Brownlee GerryClauses 1 to 3Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): It is not unusual in debates of this type for people to stand up and suggest all sorts of other names for a bill suggesting they might be adopted by the committee as more appropriate to describe the bill. I don't think that's necessary in this case. It is an amendment albeit that these amendments are somewhat minor and probably missed the point of what is most in front of the public at the present time. But what does strike us as a little strange is the bill coming into effect—it's unclear: does it come into effect with the Royal assent with these other parts delayed until 1 January or 1 April? So it says this Act except sections 15 and 16 comes into force on 1 January 2020" so that's when the assent is given to it. The assent is given before that but it's effective from that date. I take it that's the—thank you for the nod from the Minister. Well that gives quite a few days potentially for people to round up anonymous donations. Now I stand here as part of a party that declares those donations. Most parties in here do; one apparently doesn't. It just seems odd that Cabinet decided to allow—given that this bill will probably pass today 3 December—some 27 days or so perhaps 25 days when we take out statutories three weeks to go out and round up a swag of anonymous donations and to load them into the kitty. Now you know the Minister's got a very interesting look on his face. I don't know that he wouldn't have thought about this but it seems to me that that is odd. So we would like to know the reason for that gap. The Governor-General is in New Zealand; it would be possible to have this bill signed this afternoon in fact. Even if the Clerk says well they want a couple of days to tidy it up it's not unusual for bills to go up in their rough state to get the assent particularly bills that are done under urgency. So it has to be a public question that should be answered: why has there been urgency afforded to give effect to the lowering of the threshold for anonymous donations when in fact there is a three-week—at least—window where those anonymous donations can go through under the current arrangements? The next bit's unclear also. Why would you have clauses 15 and 16 which relate to the issue we were just talking of before I believe it was the residency of the general secretary—I'll stand corrected on that. But perhaps it would be a good idea for the Minister to briefly tell us why those two clauses particularly are left out. In here it's the party secretary and the meaning of the word "party secretary". Why do we have to wait until April for those to become effective in the law? Is there a need for perhaps one of the Government parties to sort out its arrangements in the three and a half months that they're going to have—nearly four months actually from this point—to reach the 1 April deadline? That's somewhat inexplicable. If there is a simple explanation then I think it would be useful for the Minister to give that explanation to the committee.The next part of this of course is to agree that this bill amends the Electoral Act 1993. Well I think it would be inappropriate for us to all agree to vote for this—bar one—and then not to agree to this part. But it would be interesting to hear from the Minister what his intentions are for the wider consideration of the Electoral Act. Will this bill before the House today under urgency be the last Electoral Amendment Bill prior to the 2020 election? That is a pretty crucial point in my view.So there are three things. Could we know from the Minister why there's this three-week gap where there seems to be a moratorium on compliance with the new law that will be passed today for the receipt of anonymous donations? Why do we have to wait until 1 April for there to be compliance on the residential impost on whoever is secretary of the party? And finally what's the process from here?"