial but there are four words in that editorial that sum up this bill wonderfully. Those four words are “the public deserve better”. It is an absolute disgrace to the democracy of our country that we have a law that has been introduced under urgency that follows another law that was introduced under urgency— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: It’s not under urgency. 
KATE WILKINSON 
: We all know that the previous bill was supplied to the Opposition 2 hours before it was supposed to be debated in the House. We now have the same tricks again and the public deserve better. The public deserve to have some confidence in the democracy of our country and in our Parliament. The public deserve better. 
All that can be said about this law is that it is one law for MPs. This bill should not have a commencement date at all. It should not be necessary to introduce this bill. If this Government had done what it said it would do last time this bill would have quietly lapsed. As the Minister of Finance said last time: “There is a sunset date. It will expire at the end of next year. That has been done because we had to respond to the need for a broader review of the rules.” We have not had a broader review of the rules and this is not it. 
The reason we are back in this Chamber debating this invidious legislation is that the Government did not do what it said it had to do. We all know and we should all appreciate the absolute importance of electoral law in our country and the importance of electoral law having at least some form of consensus in the House if it is to be at all enduring. This bill does not have consensus. It is an absolute disgrace. We would not need a commencement date for yet another roll-over piece of legislation if the Minister had actually done something about it before now—if he had made an effort to sit down with the other parties to work through the issues and produce a generally consensual and therefore enduring electoral law. He has failed. 
We would not need a commencement date if for example such rules that needed clarification were so clarified in the other invidious piece of legislation joined at the hip to this one—namely the Electoral Finance Bill. One cannot treat one bill without the other. But here we are today with yet another commencement date for yet another invidious bill that is a disgrace because Labour was caught cheating. The Labour Government was caught cheating. It knew the rules it broke the rules and then it validated its own illegal actions. Yet here we are today with some interim measures some continuation of definitions and some new commencement date for substantially the same definition knowing that in the words of the Minister of Finance: “The House will still have to come back to permanent long-term rules in 2009.” 
We do not need a commencement date for a disgraceful bill that provides with its twin the Electoral Finance Bill that there will now be one rule for politicians and one rule for everyone else. We do not need a commencement date for a shameful piece of legislation that says that politicians will be able to do almost anything when it comes to political advertising but that the public will be able to do almost nothing. It says that we will make it harder for ordinary private citizens to have freedom of expression which restricts public advocacy and is a dramatic assault on human rights. But it states that we will relax the rules for incumbent members of Parliament especially Government ones and that is shameful. 
We do not need a commencement date for an invidious piece of legislation because the Labour Party issued a pledge card it should not have issued and because of the Labour Party’s utter utter disregard for electoral law and for ordinary normal democratic principles. The  
Listener 
 editorial is quite intriguing. It states that MPs will be covered by the “One Law for MPs Bill” which allows them to campaign next year right up to the day before the election using the generous taxpayer-funded allowances given to each party represented in Parliament and that what is more this spending will not be counted as part of each MP’s individual spending cap.