English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 10 October 2007. Volume:642;Page:12222. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]12.Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) to theMinister of Justice: Does he stand by his statement regarding the regulated period contained in the Electoral Finance Bill that it “is longer than the Canadian but briefer than the United Kingdom’s and it seemed an appropriate and reasonable period on balance.”; if so why?Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): Yes; because it did.Hon Bill English: Why did he not tell the House that the UK in the first election after its law was passed did not in fact apply the 12-month period because it thought the rules were too complicated and no one understood them and in fact the regulated period was about 4 months; and why did he not tell the House when he quoted the Canadian Supreme Court that that decision was justifying a 6-week regulated period which puts quite a different slant on Canada’s repression of free speech?Hon MARK BURTON: Because as the member knows I have spoken at length on the detail of the length of the regulated period in both the Canadian and UK jurisdictions. That was not the nature of the question the member asked at the time. But I have given that information at length to the House.Hon Bill English: So can the Minister confirm that he has come to the House to justify the regulated period of the whole of an election year by using a CanadianSupreme Court opinion that applied to a 6-week period and a set of rules in the UK that simply were not applied at the first election after they were passed?Hon MARK BURTON: I can confirm to the member that the case I specifically referred to yesterday from the Canadian Supreme Court was an appropriate reference because—Hon Bill English: No it wasn’t.Hon MARK BURTON: Of course it was. New Zealand courts draw very heavily on Canadian judgments when considering matters related to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and that is a relevant reference. The key issue here is whether New Zealand’s electoral system can and should be protected from the sort of rort that we saw the National Party engage inin 2005. It can and it must.R Doug Woolerton: Does the Minister believe as we do that the implementation of the Electoral Finance Bill will enhance fairness and free speech in future New Zealand general elections?Hon MARK BURTON: Indeed I do and I believe that the good work that the Justice and Electoral Committee will be continuing to engage in over the next little while will further refine and enhance the value of that legislation. But I am absolutely confident that it can improve certainly the protection for the right of ordinary New Zealanders to participate in their electoral system without the sort of corrupt practice we saw on the part of some in 2005.Hon Bill English: If the Minister is motivated by stopping rorts then why has he put a provision in a bill that explicitly legalises the rort the Labour Party carried out with the pledge card; and if it did not think that was a rort why did it pay the money back?Hon MARK BURTON: As usual the member fires wild unsubstantiated and largely unrelated assertions that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.Hon Bill English: Why is the Government persisting with legislation that legally bans the expression of political opinion during election year unless it meets strict legal criteria when every submission to the select committee opposed the bill?Hon MARK BURTON: Yet again the member makes a demonstrably inaccurate assertion in this House. That is factually incorrect. I have—clearly Mr English does not—considerable confidence in the value that select committees add to the work of this Parliament. One of my colleagues yesterday referred to them as the engine room of the parliamentary process and I believe they are. We have said from day one that the select committee process we anticipate will add considerable value and refinement to the provisions of this bill. I believe that to be the case and I look forward to the final enactment of the legislation when the select committee reports it back to the House.