Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. As others have said it's with a heavy heart that I stand to speak in this debate. It is a sad day when any Minister or member of this House has to step down in particular in the types of circumstances that we see arising round this debate. But this is in fact a debate about democracy. The issues that at the core of this debate to us as the Green Party are not about an individual Minister but about strengthening public confidence in our democracy both in the way that we are seen and in fact operate in Government and as members of this House of Representatives. New Zealand has a proud history of democracy. We often applaud ourselves rightly for being the country that first gave women the vote. We often applaud our very very high rankings on corruption scales in terms of being free from corruption and perception is a big part of the way that democracy operates. We know that every time there is a so-called scandal in this House we all lose voters. The public don't want to see this in any political party. So it is a sad day for us and it's a day of reflection. But what I would hope is that we do that in terms of the changes to come in a holistic view. So we look at trust in our electoral system in our lobbying rules in our electoral funding rules as well as the Cabinet Manual. We do support the Prime Minister's approach in its strength for looking at system change for looking at more transparency—a further consequence and accountability in the way that Ministers who fall short of their reporting responsibilities are dealt with. I have heard the Opposition say Well this was a case of the rules being already in place and being broken by a Minister." But again having those rules in place is at its highest point about keeping our Governments from conflicts of interest in fact but also the appearance that we are accountable that our possible conflicts of interest are transparently dealt with so that we don't get to this place. To have an opaque system I think has not served us well and there is vast research now that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders support reform around transparency of the rules for all politicians starting with political donation regimes—whether it's lowering the threshold for secret donations; whether it's actually capping political donations which I think most New Zealanders would be shocked to find has not happened; setting out rules around lobbyists; whether that's having a register; or to go further as other like-minded nations have done and have a code of ethics for Ministers members of this House and also lobbying organisations and individuals to follow that those rules be made transparent; and to implement rules that show that members of Government because of course it is most important that the highest-level decision-makers are kept impartial are in fact impartial and transparent. So in particular I would say that the Prime Minister's note that he will be seeking advice on implementing a regime similar to that in Australia is welcome. To have clearer rules—and again public trust in the fact that no Minister with responsibility or visibility in an area of work will be allowed to hold any financial interests in that sector—is a clear signal that we as a House and this Government in particular at this moment of somewhat darkness is showing a commitment to changing the rules so that there is a perception of propriety. That there is a notice given to the fact that the public deserve to know that where someone is making a decision that that person is making that decision based on the welfare of New Zealanders as a whole rather than any other stakes.Which is why I say the political donations regime must sit alongside this type of reform because what we are saying is that democracy benefits from trust in the independence of decision makers. That means parliamentarians as the legislature; as well as Cabinet as the executive. So they do need to sit together. We've had so much research telling us this including the outcome of the inquiry that came out just this month that that laid out for us just exactly what rules were falling short of that in terms of donations regime; in terms of lobbying. And now we have this.I implore every member of this House to come together finally to have some consensus around the fact that rules do need to be updated; that our democracy will only thrive if we do all come together and say "Actually we won't wait for the next crisis." I do want to remind members from every party that every party will have some form of challenge when it comes to this. Last term when I raised political donation reform it was only prioritised when finally three different parliamentary political parties got into trouble for donations. It was ranging from the allegation that there'd been overseas political donations received and chopped up to be kept under the limit to the setting up of the New Zealand First Foundation. These are allegations of course and some have been dealt with. This Minister of Justice has finally changed some of the transparency rules along the lines of the Green Party's policy and also the previous Prime Minister closed that foundation loophole.But why does it have to be crisis after crisis that leads us to this reform? It would be awesome if we took party politics out of electoral reform looked at the evidence in front of us that the experts from the Electoral Commission the Supreme Court and the Waitangi Tribunal have repeatedly told us about the ways that we need to strengthen democracy in our nation because the stakes are high.I say again: when public trust is lost we all lose. There is ample evidence that when people lose trust in politicians they don't pick and choose between our parties. We disengage them. Ultimately that means that this House is responsive and responsible to fewer sectors and our society that our decisions are weakened because of that and democracy as a whole fails. We are responsible for upholding democracy. We are its representatives at the highest level in this nation; in this nation that has a proud history of democracy.So we support the Government's response but we also ask that we as a House of Representatives finally today come together and take an impartial—can I use that word?—approach to electoral reform as a whole to commit to strengthening democracy. Thank you Mr Speaker."