Ardern Shane: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Ardern Shane: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5863] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in respect of Part 2 “Validation of expenditure and interim meaning of ‘funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes’ ”. I will start by reminding people of what we are debating today. First of all in 2002 the Auditor-General put out a report saying he had some concerns about the way political parties—he did not identify any particular party—were using taxpayer funds Parliamentary Service funds for political activity for which those funds were never intended to be used. That is the first point. We should bear in mind that our democracy exists on the basis that politicians do not use taxpayer funding for political party campaigning. That is one of the fundamental principles of our democracy in New Zealand and it is one that works in most of the Western World. 
Then the Auditor-General came back to the Prime Minister of New Zealand in April 2005 and said to the Prime Minister through her staff and her advisers that he had some concerns about the road that Labour was starting to embark on. He said he had some concerns about the credit card expenditure and other expenditure that the Labour Party intended to go forward with in the upcoming election. The Prime Minister refused to see the Auditor-General. How did that happen? How can that happen in a democracy? Where in the world would that ever happen in a Westminster-based democracy? Nowhere. That is the first point that all of us need to remind ourselves of in terms of why we are having this debate today. 
The Labour Party proceeded with the credit card anyway promising all sorts of things—things it claims it delivers but never does—and it spent something like $450000 or thereabouts on that campaign activity. It spent a huge amount of taxpayer money on that campaign activity—blatant campaign activity. Labour said it was not campaign activity; it was policy. It said it was about what Labour was offering. It said it was not illegal—and we went through months of debate on that. It said it had not overspent and would not pay anything back. In fact Labour’s great strategist Pete Hodgson went on television and radio saying that Labour would not pay it back—end of story no more discussion. Then we read that Labour would pay it back and that all the MPs in the Labour Party have been requested to put their hands in their pockets and front up with between $8000 and $15000 depending on which article we read and whether the members are Ministers or back-benchers. Well which is it? Is the spending illegal or not illegal? Are they meant to pay it back or not pay it back? Did they get it wrong in the first place or not? The public will not be as easily fooled as that. 
Here is the greatest tragedy of this whole scenario. We had an election campaign and we can witness the outcome by the votes in the Chamber today: Labour 50 National 48. That was the outcome. The whole direction of the country the Government is decided on the basis of a political party’s ability to convince the voters as to where to put their votes. That is how it works in a democracy and that is how it should stay. But we have found that Labour spent money illegally to win votes—buy votes—and the outcome of the election was decided potentially on that. So I just say to the Prime Minister and to the Deputy Prime Minister—the Minister in the chair—that when they are elected to this place they are elected to exercise their judgment on what is right and what is wrong. When they knowingly take taxpayers’ money having been warned by a senior Government adviser that to do so is wrong—when they ignore that advice—they are not exercising that judgment. The public of New Zealand will judge them harshly on that. 
We have heard all sorts of debates about what it was that the Auditor-General may or may not have said. But I have a few of his statements here and I think it would be interesting to advise the Committee about them at this point in time: “Some MPs and parliamentary parties have said that I have acted unlawfully by ‘changing the rules’ after the event. I have not changed any rules.” That comment comes from page 30 of the Auditor-General’s report. “I deliberately decided to publish my 2005 Report before the Election to provide a clear signal…”.