Sharples Pita: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
Sharples Pita: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12954] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Over the last week there has been a great deal of political posturing and jostling for air time about the concept of the rule of law. Two of the minor parties desperate to reach the threshold have levelled wild accusations at one of my colleagues that he is supposedly “insisting he will flout the rule of law.” The concept of the rule of law is absolutely relevant to this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill and as such is worthy of some definition. T R S Allan in  
Law Liberty and Justice 
 defines the rule of law as “An amalgam of standards expectations and aspirations: it encompasses traditional ideas about liberty and natural justice and more generally ideas about the requirements of justice and fairness in the relations between government and the governed.” That of course is where it all becomes subject to interpretation. 
The offence taken by two minor parties arose from a comment Mr Harawira made about the Terrorism Suppression Act namely: “I will not sit quietly by while State forces terrorise my people. If this requires of me that I speak out against the rule of law that would impose terror on Maori communities in this country then I will speak out. I will speak out against it in this Chamber on television in newspapers and anywhere else I possibly can.” 
The rule of law that Mr Harawira was following most certainly adheres to the requirements of justice and fairness that we would expect to see in relations between government and the governed. But does that same rule of law make it acceptable for the National Party to refuse to pay $112500 of GST owed on the 2005 election advertisements screened on television? Does that same rule of law make it acceptable for New Zealand First to misspend $157934 of taxpayers’ funds at the 2005 election and over 2 years later for the debt to be still unpaid? How can political parties misspend over $1 million of taxpayer funds without Baycorp the Inland Revenue Department the Serious Fraud Office or any other debt collector knocking on their door to pick up the unpaid dues? Is this the same rule of law that is applied in the concept of one law for all? 
When we think about “justice and fairness in the relations between government and the governed” we cannot go far without remembering the events of last October when Parliament passed a bill to validate parliamentary spending back to 1989. The bill was passed under urgency to validate the invalid to push through legislation that would authorise the illegal expenditure. Were parliamentary standards breached? Was the rule of law overthrown? What are the standards that apply when public moneys are misspent? Was the mere move to turn invalid spending into valid spending the Government’s attempt to turn water into wine making use of its legislative power for its own self-interest? Was parliamentary power misappropriated to serve the Labour Party well? Under whose gaze was the invalid spending being validated? 
We in the Maori Party are motivated by standards expectations and aspirations in keeping with the rule of law of tikanga and kaupapa Maori. The kaupapa that we believe to be the most relevant to this bill continuing the interim meaning of funding for parliamentary purposes are rangatiratanga or leadership; kaitiakitanga or sustainable protection of taonga; kotahitanga or unity of purpose; and manaakitanga or mana enhancement. It follows then that the pursuit of tikanga such as accountability transparency and integrity give expression to rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga and as such uphold the rule of law according to Te Ao Maori—the Maori World. We are a party motivated by the practice of walking the talk. Transparency is the means by which we enhance democratic political participation. We maintain that disclosure of the rules and definitions and more particularly the range of possible interpretations related to expenditure for parliamentary purposes must be blatantly clear across the House. It is the interests of the wider democratic State not just those of Parliament that should dominate our thinking as we consider the meaning of taxpayer-funded parliamentary spending. 
I come back to the discussion around the rule of law. How can any party agree to the roll-out of the appropriations law for the election advertising and campaigning costs when it is blatantly evident that the parties across the House have been unable to reach consensus over issues such as third-party sponsorship party donations setting up trusts and other related issues? 
 New Zealand has been watching this Parliament as it attempts to come to terms with various models of electoral reform being played out and as people watch they have not been impressed. I refer to one New Zealand citizen who wrote to us in April this year about these very issues. I will call him Malcolm. I want to share his views about the proposed electoral reform. Malcolm said: “My grandfather fought such forces in the Second World War to avoid this type of system being imposed on New Zealand. No parliament no political party should ever be as arrogant as to change New Zealand’s democratic system without either testing such a policy through a general election or putting it to a referendum.” 
We believe that the exercise of democratic participation is of such prime importance that the people must be intimately involved in guiding the Parliament onwards. In its effect this massive bill of 3 entire pages does nothing to move us forward from the catastrophic debacle that followed the 2005 elections. The bill in restoring the meaning of funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes to that commonly understood before Mr Kevin Brady’s report as Controller and Auditor-General has sent the Parliament into a spin. 
We in the Maori Party had been satisfied with the rules surrounding election campaign expenditure and sources of campaign finance as set out in the Electoral Act 1993. We understood those rules and terms to be explicit and unambiguous and as such we were mortified when we found we had misspent the sum of $48 following the election washup. However it is one thing to have clear rules in place and quite another to receive independent advice that those rules have not been routinely followed or applied. That is the process that we now find ourselves in. The 2006 report of the Controller and Auditor-General takes us to a place vastly different from the one we were in prior to the 2005 elections. We cannot simply ignore his advice or pretend that the expert independent opinion we have received is somewhat irrelevant. 
This bill forces parties to revert to what had been the status quo prior to such a controversial and comprehensive report of our collective failings. We in the Maori Party cannot freely willingly adopt a position of perceived ignorance when we all know that many measures are required to make general improvements to the funding of parliamentary purposes. We will be voting against this bill.