Anderton Jim: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Anderton Jim: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1263] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I welcome the bipartisan approach that the Minister has taken to reviewing the Electoral Finance Act and the undertaking he has given to bring all parties together to get broad agreement on a new Act. If I have any regret about the legislation we are repealing it is that there was not a consensus around it. It was highly undesirable to have great controversy around the rules surrounding elections of course. To be fair though the reason for that lack of consensus was not all one-way traffic. I think some of the people who led the attack on the Act—the one we are repealing now—would have had a lot more credit if they had been much more willing to acknowledge the ugly practice we experienced in the 2005 election. 
Let me give members one example of that from my electorate. The day before the election two newspapers published full-page advertisements from a fictitious promoter using a fictitious address in my electorate practically accusing me of mass murder. It went to every home in my electorate and it was much too late for me to do anything about it—some of it was being delivered just before midnight on the day before the election. How was that fair? Why did we not hear nearly as much outcry over practices like that as we have heard about the Act? The police I have to say did not even act on my complaint. Actually to be fair my majority went up by 150 percent so perhaps I should say: “Make my day!”. But the principle behind the legislation has to be looked at very carefully. 
There are two basic principles in the Act that we are repealing that I think need to be kept. The first is that the name of the promoter of a political advertisement should have to be clear. It should be obvious who is taking responsibility for a statement made in an election context. The second principle is that there should be a fair limit on the amount that can be spent to buy an election. We all know that money makes a difference in elections; that is why we spend so much time trying to raise it. When elections are decided more by money than by the clarity and strength of ideas however then our democracy is in trouble. That is why nearly every country in the world has some kind of cap on election spending. It stands to reason that if we have a cap on the amount that can be spent to buy an election then we have to identify the people who are spending the money. We cannot have secret expenditure if we want to have a reasonable cap on election spending. We cannot have people quietly coordinating their spending in backroom deals if we are going to cap election spending. 
Having said that I say I actually support an increase in some of the caps in the current legislation. One example is a spending cap of $20000 per electorate. The sum is of course $40000 for a by-election. But those limits were set in 1995 and it is fair to say the cost of election expenses has risen a bit since then. In today’s money $20000 in 1995 is worth $27000 now and the by-election cap of $40000 would be worth around $53000. So in real terms we should address those limits. I would like to see those limits on election spending at least at electorate level increase from where they are set today. I think that is reasonable. 
I want to mention one other area that will have to be improved and that is the administration of the Act by the Electoral Commission. I believe that the commission somehow simply lost the plot before the last election and it did not approach the administration of the Act in a calm and considered way. I have already expressed my frustration with having been referred to the police twice when I was confident that the issues I was being referred for would not remotely result in a prosecution. Indeed that is exactly what the police decided too. But they investigated the issue and determined after the election that no offence had been committed. Of course I had suffered all the reputational damage of being referred to the police when it turned out that no offence had been committed nor was it ever likely that had been. Emails with press releases in them could hardly be seen as a nefarious offence against the Act. 
And why would we have committed an offence anyway? The Progressive party was the only party that observed the law strictly in 2005. We were the only ones who did not have to pay anything back. So all of the people who were sneering at me and saying it served me right for voting for the Act in the first place might have considered those facts. There was no offence committed. 
I had no idea when the Act was passed that the commission would be so obtuse in administering it. It is very unusual for a State agency to set out to frustrate its own Act but here is an example of how obtuse the commission could be. On 19 June the commission wrote to me stating: “The commission has observed some items on the Progressive website which might be considered an election advertisement.” It told us: “The website does not appear to contain any promoter statement”. We wrote back to the commission pointing out that the promoter statement was highlighted in bold type in the middle of the page. It was the high-tide mark of silliness and I put it to this House that no legislation no matter how sensible could withstand an agency that was so careless or belligerent and so determined to avoid intelligently applying the law. Whatever Act replaces the one we are repealing it will need to be administered with a lot more caution and a lot more care and intelligence than the Act we are repealing was administered. 
Electoral law of course never seems to be universally admired—even by politicians in this House! I remember when I was in this House on my own representing a party that had polling support higher than that of any other political party and I had a polling percentage higher than that of any other leader that the electoral law then was carefully tailored to fit the two major parties. I do not recall that there were screaming campaigns by the  
New Zealand Herald  
then declaring that democracy had been gagged. I do not recall that members of the National Party rushed to declare the arrangements were “odious”. So I ask for some reflection on that point as the current law’s opponents reflect on the most recent Act’s repeal tonight. 
There has been a long history of using electoral law tactically often with reasonable intentions—which of course the road to hell is paved with—even if they just happen to suit the major party of the day. I accept that members of the Government felt aggrieved by this law and I have come to the conclusion that it is right to repeal it and look for a better one. I largely agree with the holding arrangements that the bill puts in place while we pass the new law. Just as we have come on this side of the House to this view I ask members opposite to be constructive too and to look at the way in which we can actually improve the law and cover ourselves against some of the excesses that have been committed in recent years. The Minister has certainly given an undertaking to do that and I am pleased to acknowledge that.