Barker Rick: Electoral Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Barker Rick: Electoral Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16747] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Electoral Matters Bill be now read a second time 
. I thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its consideration of this bill and for the amendments recommended to it. The bill amends section 55 of the Electoral Act which relates to when a member of Parliament must vacate his or her seat. It also cures an anomaly in section 55E of that Act that could see the Governor-General or a senior judge take a role in the party-hopping procedure. The bill also makes a number of procedural and technical amendments to the electoral broadcasting regime to allow the Electoral Commission to allocate funds for electoral broadcasting for the next general election more effectively. 
I now turn to the main amendments to the bill recommended by the committee. Firstly the purpose of the bill is to clarify when a member of Parliament is required to vacate his or her seat. In the 21st century New Zealand people with dual or multiple citizenship are becoming more and more common. This also applies to members of Parliament. However it is essential that members of Parliament demonstrate an ongoing commitment to New Zealand and the people they represent. The bill amends section 55 of the Electoral Act to set out clearly that a member of the New Zealand Parliament must be a New Zealand citizen at all times and the circumstances when an MP must vacate his or her seat. The committee recommended some changes to the circumstances in which an MP must vacate his or her seat. These include if an MP accepts nomination as a candidate for election to a Parliament in a country other than New Zealand. The committee recommended including a reference to a governing body which might not have been included in the term “country”—for example an Australian state. The committee also extended the prohibition to include local government with the inclusion of the word “municipality”. The committee also recommended that it be made clear that an MP must vacate his or her seat if he or she agrees to an appointment to a governing body. 
The bill also includes a number of straightforward amendments that will allow the Electoral Commission to allocate funds for electoral broadcasting for the next general election more effectively. It does this by removing some of the well-recognised anomalies and administratively burdensome processes of the current broadcasting regime. These amendments have been recommended following inquiries into the 1996 1999 and 2002 general elections. 
The major changes in the bill to the electoral broadcasting regime are firstly that the bill will repeal the outdated requirement for the Electoral Commission to invite broadcasters to provide free or discounted time for electoral broadcasting. Secondly the bill amends the provision of the Broadcasting Act so that only registered parties will be eligible for allocations of time and money. The committee also recommends some changes to these provisions. The committee clarified that additional members of the Electoral Commission appointed for the allocation of broadcasting time and funds must not be included in decisions to refer suspected broadcasting offences to the police. This is to avoid conflicts of interest as the additional members of the committee are also members of this House. The committee has also recommended that any money allocated to a political party that is not utilised by that party must be returned to the Crown by the Electoral Commission. These funds are appropriated by Parliament solely for the purposes of enabling parties to meet the costs of broadcasting election programmes. If this money is not spent by political parties on election programmes it should be returned to the Crown. 
The committee accepted TVNZ’s submission to allow non-political commercial advertising between different opening addresses. Election programmes that are aimed at influencing voters must not be broadcast between different opening addresses. Either non-political commercial advertising or non-electoral programmes may be broadcast during different closing addresses which must be broadcast on the same night. One reason for treating closing addresses differently is that there is limited ability for a reply. 
The committee also considered the matter of electoral signs. The committee acknowledged that the inclusion of any recommendation on that matter would be outside the scope of this bill. However under MMP it is difficult for political parties to conduct nationwide campaigns for the party vote as each local authority has its own requirements. I have held discussions with the Society of Local Government Managers and Local Government New Zealand to explore whether the matter could be resolved by voluntary guidelines. Despite the goodwill demonstrated by the local government representatives there are doubts as to whether the guidelines can be implemented into bylaws and district plans in time for the 2005 general election. 
I therefore intend to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper for consideration by the Committee of the whole House. The Supplementary Order Paper amends the Electoral Act to provide for a national standard for managing electoral signs. The maximum size of electoral signs is proposed to be 3 square metres. Electoral signs that meet the specifications may be displayed for a period of up to 2 months before polling day. In addition regulations may be passed to standardise the design of electoral signs and to set out the procedures to be followed by any person before displaying an electoral sign. 
Extensive consultation is to be held before the regulations are finalised and I welcome contributions from local government. My discussions with representatives of local government suggest that local authorities want to continue to have the ability to control the location and density of electoral signs fees payable and actions in relation to non-complying electoral signs. Local authorities are in the best position to take into account local conditions in managing those matters and I agree with their proposal. However since starting on this process it has come to my attention that the National Party will oppose this Supplementary Order Paper which every other political party has at this stage indicated support for. 
I want briefly to refer to the select committee’s report to this House. The select committee took up the matter of electoral hoardings and said that it was concerned—that was the unanimous view of the select committee which has two National Party members on it—that variations in local authority rules can unnecessarily impinge upon free political speech. It said that because some local authorities were setting controls on what could be on an electoral hoarding. The committee noted that any proposals to change or to deal with that issue would be outside the scope of the bill. It then stated: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines for hoardings at the Committee of the Whole House stage (if his discussions with the Society of Local Government Managers have not had satisfactory resolution by that time). We propose that minimum levels could be set where appropriate for size content and display period.” 
The Supplementary Order Paper which I am in the process of discussing with all the parties in the House—and I have submitted a copy to them—proposes to do that by regulation. The reason it is to be done by regulation is that my officials advise me that it would be very difficult if not impossible to identify all the Acts of Parliament that would need to be changed and to include them in this primary legislation. By giving regulatory power we have the time to consult with local government and with all the political parties and then can bring in regulations that will cover all of those contingencies. 
The National Party has also claimed that that process of having regulation would enable the Government of the day to bring in electoral hoardings to suit itself. It has indicated that this Government would want the hoardings to be all red and simply praising Helen Clark. That is ludicrous. The person who made the claim knows full well that before regulations can be promulgated they have to be discussed with the parties affected. In this particular case they would be discussed with all political parties and local government so there could be no sneaking up of issues on anybody. The second thing is that any regulation has to go before the Regulations Review Committee which is chaired by an Opposition member. If in fact the Opposition parties felt that something was wrong it would be brought back to this House and dealt with. 
I want to make it very clear that I am putting forward this Supplementary Order Paper with a very open mind as to how we can effectively change the words to convey the required intent. There is no intention whatsoever to play any dirty pool as claimed by the National Party spokesperson. I am consulting very widely. If we cannot reach an agreement on the Supplementary Order Paper if it does not have the support of sufficient numbers in the House then it simply will not go forward and an opportunity will be lost. 
The point is that under MMP the hoardings that go up across the country are for the party vote and the country has to be looked at as an electorate as a whole. For some members of Parliament to have to have five different sizes of hoardings that are to be set up on five different dates and to have all sorts of different words on them makes it impossible. The select committee recommended a change in that area in 1996 1999 and 2002. Those concerns have been brought to local government and it is time for this House to take some action on them. We have said to local government that Parliament is concerned about three things: size content and starting date. For local government the issues are location density and non-compliance. We agree with those. 
I recommend this bill to the House.