Prebble Richard: Appointments — Electoral Commission—Membership 
Prebble Richard: Appointments — Electoral Commission—Membership 
[Volume:624;Page:19005] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) 
: 
 I have come down to the Chamber to speak against this motion because I think it is a very very important one. With it we are setting in some of the rules for the next election. The Government with the help of the National Party is nominating a representative to go on the Electoral Commission which will hand out the money and allocate the amount of time a party can advertise on television. So we are actually seeing an example of the two old parties joining together. 
Labour and National very rarely vote together against the rest of the House and I think the media should be taking some notice of that. Why are they doing it? We know it is because this is a massive handicap system that works in favour of the two old parties. As an example in the last election and in the two elections before that the two old parties agreed that whatever funding the Labour Party got the National Party would get and vice versa. That gives those parties a huge advantage especially when one discovers that New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world where it is illegal for a political party to buy radio or television time. The only time allowed is the time the State allocates and if the State allocates most of the time to the two major parties then of course they will be major parties. If they were allocated the same time as other parties would the result of the election be different? Of course it would. Politics is a mixture of publicity money people and policy and this measure ensures that money and publicity are given to the two major parties. 
We have the farcical situation whereby a Mr John Isles is nominated to represent all the Opposition parties and as the various parties he is supposed to represent have already said we know that he will not represent us. I know that David Caygill will not represent the Progressive Party because once he represented me. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Did he? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Yes under the same sort of rule. He is always put up by the Labour Party. I discovered that he was representing me on the boundaries commission. When the boundaries came out I received the most unfavourable boundaries that could possibly be mathematically drawn—so unfavourable that although my vote went up in Wellington Central I lost. The reason was that Mr Caygill and the rest of the commission decided that Cashmere and Khandallah should be taken out of the Wellington Central electorate and Newtown for the first time ever be put in it. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Didn’t you pick up the Newtown electorate? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I actually did quite well in Newtown; but it is a bit of a handicap. What did my representative do? Of course he represented the interests of the Labour Party. I am sure that Mr Isles will go on the commission and claim that the Opposition parties think the National Party should get the same funding as the Labour Party. He has no moral right to do that at all. Some people have been saying that those two gentlemen are men of integrity. I say that they are not. People of integrity would not accept that position because this is a squalid political deal that has only one purpose: to rig the next election. It is a handicap system. 
I put this point: the third parties that will be penalised by this—New Zealand First the Greens ACT and United Future—have only themselves to blame. When the coalition agreement was being negotiated it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the Greens and United Future to say that they would not give the Government support unless it set up a fair system for elections. I do not intend to be in Parliament next year but I say that the third parties should get together because it would be in their interests to have an honest open and transparent electoral system. It is no good deciding in election year that they should have raised the matter. I do not think that United Future will get another chance at coalition but if it does then before Peter Dunne sits down and decides how big his doormat is to be he should think about putting in a clause that there has to be a fair election system. 
In the US Supreme Court this law would be struck down as being unconstitutional. The Australian High Court struck down its rules about this. These ones are even more outrageous. We could have a whole lot of alternatives. We could be like the United States where people decide how good a party is by how well it raises money. They have a dollar for dollar subsidy on what is raised. In New Zealand a major party may have no support whatsoever yet still get the same support as the other old party. 
I draw the House’s attention to this interesting situation. The Maori Party I think will win all the Maori seats. 
Government Member 
: Ha ha! 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: The member can laugh. It does not help me to put that forward. I am just stating a fact. That is seven seats. That is about a quarter of what the National Party will get on present polling. Does anybody think that the Maori Party will get a quarter of National’s funding? Of course it will not. But the system is even more unfair than that: the two representatives decide what the television allocations will be on Television One. Who thinks that the Maori Party would want its allocation to be on Television One? Of course it would not. So not only do third parties get unfair allocations but they are then told where they have to advertise. 
I have yet another criticism. If Mr Caygill and Mr Isles were any good they would also be pointing out that the political parties do not get a good deal. Advertising time is allocated on a schedule basis. No advertiser pays the schedule rate. I have bought television advertising in the past—sometimes I have bought it for a quarter of the schedule price. I object to the fact that State television jacks up its schedule just so it can gouge the taxpayer—that is the only reason I can think of that it has a schedule—and charge twice as much per minute as it charges anyone else to be on television. 
I say to the two representatives that if they really want to help Parliament they should basically say to the commission that there should be a dollar for dollar subsidy then let New Zealand First go out and do whatever deal it can. If New Zealand First wants to be on Sky television rather than on Television One that should be its choice. Why are third parties forced just because we have two old parties who cannot think past State television to go on to that travesty of a programme? I am told by the ACT party’s advertising managers who are supposed to be the best in the business that the amount of seconds that third parties are given on television is not enough for them to be able to win over any votes. It is enough time only to be able to make a fool of oneself. 
What is the point of spending a large sum of taxpayers’ money? At the last election I seriously suggested to the ACT party that we should just put up a sign on our space that read: “The ACT party objects to taxpayer-funded election expenses and we refuse to advertise.” We would have done just as well with a placard like that rather than having me being forced to walk along the beach or doing something equally ridiculous which is apparently supposed to help people vote for me. 
This measure is a shame on Parliament. It is a shame on the two major parties and it is a shame on the fourth estate that they do not criticise them. When will State television point out what a rip-off this system actually is?