Finlayson Christopher: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13669] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I want to speak to clause 1 “Title” and I suggest that a better name for the Electoral Finance Bill would be the “Let’s Shoot Ourselves in the Foot Bill”. I was talking to a lefty friend of mine—not being tribal like members of the Labour Party I have lots of lefty friends; poor misguided souls that they are—and this person was telling me about all the campaigns in which he was involved in past years. He was involved in Save Manapouri. He was involved in anti - Viet Nam War campaigns. He was involved in anti - Springbok Tour campaigns. He was involved in antinuclear campaigns. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: He was a serial protester. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: He was a good friend of Mr Hughes. The point made by him and I think a very good point was that this could not happen in 2008—a person could not run a campaign like Save Manapouri in 2008. 
I ask Mr Duynhoven to take a good look at clause 5(1)(a)(ii) because it does not talk explicitly about political parties but it talks about “a type of party or … type of candidate that is described or indicated by reference to views positions or policies that are or are not held … (whether or not the name of a party or the name of a candidate is stated);”. This is one of the big misconceptions on the part of the Labour Party and its support parties when dealing with this legislation. Indeed there was a very interesting answer given by Mr Dunne the member for Ohariu-Belmont to a person who posted something on a United Future website a few days ago. This person said: “If the opinion can be seen as encouraging or persuading people to support or not support a party or candidate or class of party or candidate it will be limited. If you want to run a campaign which says ‘Support parties which support Kyoto’ then that is captured.” Mr Dunne responded by saying that was wrong. He said to this fellow who was called Dave: “To be caught a group has to be spending more than $120000 in support of a particular party”. Mr Dunne like the Labour Party members and like Mr Woolerton has not taken a good close look at clause 5(1)(a)(ii). If those people had they would have seen that my lefty friend was right and that it would not be possible to run a “Save Manapouri” or anti - Viet Nam War campaign in 2008 under the Electoral Finance Act 2007 because it will prevent that kind of argument. 
The second point I make is a very interesting point which has been raised by MetiriaTurei—and I think she is too concerned and I do not think it is a problem—relating to the amendment to clause 2 which states that the Act shall come into force on 1 April. I listened very carefully to what that member said because obviously there are implications for the definition of “regulated period”—and I particularly refer to subparagraph (a)(i) of that term in clause 4 because there are a number of periods that are specified in that clause. It seems to me that if the Act comes into force on 1 April there are a number of options. Either the regulated period is going to be the period that commences 3 months before polling day and ends with the close of polling day—a proposition that would not please MetiriaTurei one little bit—or one would give a purposive interpretation to subparagraph (a)(i) and say that if the Act comes into force on 1 April in order to make sense of the definition of “regulated period” the regulated period shall be the longer of the following periods: either the period that commences on 1 April or the 3-month period. The other option if one wanted to be clear beyond peradventure would be to seek leave so that the House could debate the definition of “regulated period” again. But I do not believe that any judge would have a problem with that particular definition and I think MetiriaTurei makes a mountain out of a molehill. 
Finally let me say I am delighted that Mr Hughes is so strongly in favour of some controls on anonymity because I have just checked the amount of anonymous donations he received in the 2005 general election. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: How much? 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: $13821.78.