Beaumont Carol: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Beaumont Carol: Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8773. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak as my colleagues have in favour of the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill amends the Local Electoral Act 2001 and includes as others have perhaps mentioned limiting the size of anonymous donations; expanding the existing definition of anonymous to include situations where the candidate could not reasonably know the identity of the donor unlike situations we have talked about tonight with Mr John Banks where quite clearly he knew the identity of the donor; requiring third parties receiving donations on behalf of candidates to disclose their identity; and various other disclosure and reporting obligations. They are all positive things and as the speaker from New Zealand First said probably this should be called something like the “John Banks Memorial Bill”. It is probably one of the few things I can think of that we have got to thank John Banks for because after all he has not done too many other positive things. 
This bill was originally proposed as a Labour member’s bill. David Cunliffe had a bill that tried to basically look at provisions of the Electoral Act coming across and being applied in the local electoral situation and I think it is really important that we do that. Democracy requires us to have a process that gives voters confidence. That confidence has been absolutely undermined by the behaviour of people like John Banks and indeed the Prime Minister in the way that he has handled this mess. What it makes people think is that politicians lie that they are deceitful and that they hide things when they obviously know about them. Democracy requires us to have a process where there is transparency and where limits are placed on campaign funding. 
The behaviour over 2011 and 2012 around the Skycity donation the Kim Dotcom donation and all of that was absolutely disgraceful and it did undermine the integrity of our democracy and public confidence. It smelt bad and it was bad. There were a lot of double standards at play in that period of time. The Prime Minister and his lack of requirement for accountability his failure to address this with John Banks and his methods of trying to hide what was really going on—all of that was part of the bad smell around this. As others have reminded the House the police report did not really clear John Banks; it was pretty clear that there just was not— 
Chris Hipkins 
: He did it. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: That is right indeed. So I think that that is something that is important. 
I just wanted to note that in reading the select committee report I think the Justice and Electoral Committee obviously did the best it could with the time available but as others have said there are many other areas that do need addressing. I think that obviously this needs to be done in the time frame available because of the local government elections this year but there are ongoing improvements we need. There were some very helpful contributions made around for example the unpublished roll which have not been mentioned but are important. We have to be vigilant to protect our democracy. We need transparency. People need to know there is a level playing field for all candidates. There is much more work to do. Thank you.