Hide Rodney: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Hide Rodney: Electoral Finance Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:644;Page:13456] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 Mr Peters and Mr Barker have shown us very clearly what is wrong with this bill and what is wrong with the process by which we are passing it. First of all elections and the rules that govern our democracy are not something that we in Parliament own. They do not belong to us; nor should they be something that we control and direct. Sadly this is what is happening with this Electoral Finance Bill. 
Second to the extent that we are to have these rules we would expect not only that the public of New Zealand would be involved in their formation with an independent body of wise people away from the hurly-burly of politics giving us advice but also that there would be multiparty involvement and concurrence with the broad structure of the way the rules of an election should be run. Mr Barker and Mr Peters showed us that the genesis of this bill the process by which it has been developed and now the process by which it is to be passed are mired deeply in partisan politics. What we heard from Mr Barker the Minister in the chair was just a long diatribe against the National Party which leads everyone to the conclusion—which is obvious from the bill—that this bill is not about a fair election but about an attack by one political party on another. 
Why would the Minister in the chair not stand up and defend this bill on its merits rather than attack a particular party? It is the people of New Zealand who will judge the political parties; it should not be the Minister in the chair passing an Electoral Finance Bill. 
All Mr Peters could do was to reinforce that view. It was not about how to conduct a fair and proper election in a modern democracy; it was all about how bad the National Party is and that this bill is somehow designed to put down the National Party. That is not the point of what we should be doing in this House with an Electoral Finance Bill. 
We have also seen from Mr Barker what else is wrong with this bill. We are in the last 2 weeks of this sitting of Parliament before an election year debating a bill that has been hastily cobbled together a bill that the public do not want and on which they have not had a say. This bill has been radically changed from the bill as it first appeared because it was such a dog. It is still a dog and now the Minister is bringing in a raft of further amendments. Is that any way to run a democracy in an open and free society? 
I say to the Minister to the Prime Minister with respect to Mr Peters and to the Green Party that that cannot be the case. I say to the Minister and to the Prime Minister that if they will not listen to the ACT party or particularly the National Party then they should listen to what the people are saying about this bill. I know that Mr Peters thinks that all the news media of New Zealand are somehow part of a foreign-owned conspiracy against himself and that all around the world they sit conspiring to stop Mr Peters and that somehow Audrey Young is a puppet of the corporate boardrooms around the world. 
We should listen to what the media are saying. We have had not just the  
New Zealand Herald  
stating that this bill is a dog. We have had every newspaper in the country say that the bill is a dog. We have had the  
Dominion Post  
state: “It fails to promote participation in parliamentary democracy … it is so defective and incoherent as to be irredeemable and should be withdrawn.” 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Who owns them? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Mr Peters has had his chance. We know that everything and everyone who disagrees with him is a conspiracy against the world. He can have that view and I am happy that he is entitled to it but that sort of paranoia is more fitting to a psychiatrist’s couch than this Chamber in debating an important bill like this. 
We had the Christchurch  
Press 
 stating that the bill “remains a botched and misconceived proposal that should be scrapped and started again.” We had the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 stating that Labour must “scrap the bill”. We had the  
Hawkes Bay Today 
 stating that it is “a Byzantine contraption to kneecap political opponents.” We had the  
Otago Daily Times 
 stating that “a cobbled-together self-serving compilation giving Big Brother control of all private political funding in an election year is not the means to achieve fairness.” Then we had the  
Waikato Times 
 stating that it is “a flawed bill steeped in controversy. Preferably they should scrap it and start again.” I say “amen” to that. 
If we look at the purpose clause not one of the purposes is advanced by this bill. Demonstrably this bill puts us further away from achieving each and every one of these purposes. I would have thought that every one of us in this Parliament as New Zealanders and as elected parliamentarians would have an interest in elections that are fair and democratic but more particularly that give all Zealanders a right to have their say even when we disagree with them. Is that not the point? We do not have to agree with the Brethren but do we not defend their right to have their say? Do we not in this Parliament defend their right to spend their own money to have their say? Is it any wonder in the climate of fear that is developing in New Zealand that private citizens who do want to have a say think twice before putting their name out there when they express their political view for fear of attack and reprisal? Can one not do that in a free society? 
I say to Mr Peters that all citizens who want to spend some of their hard-earned money expressing their political view one year in three will be affected by this bill then every New Zealander is affected. He asked who was affected and that is the answer. All citizens who want to have a political say and spend some of their hard-earned money to have that say will be affected by this bill. 
That is why the ACT party opposes this bill. I have to say we were very pleased to hear John Key say that one of the first things a National Government would do on assuming office would be to repeal this legislation because it is a dog. I say that also to Mr Peters. This bill has to be defeated it has to go and I am afraid to say that Prime Minister Helen Clark who has been a Prime Minister who has been in touch with New Zealanders on many many issues and has been a Prime Minister able to turn the ship of State around when she gets offside with public opinion is out of touch with what people are saying on this bill. 
I say to Mr Peters: “Stand up for some principles that New Zealand First said that it was founded on.” I say to the Greens: “Please support the right of all New Zealanders to express their political views and to spend their resources expressing those views.” How can the great Green Party be opposed to that? Do we not live in a democracy where we rejoice that people differ on the political issues of the day and that we do have disagreements? Why cannot people express that view or will we all have to register with the Government and declare what we are doing when we might not agree with the Government or support it? How ironic it is that we will be taxed to pay for Government propaganda but cannot spend the pittance that we are left with to express our own political views. This bill is a dog it should go and it will go; if it is passed by this Parliament I am with John Key when he said he would repeal this bill on taking office.