Swain Paul: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
Swain Paul: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12958] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 It is a great shame that the member who has just sat down Peter Dunne did not speak first. To try to get a little bit of history and background into the debate before all the hyperbole whinging moaning and grizzling would have been quite helpful. The recollections the member has about the way in which parliamentary funding is used are exactly my recollections and I have been here 17 years. Of course the issue was thrown up into dispute but I think that the fundamental point the member made is that this is actually quite a simple matter and is not related to any other matter. It is a simple matter that unless we pass this legislation now it will create huge confusion about what can be spent as part of the parliamentary budget. For example one of the options and possibly the most extreme option that the member mentioned was that maybe we will have to freeze all our electorate office finances. You know we may not be able to honour our lease agreements for example. That could well be one of the outcomes of this. So it is very very simple legislation that just extends the time from 31 December 2007 to 30 June 2009—very simple legislation. 
If people had listened to the debate they would think that the National Party never ever spent any Parliamentary Service money. That is what they would think if they had listened to those members. They would think that no money had ever been spent by the National Party. Of course the media are now reporting because of the way that Parliament works—and the fact that we have Ministers on our side of the House and National has not—that National gets the most money from the Parliamentary Service. In fact I think it is of the order of $7 million. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: How much? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I think it is of the order of $7 million. So the basic question that I want to ask the National Party is simply this: if it is so morally outraged by this legislation will it make a commitment now that it will not spend one single cent of that $7 million? I ask Anne Tolley whether she will make a commitment in this House because she is so outraged by what we are doing that she will not spend one single cent of the $7 million allocated by the Parliamentary Service to the National Party. I ask Sandra Goudie whether she will stand up and say that she will not spend one single cent of the $7 million allocated. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: She wouldn’t know. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Probably not. I ask Mark Blumsky whether he will stand and make a commitment because he is so outraged by this legislation that he will not spend one single cent of the $7 million allocated. I wonder whether Tau Henare who is also outraged by this legislation will make a commitment to not spend one single cent of the allocated $7 million. The point of the matter is simply this: although we have all the hollow outrage from the National Party it will continue to spend Parliamentary Service money. So the next speaker from the National Party and I think it will be Anne Tolley when she stands to make her contribution should tell the public that yes National members are morally outraged by this legislation but that they will continue notwithstanding their vote against this legislation to vote for the money that Parliament allocated to them. Indeed this is very odd. The question then is: will the National Party commit itself to not spending money that was actually allocated this year? 
Anne Tolley 
: Hold it up! 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Here it is. It is an advertisement with a photo of John Key and it is headed: “Join the conversation”. I am amused at the kind of conversation that one would have with John Key—“Do I remember this can I recall that?”. I am asking the National Party and Anne Tolley whether she is saying that this advertisement was OK in 2007 yet now she is voting against it. 
Here is another interesting advertisement. It was produced in May 2007 and refers to 10 steps that a new National Government’s first Budget will take. Putting aside the misleading advertising in the document itself I will ask a question to Tau Henare over there who is looking amused. Who funded this document? I would hazard a guess that this advertisement which has both the parliamentary crest and the National Party logo on it was funded by the Parliamentary Service. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Surely not! 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Well I will hazard a guess that it was. I will be interested to know whether Anne Tolley when she stands up will tell us whether the Parliamentary Service funded that. If the Parliamentary Service funded that I ask Anne Tolley why she is opposed to this bill. It is a very simple question you see yet there is no answer from the National Party. 
Here is another advertisement. It states: “My commitment”. Well there was a lot of talk about commitment. This one was produced in 2002 by Bill English. There is a whole pile of waffle on it about getting tough on crime and all of that stuff. I wonder how this was funded. I wonder whether it was funded by the cake stalls that the National Party members run—I do not know whether they run cake stalls but we do—or whether it was funded by the Parliamentary Service. I will hazard a guess because it has the parliamentary logo on it that it was funded by the Parliamentary Service. Therefore we get into the position of using a word that we are not allowed to say in this Parliament because the National Party will vote against the bill and rage against it with its members saying that it is a constitutional and moral outrage—though I must say that they do not give those speeches as strongly as we used to when we were in Opposition—yet still spend the money. That is the basic point. 
I also have here a letter from the National Party leader John Key that went out to a number of community organisations. This letter talks about what the National Party would do if it ever got into Government so there is not much debate about that. If National got into Government this is what it would do for the voluntary and community sector. The letter talks about tax-free reimbursement of expenses and tax-free honoraria payments. There is a lot of talk of spending in this letter but of course I have never been able to work out how one can cut a lot and spend a lot more. I wonder who funded this letter and I wonder how much it cost. I am not sure how many organisations this letter went to. I presume it would have gone to quite a few organisations. It was sent out on letterhead so there is the cost of the paper the cost of the photocopying the cost of the envelopes and then there is the cost of the postage. I would imagine that this was quite an expensive exercise and that it was funded by the Parliamentary Service. If this letter was sent out in June 2007 by the Parliamentary Service and if this legislation is saying in respect of this kind of funding that until we can get together and sort out the rules that the National Party welshed on we need to confirm this by legislation so this kind of thing can be done why oh why is National voting against it? 
 So I ask Anne Tolley when she stands to give just a simple commitment. Will she or will she not give a commitment that she will spend none of the $7 million allocated by Parliamentary Service under the current vote? If she is not prepared to say that she will not spend any of that money can she then explain to the House why she is voting against this legislation with all the moral outrage that goes with it? It is quite a simple matter. 
I want to finish where Peter Dunne left off. This is extremely simple legislation. It just continues the arrangement until June 2009 until such time as we can get together and come forward with some rules that clarify all this. This legislation simply extends the time. I ask National members finally to clarify why oh why they are voting against the legislation when National will spend the money that is allocated.