Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. The Green Party are very clear that we need to fight strong and long for a democracy and a public decision-making process that people with a connection to New Zealand can absolutely trust that people can feel confident is here for the will of the people of our country. So the Green Party welcomes and supports the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2); the changes that we are making to ban overseas donations in our electoral processes. I note that this proposal is to pertain to our general elections and not our local government elections. So firstly just to put on the record from the Green Party perspective what this bill actually is—and the main focus that I think we are debating here today is the amendment to the Electoral Act 1993 which will restrict donations from overseas persons to both political parties and individual candidates to reduce the risk of any overseas money any overseas influence in our domestic election processes. So in this bill it is proposed that candidates and party secretaries—those responsible for keeping good records and good authority processes around all of our political donations—are required to take all reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that a donation over $50 is not from an overseas person. I do actually acknowledge that the Minister himself in introducing this bill into the House today was clear that this is only the start and that further work needs to be done. I am very clear and pleased that the Minister himself relayed that to be able to make sure that this is a strong process there will be further work that needs to be identified across our electoral system—including in the process for identifying overseas donations. So he has put that understanding on the floor and I wanted to make sure that we acknowledged that once again. For some time now around the world and certainly here in our own country public confidence and trust in our democratic processes has been waning. We need to have the public interest of the people who are connected to this country at the heart of every decision that we are making rather than any overseas interests or influence or advocacy and so again that's really leaning into why the Greens are strong in our support of this bill. Now we've still got a ways to go in terms of having a system that all people can trust having governance in this House of Representatives that all people can trust in terms of elections. We do still have political disengagement here and around the world when it comes to that confidence in our democracy and that political disengagement serves elite power and serves elite influence in our decision-making processes. So again this is a really strong message from the Green Party on why we are clear in our support for this bill. This does need to be only the start of a raft of changes—for example further measures to ensure equal access and to ensure that every individual every person who is able to vote to engage in democratic processes feels that they have got as much chance as much influence as every other person in this country and certainly more influence than any overseas interests. So we have put this on record for the whole of this term and we have worked closely with the Minister around making sure that we are also implementing the rest of the 2012 MMP review recommendations. We would also like to see a reduction in the current anonymity threshold for all donations. We have actually put on the floor on the Table that we would like to see a cap on all donations as well. I merely add those to this first reading debate to emphasise again our enthusiasm our determination for ensuring that we have a system we can trust. I wanted to pick up on the time restraints that were identified by officials that we need to start getting these changes put into place before the 2020 election and that it is essential that we are giving parties the electoral systems the authorities involved and our own political system enough time to be able to make sure that we have got these changes—that we've got the system set up to be able to take on board a ban on overseas donations and again a raft of other measures that need to be put into place as well. So I understand and accept and hear the justification that has been given to make sure that we get these changes through to get us towards a better engagement a better public confidence in our system. The impact summary: I did want to pick up on—and other members have raised—the fact that there may still be a risk that foreign States could circumvent any new rules that ban overseas donations by going through a third party or by going through a New Zealand - based person instead. And so I acknowledge that that needs to be addressed that we need to not create unintended consequences through laws like these that we need to close up those loopholes. I acknowledge in the time constraints that have been identified in the impact summary that we haven't yet been able to address those. But it is clear that again the Minister himself is aware and we need to mitigate those. There was that risk and there was another one which I think was around someone donating wholly to just any third party or New Zealand - based person—that was the other thing that I wanted to raise. I do actually acknowledge that there are what I would say are valid concerns and the Green Party is interested in making sure that we are quite tight in the loopholes and the electoral systems that we want to set up. There was one further point that I wanted to make. The candidate and party secretaries are being required to take all reasonable steps—and I think the Minister again put a case example on the floor today. I'm open to looking further into what the actual definition of reasonable steps" is and satisfying a process that a donation of over $50 has not come from an overseas person. I do want to listen to the rest of the debate and take on board the rest of this urgency debate today around strengthening—thoughts as to how we can make sure that we've got a strong enough system in place for taking reasonable steps and satisfying ourselves that those donations are not from an overseas person. So once again to close it is of the utmost importance for us to be working together to address the big crises that are facing the future of our world and the big issues that we are going to have to work together on. It is in the utmost interests for all of us to have a strong transparent and equal-access democratic system. This is absolutely vital—to ban overseas donations. This is a start and I look forward to continuing to work on a raft of other measures that should also be considered. Thank you."