O'Rourke Denis: Electoral Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13431. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will support this Electoral Amendment Bill going to the Justice and Electoral Committee. The committee’s inquiry into the 2011 general election did recommend several amendments to the Electoral Act. This bill will implement some of them but only some of them. It has been a collaborative process and was supported by I think some very good public submissions too.There are three areas of change that are promoted by the bill. Firstly it provides for the option of full online enrolment using electronic identity verification and that is a good step forward. Secondly it provides for the greater use ofEasyVote cards which will simplify and speed up the issuing of ballot papers and reduce special votes and that would be a good result. Thirdly the integrity of elections will be enhanced through amendments to rationalise and make transparent the provisions that regulate the electioneering disclosure of contributions and loans and the filing of election expenses.These are all very good things to achieve. But there have been some important recommendations of the Justice and Electoral Committee that are not to be implemented by this bill but that should have been. They concern the use of broadcasting of election programmes.If I look at the report of the committee I see on page 39 that it is noted that “The Electoral Commission noted that the statutory tests of what constitutes an ‘electionprogramme’ in … Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act 1989 and an ‘election advertisement’ in section 3A of the Electoral Act are similar but have significant differences which cause difficulties when the commission considers broadcasting complaints. Both tests require an assessment of whether the programme or advertisement appears to encourage voters to vote or not vote for a party or candidate but they differ in the exemptions made … the Broadcasting Act states that nothing in the prohibition on paid election programmes ‘restricts the broadcasting in relation to an election of news or of comments or of current affairs programmes’ while the exemption in … the Electoral Act is not restricted to news or current affairs but applies to ‘the editorial content of a periodical a radio or television programme and a publication on a news media Internet site’… [several] submissions suggested removing the separate electoral broadcasting provisions from the Broadcasting Act and confining provisions regarding election advertising to the Electoral Act.” That is I think as it should be.The committee itself recommended that the Government align the statutory tests of an election programme in section 69 of the Broadcasting Act 1989 and an election advertisement in section 3A of the Electoral Act 1993. Those matters are very necessary and they are urgent matters that should have been included in this bill. I cannot understand why they are not. I expect to receive an explanation from the Government as to why they are not in the bill but I have not heard one so far.Similarly on page 40 of the report it notes that there were submissions that “the Broadcasting Act’s full prohibitions regarding election programmes should not be limited to the election period and should apply consistently to both political parties and broadcasters.” The committee recommended to the Government that it “consider aligning the liability for breaching Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act so that provisions would apply to the broadcaster and any person who arranged for the broadcast of an election programme in contravention of the Act whether within or outside an election period.” Similarly that matter needs to be addressed in this legislation before the next election. It is urgent.Those are the primary things that should have been attended to but there are some good things achieved by the bill and they include a number of provisions of which I will mention a few. Section 197 of the Electoral Act which has been mentioned by other speakers concerns the wearing of ribbons streamers rosettes lapel badges and so on. The amendment to this in clause 35 of the bill would create a more restrictive regime for those and would really allow them to be worn only by scrutineers.New Zealand First thinks that is appropriate. It does not want to see electioneering on election day. Voters need some peace and quiet from all the razzmatazz of elections. After all they have had 3 months of it before then. There is a fine line between simple decorations or identifiers and actual attempts to influence voters. We think the balance has to be against those attempts to influence voters. It should go only as far as allowing scrutineers to be identified appropriately in polling booths. The exemption for scrutineers is justified but nothing else we feel.I want to turn to clause 40 because that provides for a candidate who fails to file a return to be liable to a fine of up to $40000 and a candidate who files a false return to be guilty of a corrupt practice and up to 2 years in prison could be the result or a fine not exceeding $100000. That shows the gravity of the offence—something that some people in the community need to take note of.I want to mention clauses 44 46 and 47 which clarify the position to ensure the aggregation of contributions to donations for the $1500 threshold and the $15000 threshold for contributions to donations in clause 48. That is good law and it is supported by New Zealand First members. Concerning loans to political parties we are glad to see the provisions in new sections 213 214A 214C and so on inserted byclause 50. Those sections provide that a party may enter into a loan only with the authorisation of the party secretary and only the party secretary may enter into a loan on behalf of the party for election purposes. Another section provides that a person who enters into an agreement or arrangement of some kind for the purpose of circumventing that section will also be guilty of an illegal practice.New section 214C imposes an obligation on the party secretary to file with the Electoral Commission each year a return of loans entered into during the year for an amount exceeding $50000 those entered into in any previous year with an unpaid balance exceeding $15000 and those entered into for the year for an amount that when aggregated with other loans yields an amount in excess of $15000 and so on. Those are very necessary and important provisions.But what I want to finish on is a major and glaring omission from the bill which is simply that there needs to be an end of the coat-tailing provision in the Electoral Act. We have seen many reasons for that over recent times. It is something that I feel the vast majority of people in this country want to see an end of. It is time that simply winning an electorate seat should not result in coat-tailing for whatever low percentage of the party vote is currently enabling a party to bring more members into Parliament. The provision should be one seat plus at least 5 percent or just 5 percent or more of the vote to get seats in Parliament. That is what people want. That should have been addressed.We know why it is not being addressed and that is because the National Party needs people like Banks and Dunne and wants to try to get as many additional MPs as possible; because this Government is prepared to have cups of tea and do whatever else is necessary to gerrymander the result of an election. That is a cynical manipulation of the system and shows that this Government has no genuine regard for democracy in New Zealand. It utterly refuses to look at this provision but it is high time that it did.