Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Madam Speaker. Look it's been a bit of funny business in this debate and I will take us through what this bill actually does because I feel a bit sorry for the punters at home who are a bit confused. But first I want to offer the House some reflections. I'm a relatively new member and I really enjoyed working in the Justice Committee and on this piece of legislation with Nicole McKee who's just spoken. I wanted to reflect upon this idea that she's spoken about about there not being consensus on this bill. Nicole McKee and I are people who try to find consensus; we love to get to get our heads together in select committee and think about the people out there who we are here to serve as parliamentarians and to think about the good ideas that we can do and the things that are holding people back and that we can take away. There's nothing I love more than having those discussions with Nicole McKee and finding consensus on that basis—this isn't what this is.Our emotions are high tonight because this is actually not about the people out there is it? It's about us. We are trying to have a discussion about consensus around this House on something which affects us very personally. You know if we tried to find consensus around this House on things that just affected us we might get together and put our pay up; we might get together and give ourselves a really nice retirement package or extend our benefits. Consensus around the House is about the people out there and the expectations of New Zealanders on us to serve them. It's not about what suits us in an election year and so I'm comfortable with the fact that this bill serves the interests of people out there. It gives them more confidence in our electoral system. It makes us stop and think about who is involved in politics in New Zealand and those are good things. These are things that a brave Government advances and I'm really happy to be able to commend this bill.Now my first point is something that the Hon Paul Goldsmith raised which might be confusing everyone. He said New Zealanders can volunteer to give money or the Government seizes that money to give to political parties—that's not what this bill is is it? That's not actually what we're discussing in Parliament tonight. The Government is not seizing anyone's money to give to political parties and we're not stopping people from volunteering anything. All this bill does is that it lowers the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to political parties from $15000 to $5000 which means that somebody giving over $5000 simply needs to give their name and we need to know who they are.I heard one argument only advanced by the Hon Paul Goldsmith about why this would be a bad thing—why simply naming someone was so egregious. It was because of this idea that people don't want their names published because the Government will take retribution. Now in relation to corporate donors I actually think it's a good thing and I think most New Zealanders do think it's a good thing that around the board table everyone stops and says Oh will this be a good look for us? Will it be a good look that we're putting more than $5000 more than $10000 maybe more than $100000 into a particular political party with a particular political persuasion and point of view? Will people like that; will our customers like that; will the people we serve like that? Will this do our brand any good?" That's probably a conversation that I want them to have and I think members on the other side have shown themselves who they are for when they come to this House and say "Actually no we don't want those conversations to happen. We should be able to have lots of money going into political parties which has no name attached to it."I think the ideas here are quite simple—that people deserve to know who is involved. In the Labour Party that means that when we get door knockers along to volunteer for us—when they put up their signs—their names their faces: they're all known. You cannot volunteer for a political party in that way without putting yourself out there putting your credibility on the line and thinking to yourself "Is this a good look that I'm involved with this party? Do I want people in my community; my neighbourhood my neighbours to know that I'm aligned with this political party?" You have to make those calls. There's no way that you can do that anonymously and there's no way that you can give more of your labour than 40 hours a week. But in a situation where we have people giving large amounts of money without their names attached to it they have a huge advantage over those people who put themselves out there with their names and their faces. I think that should be evened up for the good of transparency and people knowing who's involved in politics. I want us to find consensus on these issues. I do think it's important that we agree on really important principles like this. But I am comfortable with us setting a very sensible threshold of $5000 for this kind of disclosure and that's why I commend this bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Simon Watts—five minutes."