Tisch Lindsay: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
Tisch Lindsay: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
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LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 In 1943 Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons: “Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled. But some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like but if anyone says something back that is an outrage.” That is what the Electoral Finance Bill is about. It is a self-serving bill. It is a bill about keeping a Labour Government in power. It is a bill designed to give the incumbents a gravy train of funding and limit everyone else’s rights of expression. 
This is a Government that purports to support human rights in Zimbabwe and Fiji yet at the same time wants to limit Kiwis in having their say. Last night I attended a citizenship ceremony in Te Aroha. It was a citizenship ceremony in which some folk from Zimbabwe and from Fiji wanted to become Kiwis. They had earned that right to become Kiwis. They came here because of our values our opportunities our free speech and our free expression. I wonder what they will say when this bill comes in on 1 January and denies them and limits those opportunities. 
This is Draconian legislation. We have seen dictators in the past. I tell members that those who interfere with their constitutions will rue that day. At the end of it they all fail. This Government is going down the road. This Government is failing New Zealanders and New Zealand as a whole. This Labour Government has become obsessed with power. It is arrogant. It will not listen. It knows best. Everything we see today is designed around keeping this party and this Government in power. 
The editorials television media and marches are all coming out against the bill. We saw that the Law Society has very strong comments about how abusive this legislation is. The Human Rights Commission described the bill as “a dramatic assault on the freedom of expression”. It does not come much stronger than that. The commission said the bill was “a dramatic assault on the freedom of expression”. New Zealanders are incensed with this Government which wants to run their lives. This Government will rue the day it decided to push ahead with this self-serving legislation. 
The Government recently passed the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. That bill legitimises the illegal spending from the last election. The Auditor-General made the rules very plain and Labour had to pay back $800000-odd. That is why New Zealand First has a bill—because of its illegal spending. So what does this Government do? It changes the law. It comes out and legitimises that illegal spending. 
Now we have parties and candidates within Parliament being able to use taxpayer money to pay for their campaign. Of course that should be considered election advertising. Election ads could be run during the election campaign and the costs of those ads will not count towards the party’s and the candidate’s election expense cap. 
That is what is so wrong; there will be one rule for the incumbents one rule for MPs but other parties will be locked out. This is de facto State funding of political parties. That is what it is. It is de facto funding of these operations. It gives a huge advantage to the parties already in Parliament and a huge advantage to the candidates already here but everyone else is locked out. 
This bill makes a mockery of free expression of speech and it makes a mockery of the whole funding regime. MPs should be subject to the same definition of electioneering as other people or third parties as they have been described. Otherwise it is manifestly unfair and undemocratic. I subscribe to what Voltaire said—or what is attributed to him: “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That is National’s position.