Tolley Anne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Tolley Anne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1315] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 I begin today by paying tribute to an extraordinary man a Gisborne resident who sadly passed away 2 weeks ago. Jim Holdsworth was born in and grew up in Gisborne and spent most of his life in the Gisborne district. He served in the Mounted Rifles in World War II played rugby tramped extensively in the area played snooker extremely well read widely and voraciously and also played chess. It is often related how he once travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway and played chess for days with a Russian general who spoke no English at all. Jim was a great traveller but most important of all he was a farmer—a Hereford breeder a wool classer and one of New Zealand’s early farm foresters. In fact he was a founding member of both the national and local farm forestry associations and he headed both organisations during the early years. He became an expert in Australian eucalypts and planted many varieties on his station as well as large plantings of pine. 
 He was way ahead of his time in regard to farm forestry and his knowledge of trees. He was way ahead of his time in many other aspects of life. He became frustrated because he could not understand a gang from the Ureweras who were working on his farm so he approached a local kaumatua and asked to be taught the language and he became a fluent speaker of Maori. Jim was an honourable man a man of honesty straight dealing and huge integrity and he will be sadly missed in the Gisborne district. 
Honesty and integrity are two words that unfortunately we cannot associate with the current Labour Government. I am ashamed to live in a country where the Prime Minister has been referred to the police not just once for signing a picture she did not paint herself and allowing it to be sold as her own artwork not just twice for also knowingly travelling in a motorcade that deliberately exceeded the speed limit by 40 to 60 kilometres per hour at times in order for her to catch a plane to watch a game of rugby but three times for also allowing her parliamentary budget to be used deliberately to pay for a $446815 pamphlet and pledge card as part of Labour’s election campaign. 
I well recall the two campaign meetings held in my electorate by the Maxim Institute. They were excellent public meetings and very well-organised and well-attended—possibly because they focused on the issues rather than on the candidates. However during the course of the evening the representatives who were mostly MPs were able to ask a question of one another. My question to my Labour opponent was exactly this: why was Labour using taxpayers’ funds to fight the election when other parties had to fund-raise through donations raffles and cake stalls to fund their campaigns? When I asked that question at the first meeting my Labour opponent sneered—as we hear here tonight—and answered that she doubted that National Party campaigns were funded by cake stalls. On the morning of the second meeting I had had a very successful cake stall in the main street of Opotiki—in fact it was the third cake stall we had run in Opotiki so I felt I was on pretty safe ground. 
As a candidate I had no parliamentary salary to rely on no parliamentary-funded travel or accommodation to support me no parliamentary office to send out letters etc. That is at the heart of the Electoral Act laws. Those in power have an enormous advantage over their challengers. This country prides itself on its democratic principles; we believe that any Jack or Jill has the right to challenge his or her master or mistress—has the opportunity of equal rights. The underdog is always our favourite—except when it is the All Blacks—so a system that protects those with few resources against those with many in an election process must be upheld. 
Typically my opponent’s response and the party line we have heard trotted out for the last week has been: “Well everyone else does it so it’s OK.” Well I have never accepted that blurring of the line between right and wrong. I have never accepted it from my children; I have never accepted it from my families or from my work colleagues and least of all from my Government. The law is clear: the leader’s budget funded by the taxpayer is not to be used for electioneering. 
Is the pledge card I am holding up electioneering? The common-sense answer has to be yes. It was put out by Helen Clark and Labour and only in the 3 months leading up to the election. It spells out the seven election promises of Helen Clark and the Labour Party. It was used by Labour candidates and MPs throughout the 3-month lead-up to the election. The only time Labour put this out was in the 3 months prior to an election. Therefore it has to be an electioneering tool. What about this pamphlet I am holding up? Is this an electioneering tool? It states: “Helen Clark— 
Hon Members 
: Show us the photo. 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: Members might not recognise her. It shows Helen Clark’s and the Labour Party’s policies for the future. [ 
Interruption 
] Labour did not put out a pamphlet like this at any time during its 6 years in Government except before the last election. It lays out all Labour’s policies all nicely wrapped up. Who it is in the photo might be questionable but that is just another part of Labour’s spin and deception. But it does not take a law degree to work out that this too is electioneering. 
The Electoral Commission thought it was. It insisted that Labour include that $446815 in its election costs and thus Labour has exceeded its legal limit. The Auditor-General now agrees and two official bodies have found that Helen Clark and Labour were in the wrong deliberately and calculatedly so. 
So what do Labour members do? They blame everyone else. They blame the law saying that the law is unclear. They ridicule they point the finger and they throw up smokescreens. They were wrong; they got caught. They should apologise pay back the money and take their medicine. The medicine is not very strong; it is not particularly nasty. 
I ask this House where the justice is in that medicine. My colleague Bob Clarkson can be taken to court and made to prove that he did not overspend his limit. His punishment would have been that he would be out of Parliament. But Helen Clark and this Labour Government cannot be held to such account by the public whose money they have looted. There is just a fine to a maximum of $3000 for illegal practice as my estimable colleague has pointed out or a year’s jail and a $4000 fine. Helen Clark who was responsible for her budget will cop neither of those two. She will again step back and allow a staff member or a party faithful to take the blame just like she did with those poor police drivers in Oamaru. 
There is no honesty in this Labour Government; there is no integrity in this Labour Government. It should apologise and pay back the money.