Rurawhe AdrianELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Electoral Amendment Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 5 December 2022.This bill makes a number of changes to the Electoral Act 1993. These changes will increase public trust in the transparency of the political donations and loans framework and extend the eligibility of overseas voters to enrol to vote in the 2023 general election. This bill makes various changes to the political donations and loans framework and also increases public disclosure about party funding. These amendments improve the transparency of party funding by providing the public with more information about the sources of political donations.The increased reporting requirements support the clear results from public and targeted consultation. New Zealanders want greater transparency about how our political parties and candidates are funded. Seventy percent of respondents to a recent Victoria University of Wellington survey indicated they did not trust the political funding framework. This bill will increase transparency and therefore trust in our democracy.The bill lowers the threshold for disclosing the identity of party donors from $15000 to $5000. The new $5000 threshold provides a careful balance increasing the amount of information publicly available about party donations whilst not providing an overload of information and respecting donor privacy for smaller donation sums. The bill amends the rule currently requiring disclosure of a donor's identity within 10 working days when their donations to a party exceed $30000 in the previous 12 months. Under the bill a party secretary may now disclose a donor's identity within 10 working days when their donations to a party exceed $20000 but only during an election year. This change increases the information disclosed during election years when it is likely to be most important to voters and of course the public. It also reduces administrative complexity particularly for smaller parties.The bill requires party secretaries to annually disclose the number and total value of non-anonymous donations under $1500 that they receive. This means parties' annual donation returns will for the first time provide the full picture of donations received. The bill also requires parties to annually disclose the proportion of their total donations that are in-kind non-monetary donations. This will provide greater transparency around the funds parties receive from fundraising dinners and auctions for example.The bill also requires candidates to disclose loans received to support their campaign but this only applies to loans from unregistered lenders. This is because candidates must be able to keep their personal debts private such as of course mortgages and credit card balances. This approach also acknowledges that unregistered lenders are more likely to be in a position to influence candidates.Coupled with the changes to political donations and loan settings the bill also requires all registered parties to disclose their annual financial statements. This will provide greater transparency about all income sources for parties as well as their key expenditure categories and their capital asset base. This has the support of over 85 percent of respondents to the same Victoria University survey from last year. There should be minimal compliance costs associated with this requirement since almost every registered party already prepares financial statements in some form.Another important change sees the bill temporarily extend overseas voter eligibility for the 2023 general election in light of COVID-19 - related travel restrictions. Citizens and permanent residents will now retain their ability to enrol to vote if they haven't returned to New Zealand for up to six and four years respectively. Currently the maximum periods are three years without returning to New Zealand for citizens and 12 months for permanent residents. Overseas voters will still face considerable financial travel health and logistical barriers to returning home. Extending their eligibility to vote upholds the democratic rights of thousands of New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.In addition to various minor and technical changes the bill also addresses the scenario where there is a change in polling day once the regulated period has started. This occurred in the lead-up to the 2020 general election. The bill provides that the new regulated period is the shorter of two possible periods either the period from the day after the announcement of the change of polling day until the new polling day or three months before the new polling day.Alongside amendments improving the Māori electoral option introduced to the House last month this bill forms part of a broader reform programme to update New Zealand's electoral legislation. In October last year the former Minister of Justice Hon Kris Faafoi announced an independent review of electoral law to ensure the rules remain fit for purpose and meet the needs of the next generation of voters. We have established a bipartisan independent panel of experts to undertake this review. As part of this work the panel will consider our electoral finance framework more broadly along with whether there should be permanent changes to overseas voting eligibility. I'm looking forward to the active engagement of all members across the House with the independent review panel on these and other matters of importance to our democracy. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the Electoral Amendment Bill. I propose that the committee report the bill back to the House by 5 December 2022 and complete the remaining stages by 15 December 2022. I commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.