Chadwick Steve: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5873] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on this bill. Yes there is urgency about it and yes I am glad we are sitting in urgency because this Government has taken the responsible position and will clean up the situation following the recommendations that came from the Auditor-General. The Opposition is failing to acknowledge the steps that went into the Auditor-General’s report to the Minister responsible for Vote Parliamentary Service. That Minister reported to the House as we were told that seven parties breached the spending rules at the last election including National. National members on their high horse say that it was just a little breach so it was all right. But the Opposition did breach the electoral spending rules and this bill will validate that overspent electoral spending. It is fine for National members to get on their high horse about this matter but the public out there are pleased to know that we are getting this validating legislation passed. We will get the issue cleared up and the validation will lapse at the end of next year. 
I want to talk about one of the amendments in Part 2 of the bill that has come from the Hon Bill English. He wants to omit clause 7(2)(a) and substitute the following: “encourages or persuades or appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote for a particular person or persons:”. Well let us get that cleared up for once and for all. Who paid for the National Party candidate in the electorate of Rotorua to put billboards up 6 months before the election? The report on overspending looked at the communications spend in the Parliamentary Service only for the 3 months from the date of declaration of the electoral campaign. But for 6 months before the election National Party billboards were up in our electorate telling us who to vote for. “Who is Gilbert Stehbens?” they asked. Then before the 3-month spending period had even begun a little van drove around Rotorua saying “MP Rotorua”. The candidate was not the MP for Rotorua. Who paid for that prior to the 3 months of the electoral spend that the Auditor-General has looked at? 
And who paid the salary for National’s candidate who was absent from his job in Auckland as a marketer and a cosmetic dentist—the one who fixed up Dr Brash’s teeth? Who paid for him to come to Rotorua and go door to door telling everyone what a lousy local MP they had and that she was so unsuccessful she was not even in Cabinet. Who paid that salary? It was probably paid for from the Leader of the Opposition’s spend which is unaccounted for line by line because the Leader of the Opposition spent all his allocation up until the election. What did he spend it on? National has no accountability at all on that. But we knew the spending was something we had never seen before. It was absolutely unprecedented. There was no party machine helping the wannabe candidate in our electorate—but the whispering campaign had begun. 
The Opposition also chooses to ignore the $110000 overspent on GST. How can Opposition members say they did not break the spending rules leading up to the last election? 
I am pleased about this validating legislation. We should get this spending cleaned up and then we should get into the review that will look at the rules on overspending.