Chadwick Steve: Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chadwick Steve: Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12936. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 It is delicious irony is it not? The emperor with no clothes came to the House tonight as the first speaker on the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill. He was full of gravitas with no emotion and no hysteria at all about this fundamentally good bill before us tonight. But he was exposed in his speech by saying that the difference between then and now is that we are on this side of the House. We will never let National members forget that. 
I want to say some other things. Of course Labour members support this bill; Darren Hughes has laid out our position. It is about defining clear common-sense rules around parliamentary spending in campaigns and in referendums. So of course we support it. 
I mention too that we love to see National entrenching this position in this bill tonight. We will try to stop doing what National did when we were in Government when we wanted to get a constructive set of rules working to find something that was enduring for the future. I will mention a couple of other things that National members railed against when they were in Opposition. Not just for days but for weeks and weeks they built up hysteria about rorts in electoral spending. On this issue Nick Smith said: “I know of no time in my 17 years when I have seen a bill that will bring this Parliament into as much disrepute as the bill before us.” It is exactly the same issue; the same wording that has come through tonight. He also said it was a rort. Judith Collins said that it was a disgrace. Anne Tolley had the line: she said it was a rort and an absolute disgrace for democracy in New Zealand. Tony Ryall came to the House and said: “It should matter to the lower benches of the Labour Party because they may be in a future Parliament and they will not want a future Government to jackboot over their rights as an Opposition as this Government is jackbooting over the rights of all New Zealanders with this attack on the democratic values that most New Zealanders hold dear.” 
That was the National members when they were in Opposition. They attacked our position then and it remains fundamentally unchanged. Of course we will support this bill tonight; we have absolutely no problem with supporting this bill. This was our position—it always was our position—and we will be cooperative. We were promised that there would be wide consultation on this; we have not had wide consultation on it at all. We worked constructively on the electoral finance review when it was undertaken and we look forward to this bill going to the Electoral Legislation Committee where we will be constructive. But we hope that the Government allows a decent period of time so that consultation happens at the select committee. 
I support this bill mainly because it is sensible. I welcome the entrenchment of a change of position by National. It is funny how when Labour members are on this side of the House and National members are on that side of the House they change the rhetoric that goes with bills before us. But we will support it.