Finlayson Christopher: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:643;Page:13112] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 Unlike the previous member I am going to speak to clause 1 which is the title clause. I understand the title to be “Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill”. 
Well the use of the word “Interim” is a joke because last year we were told that the last legislation was going to be interim but the Government is simply rolling it over and this bill will expire on 30 June 2009. Of course the Labour Government will be gone by then and the legislation would have been repealed long before then. But in the unlikely event that the Government is still there the legislation will be rolled over again. The legislation should be called “Authorisation of Next Year’s Pledge Card Bill” to be read in conjunction with the Electoral Finance Bill or perhaps even more appropriately not the interim but the permanent “Do as I Say but Don’t Do as I Do Bill”—that is a feature of Labour. That is exactly what this legislation is about when we read it in conjunction with the odious Electoral Finance Bill. Why do I say that it is a matter of “Do as I say don’t do as I do.”? Because it is a feature of this Labour Government. It lays down rules for other people and boy does it lay down rules! But when it comes to applying those rules to itself it evades them. 
I want to take members through a series of correspondence that highlights so very well that dreadful feature of this ghastly crowd. I will start with a file note of a conversation that the Chief Electoral Officer had with Mr Mike Smith the General Secretary of the Labour Party on 30 August 2005 about the brochure that had gone out entitled “ 
My Commitment to You” 
. The officer asked why it had not been properly authorised and Mr Smith said that it had been paid for by the Parliamentary Service and therefore did not require an authorisation. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Madam Chairperson— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: You don’t have to take it. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I certainly will take the remainder of my time because I am very interested in clause 1 which as I said before the dinner break describes this legislation as ”Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill” and I said that we could describe it more accurately as either the “Authorisation of Next Year’s Pledge Card Bill” to be read in conjunction with the Electoral Finance Bill or more appropriately given the sort of Government we are dealing with the “Electoral Do as I Say but Don’t Do as I Do Bill”. 
I was seeking to prove my point about the title of the bill by referring to some correspondence entered into between the Chief Electoral Officer and the General Secretary of the Labour Party Mr Mike Smith in 2005. This correspondence clearly illustrates the point that it is “Do as I say but don’t do as I do.” because it dealt with the brochures that Mr Ryall held up entitled:  
“My Commitment to You” 
 and  
Working together sharing a vision 
 setting out Labour’s empty promises. I said that on 30 August 2005 the Chief Electoral Officer had communicated by telephone with Mr Smith and that on 2 September as he had foreshadowed he wrote to Mr Smith expressing the concerns of the Chief Electoral Office about the distribution to households throughout New Zealand of “ 
My Commitment to You” 
 which is in fact the pledge card. Mr Smith wrote back to David Henry—in a letter dated 6 September 2005—that the brochure and the card referred to had been produced by the office of the leader of the parliamentary Labour Party and it was parliamentary funding that was an issue here. 
On 12 September—just a few days before the general election was held on 17 September—the Chief Electoral Officer again wrote about “ 
My Commitment to You” 
 and the brochure entitled  
Working together sharing a vision: Labour’s policies for the future 
. Mr Smith responded in a letter dated 14 September 2005. At the end of the letter he told the Chief Electoral Officer that if he was really so concerned about it “then I would be happy to include the cost of the material in the return furnished by the New Zealand Labour Party.” and that is the point. He said that he would be prepared to include that in the cost of the material in the return to be furnished by the Labour Party. But on 5 October just a few days after the election he wrote back to Mr Henry and said: “I have now had the opportunity to reconsider the matter and I wish to advise that I withdraw my offer to have the amount expended on the material in question counted as an election expense since I do not believe that it is properly accountable as such.” In other words: “The election is over. All previous bets are off. We won. You lost. Eat that!”.