Woolerton R Doug: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Woolerton R Doug: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13494] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I find it amazing to have all the bits and pieces wheeled out from the Justice and Electoral Committee—not in total; just little excerpts. I enjoyed the pony bit but none of them are actually accurate. That concerns me because that is what we have seen depicted in the newspapers up and down this country in recent times. We have heard all sorts of things except what actually happened in the select committee and except what the bill is actually about. 
The bill will not stop the Exclusive Brethren Church from spending money on an election campaign for the National Party or on anything else and it was never designed to. What the bill does do is make sure that everybody knows who the players are. It makes sure that people who spend $1.2 million or $1.4 million on an election campaign come under the caps and come under the electoral law just like political parties do. That is what it is all about. 
There were two groups of submitters in the main and their concerns were exactly as the Minister of Justice read out. The first group was concerned about anonymous donations to political parties and where the money was coming from. The second group had concerns about whether they could participate or whether this electoral law would close down advertising campaigns how much they could spend and that sort of thing. That part of it was completely taken out of the bill by the select committee but we will not hear National members talk about that because sadly they chose not to participate in any meaningful way in the select committee. They chose a line of obstruction and belittlement and that is what they continue to do. I believe that if National had used John Key with his formidable negotiating skills to talk to the Labour Party and to the other parties in the House in a properupfront manner then National members could have changed this bill quite a bit. But no those National members chose a line of obstruction. 
One of the things that has concerned me a bit is when Dr Helena Catt said that she could not define what an MP did. Unlike the National Party I welcome the Minister’s honesty and candour in saying that she would like to hear from people what MPs do. How we are going to define that when the National Party quite obviously is not going to participate in that debate either? 
The one good thing about this is that the whole of New Zealand if this issue is being reported correctly now knows that the National Party was invited to participate. In spite of what third parties say in spite of what newspapers say in spite of what lobbyists in the National Party say MPs do have a unique role in this country. We have a job of representation—I am getting so excited that I am fogging up my glasses It is our unique job to represent people. It is our job to bring their concerns to this Parliament and to debate them. It is not the job of the lobbyists or the job of the newspapers; it is our unique role and one we take seriously. It is one that I believe can be defined even though it may take a little bit of doing. 
Quite clearly if we are asked to go to Invercargill or to Whangarei from one end of the island to the other—and the Minister in the chair the Hon Annette King has said she was up north today—then we should do so. If we are called to account to address a meeting and to tell people what we as a political party intend to do we should be there.