McNair Craig: Urgent Debates — Budget Advertising Programme—Report of Auditor-General 
McNair Craig: Urgent Debates — Budget Advertising Programme—Report of Auditor-General 
[Volume:619;Page:15336] 
CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 The Controller and Auditor-General in his report on the Working for Families communications strategy considered the need for the communications strategy the process of costing the strategy the development of the joint communications strategy and whether the budgeted costs for the communications strategy are reasonable. New Zealand First is very concerned at the amount of money being spent on the advertising campaign. As we looked at the report and at the amount of money being spent on the communications strategy we saw that it totals up to $21.15 million to be allocated over the 3 financial years from 2004-05 to 2006-07 inclusive. 
The communications strategy budget is divided between two votes and 3 financial years as follows—I am reading this from the Auditor-General’s report for a specific purpose. First in the 2004-05 financial year $7.65 million is allocated in Vote Social Development and $3.94 million in Vote Revenue which totals up to $11.59 million. That is an enormous amount of money to be spent on advertising in just 1 year. But wait there is more as they say in the infomercials. In 2005-06 $2.81 million is allocated in Vote Social Development and $3.38 million in Vote Revenue which totals up to $6.19 million. Last but not least in 2006-07 $2.25 million is allocated in Vote Social Development and $1.12 million in Vote Revenue which totals up to $3.37 million. That comes to an absolutely ridiculous and outrageous total cost for advertising—which basically comes down to Government propaganda—of $21.15 million. That is an absolute disgrace. When I think of what people could do with that $21.15 million I get very sad and frustrated. 
Pita Paraone 
: House more Maori families. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: That $21.15 million could house more Maori families and address their health needs. It could help fund alternative education centres within the Auckland area whose funding the Associate Minister of Finance who is also the Minister of Education has cut back. It could also help to fund better roading in the Rodney area where I come from like the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2. There are a lot of extra things that $21.15 million could be spent on. It is a huge—enormous—amount of money to be spent on advertising. It is not being used to help Maori families into housing which my colleague Pita Paraone mentioned. It is not being used to increase alternative education funding which the Government is cutting back on. It is not helping the school in Hobsonville nor is it being used in other communities where it would really help out. It is an incredible amount. It is an enormous amount of money that could go a huge way to help to improve the lifestyle of people in local communities around this nation. But what is the Government spending it on? What is that money going to? It is going into Government propaganda. It is an enormous amount. It is amazing how much of a cesspit of advertising the Government has created when it could be helping out so many young people so many families and so many health initiatives around this country. 
Hon Member 
: Student loans. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: Students loans are another very good example. There is an enormous need amongst our young people and tertiary students. 
I make another point which is straight from the Auditor-General’s report. He said: “The $21.15 million for the Communications Strategy includes the costs of research creative development”. Well New Zealand First wonders what kind of creative development is necessary for advertising that lets people know what they are entitled to. What would it include? What kind of creative development is used in this whole area to tell people they are entitled to some extra money? It is actually quite a basic package. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: No creativity. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: Even a Minister is saying that no creativity is needed to advertise this package; that is what I think he is saying. Why on earth has the cost of research been included in that amount? How on earth has the cost of research been included in that amount of $21.15 million? It should have been included in another estimate. Research should be included in another estimate. This is just a big charade. No research was done on the $21.15 million that is being spent. There was probably no research on this $21.15 million whatsoever. Why is it there? Because the Government has to create something because it has to say that this $21.15 million was used for the really good purpose of research creative development and all those flowery neat nice and fluffy words to make it sound better. But at the end of the day— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member’s use of the word “charade” is unparliamentary. It implies misappropriation and that has already been ruled on by your good self. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: “Charade” is a debatable issue. I ask the member to come to the point. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I was speaking to the point. The figure of $21.15 million was straight from the Auditor-General’s report. 
Dail Jones 
: They can’t take the facts. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: My colleague Dail Jones is right in saying that they cannot take the facts. They cannot take the truth. Why? Because the truth will set one free and the truth hurts. That is exactly what is happening to this Government. 
I want to read again from page 9 of the Auditor-General’s report which states: “… in our view the planning of the communications strategy in the period leading up to the Budget announcement evidences a disappointing lack of consistency. This is particularly clear from the manner in which the departments went about planning for separately produced television advertisements and the separate and differing approaches to the nature and scale of the specific campaigns to promote the changes that each of the departments would be leading.” 
Dail Jones 
: He’s very quiet now. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: He is very quiet now and the reason is that those are the Auditor-General’s own words. He has been critical of the way in which money has been spent in this area. New Zealand First is very concerned about the amount of money that was to be spent on this campaign and we express our disgust at it. That $21.15 million—about $11 million just in this financial year—could have been spent on other programmes like alternative education projects or health initiatives around this country. I say and New Zealand First says that it is a diabolical disgrace to spend $21.15 million in this way. It just comes down to plain Government propaganda—that is all it is. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I am looking forward to Dr Brash putting his money where his mouth is. I am looking forward to Murray McCully telling us how much money his National Party Government spent on a whole string of propaganda exercises when he was a Minister. I think it is time for all political parties in this House to clean up their act when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money on advertising. The last National Government from my recollection was far worse at exploiting the public purse than the current Government is. Let us just remember back to Mrs Shipley’s so-called code of social responsibility. How much did that propaganda exercise cost the taxpayers of New Zealand? How many people did it upset? How many families and parents did it make feel guilty about doing a good job trying to bring up their kids when the Government of the time was not giving them an adequate income to bring up a family in decency? How much did National’s dob-in-a-beneficiary 0800 number cost at a time when National was basically pitting neighbour against neighbour getting people to rat on the people next door because they may well have had somebody visiting them who was a close family friend? That National Government was trying to undermine our society and tear our social fabric apart. Where is Dr Brash’s admission about what that National Government did? Well he was not around in those days; he is a new boy on the block. Where is Mr McCully’s admission about what the then National Government spent? 
How about Dr Brash himself? He is very keen to jump up and down today and tell us how much the Labour Government has spent on communications—and I will turn to the Labour Government in a minute. Dr Brash admitted in a press release on 29 June that 10.3 percent of the National Party leader’s budget was spent on communications in the last financial year. Imagine if the Government spent 10.3 percent of its budget on propaganda trying to con the New Zealand public about what it is up to! 
Dr Brash even went so far with the $221643 he spent on communications to send the letter I have here to the former owner of the house in which I live in Wellington. It is a shame she died a few years ago; she was a lovely lady. Dr Brash is busily telling her what a terrible Government we have and that it is forcing through politically correct legislation. I must thank him for this next phrase in which he says that thanks to Labour and the Greens the bulldozers are being stopped from being started. I am very proud of the fact that we have stopped bulldozers from forging roads through some of our most beautiful coastline and bush country and instead are promoting public transport. But how much did it cost Dr Brash to send that letter to all of the people in Wellington Central? It is not even an electorate that he represents. I suspect that he sent this letter over the whole country or at least everywhere the National Party does not have a constituency MP and let us face it there are not many electorates where National does have constituency MPs these days. So how much did National spend on this letter? 
If we look at the questions in this letter we see it is just a cheap way of polling. The letter asks which party people support. In fact it is not actually a cheap way of doing polling because it is the taxpayers of this country who have paid for this market research for the National Party. The taxpayers have not just paid the $221000 that National has spent on its communications budget; the Freepost number back to Parliament that is on the letter does not come out of Dr Brash’s budget. It is on top of what Dr Brash gets to spend on advertising out of the taxpayers’ fund. 
I am looking forward to Mr McCully saying that he is keen to change the rules that apply to Parliamentary Service budgets. I have to say that so far his colleagues on the Parliamentary Service Commission have been next to useless. I have been trying for years to get the rules tightened around advertising but who blocks the rule changes? It is Mr McCully’s colleagues on the Parliamentary Service Commission. Mr McCully should come along to the Parliamentary Service Commission and join me in getting these rules tightened up. The first one that has to be tightened is the Freepost rule. Parties should be paying for any Freepost number out of their own budget not out of an uncapped budget. 
 Not only that; there should be greater transparency about what money is spent so that all significant advertising has to declare that it is from a political party which political party it is from and the fact that it is paid for from Vote Parliamentary Service. 
But we have to go beyond that which is why I am pleased that the Auditor-General has written to all parties trying to get our cooperation in rationalising the rules because there are now three sets of rules. There are the rules that apply to Government departments the rules that apply to Ministers and the rules that apply to the rest of us back-bench MPs—particularly those of us in Opposition parties. There are a lot of inconsistencies in those rules and they need to be sorted out. Rather than our wasting 1½ hours of the time of the House on an urgent debate I hope the National Party the Labour Party and every other party in this House put 1½ hours of decent constructive time into looking at how we can improve the rules so that we can lift the image that parliamentarians have in the eyes of the public. At the moment our image is pretty damn poor because of the sorts of things we do. One of the worst examples was poor old Bill English’s attempt to save his leadership of the National Party. He plastered billboards up and down the country at the cost of tens of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars but it made no difference in the end because he was still rolled. 
Turning to this Labour Party campaign the $21 million may be excessive—I would be interested to see the full breakdown of that spending—but we support communicating to the people of New Zealand what their entitlements are under the family package. The problem with the old rules is that at least half of those who were entitled to some taxpayer support did not receive what they deserved because they did not know what they were entitled to. National should not be so mean-spirited as to stop the Government from communicating to the people who have missed out because of course under National many many people missed out for many years on what were their fair entitlements. So we support some of this money being spent. We are not sure it should be $21 million. 
Where the Labour Government has crossed the line is that the 0800 number that it used for its departmental advertising through the Inland Revenue Department and Ministry of Social Development is the same 0800 number it used for its blatant propaganda: “You’re better off with Labour.” That is crossing a line and the Labour Government should stop doing that. It should pull down all those posters that it has put up around the country. “You’re better off with Labour.” is so close to “Vote for Labour.” that there is hardly a sliver between the two messages. But more to the point Labour should not be cross-marketing like that and using a Government department to receive calls for what is in effect party political advertising. 
I look forward to Labour facing up to that and cleaning up its act. I look forward to all political parties in this Parliament cleaning up their act. I also look forward to our cooperating with the office of the Auditor-General in the research that it is doing into Government parliamentary advertising and publicity. It is beholden on us all to do a much better job on behalf of the taxpayers whom we are here to serve.