Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity of taking a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill. Look I was really confused by that member's contribution. I really did not know where that was coming from. I felt like I was transported to another time warp or something. I felt that it's important that if there are any people listening at home they're made quite clear about what's happening. I think the best way to convey what this bill aims to achieve—which was clearly missed by the member the Hon Paul Goldsmith who's just resumed his seat—was when the Minister of Justice came before the Justice Committee. And under the new Speakers' rulings there's a requirement there that if wanted the Minister responsible for a bill can actually come to the committee and speak to the bill at an early stage. This is a new process that Minister Allan has taken up and it was great to hear from her and to understand her views on what the importance of this bill is at this point in time. And she made it plain and clear to the committee that it's important that New Zealanders know where their bread is buttered when it comes to political donations. And that's exactly what this bill does. If people are donating to a political party the general public deserve to have the trust and confidence in their democratic system to know where that money is coming from. And who would want to hide that? So that's a question that Paul Goldsmith was unable to answer in his 10 minutes that he contributed to the House just earlier. So this bill addresses the risks and the issues that are highlighted by not having a greater amount of transparency. The bill does three main things and those are all important things that I think are good to outline. Firstly it makes changes to the political donations and loans settings which I'll speak to a bit further; secondly it requires registered parties to disclose their annual financial statements which is also important; and thirdly it temporarily extends the overseas voter eligibility for the 2023 general election—clearly something that Mr Bishop's cottoned on to because he shot off overseas to try and round some up. And let's hope that there's some parliamentary purpose in that if anyone ever takes a look at it. So in relation to the donations and loans—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I'm going to be very even-handed in this debate and a point of order was raised about impugning motives to a political party. And I'm going to apply the same encouragement as I did previously to the member to stick to the bill.GINNY ANDERSEN: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. In relation to the donations and loans framework the bill's main changes include lowering the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to registered political parties from $15000 to $5000 amending the reporting requirements for donations to registered parties received from the same donor exceeding $30000 by reducing the threshold to $20000 but only requiring disclosure of such donations within 10 working days in a general election year. It also requires registered parties to report the sum total value of donations separately as monetary and in-kind donations in their annual returns. It requires registered parties to report the number and total volume of donations under $1500 that are not made anonymously it removes the requirement for audited party donations and loan returns for registered parties who receive total donations of $50000 or less annually and who have no loans and finally it requires candidates to publicly report on loans received to support their campaign. In the consideration and the submissions received in the Justice Committee we also received a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that has been included in this bill. It clarifies the definition of party donation" in section 207(2) of the Electoral Act to ensure a donation made for the benefit of a party is considered a party donation. This bill addresses the risks that have been identified in the High Court's judgment in the New Zealand First Foundation case. These risks pose a threat to the integrity of our electoral system and public trust in that system and this bill addresses those risks before we head into election year in 2023. For this bill we received a number of submissions in the case of that and it was good to hear all those people as they came forward. Over two separate periods the committee received a total of 42 submissions—41 on the bill and one submission on the SOP. And we heard some really good oral submissions from different parts of our community who wanted to have their say in this bill. The majority of submitters were in support of the bill's main objective to support the delivery of and participation in elections to maintain public trust and confidence in our electoral system. It's really important that we stress the fact that people need to know what's in and behind an election to have confidence in it. We have a great system in New Zealand where we have high levels of participation in our democracy. In order to maintain that and continue that it's important we have a good level of transparency. I'm really proud of a bill that has increased the level of transparency that we currently have around submissions and it's looking to strengthen our democratic system here in New Zealand and I commend it to the House."