Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:669;Page:16399] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I thought I would take an initial call on the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill. Obviously it probably would have been more convenient to deal with the three pieces of legislation at once because there are some particular issues that relate to all three bills. When we get to the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill I think that will be dealt with relatively quickly since we were not able to join them up together. 
The two major issues in respect of the electoral finance legislation are in relation to the question of third-party limits on expenditure. It was very important to this side of the House that some movement was shown in that regard. There was some debate at the Electoral Legislation Committee about whether advertising made a difference in terms of the outcomes of elections and we were referred to a number of pieces of research that have been done in this particular area. The statement that the royal commission made back in 1986 I think is as valid today as it was then. It said that the question is not so much whether third-party expenditure is entirely responsible for the result of the vote; the real issue at the end of the day is whether there is the perception that the use of vast sums of money in order to influence the outcome is sufficient. Is the perception sufficient to give the impression that the outcome of the election has been affected by the spend and does that lead to a lack of confidence in the integrity of the electoral system itself? I am very strongly of the view that it is important to have third-party expenditure caps because it does not make it effective for the caps that apply to political parties and to candidates if a third party can simply enter into the fray with negative advertising against the other side without any limitation on what it is that it could do. 
We had quite a lengthy debate about what the cap would be and not many submissions on this bill related to third-party expenditure. It was interesting because the real debate was around the lack of a cap on the third bill which is why it would be more convenient to debate all three bills together but there you go. I think the reason that the focus of the submissions was on the referendum legislation rather than on the electoral finance reform legislation was that in the referendum situation there is access to television advertising. That is where that uncapped expenditure would come into play. I think it would not take much for people to work out how much association between the political party advertising and the referendum advertising could be made to look like an extension of a political party’s campaign. When we think about it in terms of some of the interests of those who will be entering into the debate on the electoral system itself we see that obviously some parties have a greater interest in the MMP outcome being retained. 
Moving back to why it is important to have spending caps on registration but more so on third-party expenditure we need to go back to the 2005 general election. That is one that obviously I campaigned in and it was one that I found to be an extremely unpleasant election campaign. In fact in all of the election campaigns that I have stood in that is the one that really will go down in my memory as the most misogynist and self-interested campaign. There was the promotion of self-interest that I never came across on street-corner meetings in all the years that I have stood. I have been a member of Parliament for 20 years this year and I have never apart from that election had people on street-corner meetings asking what was in it for them. That was the only time. 
It was generated out of a campaign that had been run on three different levels. The first level was designed to make sure that the campaign expenditure fell outside the regulated period. That was number one. They were the billboards. I do not know whether colleagues remember the billboards but the one that sticks in my mind—sticks in my throat actually—was the one headed up “Iwi/Kiwi”. All of the billboards were designed to send a message to the public of New Zealand to create a sense of division—“them and us”. Everyone was exposed to “them and us” all the way through that year and it started at the beginning of the year with the campaign billboards. Who designed those? Was it Steven Joyce before he came to Parliament? [ 
Interruption 
] Yes and who were those people from Australia—Crosby/Textor that is right. They were responsible for developing this campaign which set off the year with a real antagonistic view—“us and them” and the “Iwi/Kiwi” one was designed to cause the most racial division in our country that I think we have seen for a very very long time. 
We had the photoshopped image the very nasty photoshopped image of the Prime Minister of the day up against this very warm and engaging image of Don Brash—we all remember Don Brash looking warm and engaging—and that was the dichotomy set up through the billboards. That was the groundwork done and it was done deliberately. It set the stage for the rest of the campaign but it was designed to take us into the election campaign period where the expenditure would start to count. National spent a fortune millions of dollars on this campaign all around the country in order to set the scene for what was to come. What was to come also included another deliberate avoidance of our electoral finance laws and that was about National’s engagement with the Exclusive Brethren. We know that because of  
The Hollow Men 
—and I recommend that people read that book again. I have been recommended lately to read it again and I am going to do that over the summer holidays. We need to be reminded about who knew what when how and why and it is very explicit in terms of the trail of emails exposed in that book. 
That is exactly what happened. The Exclusive Brethren went to the Electoral Commission with a design for their pamphlet which had Don Brash’s face on it promoting him as the next Prime Minister of New Zealand. When they found out that that would have to have National Party approval and that it would count against National’s campaign expenditure they went away and designed something that never mentioned National never mentioned Don Brash but attacked the Greens and attacked the Labour Party for its health policies and its defence policies—and it was untrue. But worse than that the names of the people at the addresses given for the promoters of these pamphlets were illusory. These people did not exist; these people did not live at these addresses. I went to one of the addresses in Christchurch; it was an empty house. So the Exclusive Brethren even used—or abused—the existing laws by not being upfront and honest about who they were and what they were trying to do. They were part of a pattern of behaviour in that election campaign that I do not think bodes very well for our country. 
I would be prepared to say that the Labour Government did not get it right with the electoral finance legislation we put in place and it is welcome that the House is now moving into a space where we have general broad agreement. Although Labour does not agree with the whole thing we are supporting a package of reform here. I think that perhaps Labour did go a bit too far with its legislation but it was in response to an extreme example of behaviour. I guess we tried to cover off all of the loopholes that we knew that people would drive a bus through if they were given an opportunity. So I think it is important that we have expenditure caps and that we have legislation that can be enforced to ensure that that practice never happens again.