Flavell Te Ururoa: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13546] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Chair tena tatou katoa e te Whare. The Maori Party is willing at long last having listened to much of the debate to contribute as a starting point for probably the rest of the evening and we appreciate very much the comments made by a large number of the members across the Chamber in respect of the various parts of this bill. In opening up our statement the Maori Party would say that we support the need to uphold the concept of disclosure of party donations over a specified amount and I am specifically referring to Subpart 4 “Disclosure of third party donations”. We endorse the call for greater transparency as we would hope that this would ensure that political parties desist from the devious use of trusts or lawyers and their accounts to obscure the identity of donors. We also believe that giving is a transparent act and that it should be honoured as such. We support the changes to tighten the rules on anonymous donations with details to be disclosed to the Chief Electoral Officer. 
It has to be asked whose interests are served by covering up the use of wealth in a political party context. The general public’s? Yeah right! The practice of third-party donations being submerged under the existing categories has been a longstanding habit of many of the political parties in this Chamber and may likely continue. We note for example that there is a $10000 limit so what is to stop people from getting to the magic figure of $9999 as a way of getting around the intricacies of this law? 
So here is the thing: this legislation does not give the transparency we are after. Nor does it open up the trusts as Labour promised it would. We know that this bill requires a degree of electoral finance literacy and sophistication that some groups might not have and that will limit their participation. The Hon Bill English has over the past couple of weeks identified many of the loopholes he can see and he has identified many of the views as to how this law could be interpreted. So does it address the problem of hidden trusts? We say no. 
I remember the words of Martin Luther King. He said something like this: “It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people but the appalling silence of the so-called good people.” So the question we might ask in this House is this: who will fess up now about the means and mechanisms by which the good people of this House know their party coffers bloom? Who would fess up? I do not hear too many calls because everybody is talking but that aside we all know that money has been secretly pocketed away in trust accounts with the assistance of lawyers and solicitors to make it all kosher if you like. In the context of political donations if people do not wish to be identified then perhaps they should not give. 
In a cultural sense and in the cultural context of koha before the intervention of the envelope which many of us use on marae now—the envelope and money—gifts were laid on marae for all to see. So before the use of the envelope and money it was a transparent exercise of putting things down in front of everybody so they could see it. I see this issue in very much the same way. 
Let us consider all the gifts of fine mats for example by our Pacific brothers and sisters the giving of whariki perhaps when a meeting house is opened or of tukutuku panels as a whanau or hapu contribution to a new house. That sort of generosity is apparent for all to see. It is all above board transparent and accountable. It is perhaps the model that the Government could have considered if it had had the courage to blow open the secret trusts as it originally said it would but unfortunately it has failed to do so. 
I turn briefly to Subpart 5 which is about the general rules on election advertising. The meaning of the term “election advertisement” is at the very heart of the adverse reaction from New Zealanders to this bill. New Zealanders like the 5000 who marched in protest last weekend and just like the many thousands who marched in the hikoi to oppose the Foreshore and Seabed Bill were treated with an element of disdain and contempt by the Prime Minister.