Simpson Scott: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Simpson Scott: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8763. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 As the new chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee it is a great pleasure for me to rise in support of the second reading of this Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2). 
But before I get into the detail of the bill in terms of its second reading I just want to respond to a couple of the points made by the previous speaker the Hon Lianne Dalziel because today of all days it ill behoves that member and members of her party to be talking about brain fade in any way shape or form. This is a day when her leader her current leader—and the aspirant leader is sitting smiling beside that last speaker. There is a real problem in the Labour Party with brain fade—a real problem—and the delicious irony for members on this side is that the amounts involved appear to be similar except that we do not know the maximum upper limit of the Leader of the Opposition’s secret bank account. It might be US$100000 or it could be a million dollars. We do not know what is in that secret bank account and he should come clean. 
But this is a good bill. Can I just for a moment talk about the proceedings at the select committee. I came a little late to this bill. I took over the chairmanship of the select committee after submissions had been heard but I want to say that from the point when I got involved I thought that this committee worked very very well. It was I think a good example notwithstanding the speech from the Hon Lianne Dalziel of the select committee process working well to achieve a good outcome—refining a bill that was presented to the House and making a few amendments that were good practical suggestions in a way that had broad support across the House. 
The Greens have presented a minority report and they make particular reference to matters concerning third-party donations. That is a matter that the committee simply did not have time to consider in its full complexity or detail. We hope that the Government will see fit to discuss that by way of discussion during the Committee of the whole House because it is an area that does I think need some addressing. 
So what we have here is a piece of legislation that effectively brings candidates for local body elections into line with the same donation regime system that applies to candidates seeking parliamentary elections to this House. I think that is a good thing and I think it has broad appeal across the House. 
As the Minister of Local Government said the purpose of the bill is threefold. It is to improve provisions for the conduct of local elections. We know that ready or not we have elections in October of this year so the intention is that this bill should be passed and enacted by the end of May and that is why we are discussing it now. The second point is to increase transparency and accountability in relation to those candidates and the donations that they receive and in particular in relation to anonymous donations. The third point that this bill seeks to identify and strengthen is the integrity of the local electoral system. Those are three worthy causes. This bill seeks to address those things. 
On behalf of the committee and members on this side I want to acknowledge the work of the committee and thank members for their constructive participation and their collegial approach to this bill. I commend it to the House.