Hide Rodney: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Hide Rodney: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5802] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 There is no need for validating legislation. Sure there has been some unlawful spending as identified by the Auditor-General. Well that can stand. It can be left as unlawful spending. I do not believe that our Parliament and our Government have done themselves at all proud in the way this matter has been handled. 
The Auditor-General is an officer of Parliament. We make him an officer of Parliament so he is independent of the political day-to-day business of Government. We spend taxpayers’ money. I believe that we did try to stay within the rules. I believe every party when it says that. However we know that it is possible to get it wrong and we did. The person who said that we got it wrong was the Auditor-General. He gave us an opportunity to have an input on his draft report and I believe that every party bar New Zealand First did so. New Zealand First for its own reasons chose to dispute the report after it had become finalised. I myself sent a strong letter to the Auditor-General and I met with him and spoke on the phone on I think three occasions. I made a very strong representation to him and he listened to me most carefully. 
In the end he reached his conclusions and I regard him as a referee. If this Parliament we as politicians and indeed the Government are to have any sort of integrity and legitimacy then we have to say: “OK I gave it my best shot. The Auditor-General gave me an opportunity and this is what he has found.” And it does hurt that he found against us. It hurts not just financially it actually hurts that we have been accused of spending money unlawfully. I know that our party—and I am sure the other parties including the Labour Party—believed that it was following the rules. But having been found by the Auditor-General to be outside the rules then I think that as parliamentarians we have to accept it and lump it. 
What I found particularly distasteful was Ministers of the Crown including the Prime Minister attempting to bully the Auditor-General and to attack the Auditor-General because I think that brings his office into question. I certainly believe that it undermines the authority of our Parliament because every other New Zealander apart from the 121 MPs in this House when found to be operating unlawfully cannot rush off and change the law. They cannot turn round and abuse the referee. There are consequences for doing that. 
Here are we making the laws for the rest of New Zealand to follow attempting to uphold our justice system and indeed offering some integrity to the way in which taxpayers’ hard-earned money is spent yet we saw the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Crown attack the Auditor-General in a way that we would not accept from any other New Zealander. We have seen Ministers of the Crown including the Prime Minister attempt to say that there are no rules for how they spend hard-working taxpayers’ money. Well that cannot be right. 
Now we find ourselves in Parliament changing the law to make lawful what the Auditor-General found to be unlawful. I will make it plain what we are saying here: MPs have unlawfully spent money that was hard-earned by taxpayers so what will we do? We will use the special privilege and special power we have to change that law in order to make what was unlawful lawful. That is wrong. 
It is wrong that we are doing it and it is wrong that we are doing it in such haste. We can think of all the issues that confront New Zealanders and our Government and our Parliament say that they are too busy to deal with them but when it comes to our politicians’ own self-interest—wow! Suddenly Parliament has time. And we are rushing it through under urgency so that the public whose money it is that is being spent—by us—does not have a say and so that when we are found in breach of the rules that we expect all New Zealanders to follow and all civil servants to follow and uphold at their peril we do not worry. No under Helen Clark’s Government we rush in with the legislator’s pen we stop Parliament in its tracks we bring legislation into the House and we pass it under urgency. 
That cannot be a right process and the easiest thing to do is for us to pay the money back. I value United Future’s position that those members will pay it back; I value the Labour Party’s position that it will pay it back. I think that that is the right thing for us to do as much as it pains us. But it cannot be right that we are here under urgency changing the law and I will make it plain. 
We had a situation where the Prime Minister signed a painting that she did not paint. There were legal implications arising from that. We cannot rush off and change the law on that basis. The law of art fraud has to stay as it is. We know from the police report that yes the Prime Minister broke the law. What she did was unlawful. She was not prosecuted or convicted and that is fine but what she did was unlawful—just like the spending that Helen Clark did was unlawful and just as the spending that the National MPs did was unlawful—and it should just stand. It does not need validating legislation. Helen Clark’s motorcade sped through the South Island at breakneck speed. That too was unlawful. We did not rush off to change the law to say that we will make lawful what was unlawful. Ruth Dyson was caught having had too much to drink then driving. We did not rush to change the law—no! Members of Parliament have to accept the consequences of the rules. They cannot use their special position of power and privilege to change the law. 
I listened most carefully to Dr Michael Cullen’s reasons for the other expenditure that MPs make and I think there is confusion over what the rules now are. I certainly think that when we head into the next election there will be huge confusion so the rules have to be tidied up. But the way to tidy up the rules is not to rush legislation through Parliament. It is not actually Parliament’s legislation that defines how we can spend the money. There is a reason for that: we do not want the courts looking into Parliament and at how it spends the money. That is why we have never put it on the statute book; it is for Parliament itself to decide. So what we should be doing rather than rushing in here in Parliament to change the rules is to take a considered approach as is envisioned in order to get some proper rules about how we spend the money. 
Let me put in my two pennies’ worth. I think we should have budgets like we have with the leaders’ budgets and for MPs. I do not think we can control the spending with a whole lot of rules. I think that is too tough. So I suggest instead that we have fewer rules and more transparency. I think the public has a right to know how political parties spend its money what they spend it on and how it is broken down and I think the Parliamentary Service should be subject to the Official Information Act. In fact I would go so far as to say that the Labour Party should be able to take its leader’s budget and spend it on the pledge card. That is its budget. But I say that the public has a right to know because we have found that that is where the rubber hits the road. The public has a right to know how we spend its money.