O'Connor Damien: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
O'Connor Damien: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5922] 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I would like to take the brief time I have to put a few facts on the table because I think the public will be somewhat confused if they have just turned on the radio and listened to the National members. This validation bill as my colleague said allows us following its passage to clear the decks and clarify some of the rules around the spending of the Parliamentary Service money that comes to each and every MP in this House. I do not want to go back too far and try to rewrite history as the National Party has been doing but I think it is important to put a few facts on the table. 
This Appropriation (Parliamentary Validation Expenditure) Bill validates spending by every party in this Parliament including the National Party. It validates spending by every party except the Progressives. Its passage is necessary for legal issues to allow us to move on. 
I find it strange because Mr Brownlee was educated at the same school as I was and he has been brought up in the same religion as me and I would have expected him to have the same principles and understanding of what is the truth. He should be able to understand the facts and understand what he is obliged to do. In spite of his being a Catholic and being able to go to confession and seek absolution the reality is that he should tell the truth. The truth is that the National Party spent money deemed by the Auditor-General to be outside the legal appropriations. 
The National Party has been saying right throughout this debate that it did not sin and that it is clearer cleaner and whiter than the driven snow. National members say they did not sin. That might be an expression used by their funders—“We did not sin.”—but the reality is that if mistakes are made big or small sometimes we call them a sin. 
 Mr Brownlee may seek absolution through confession. It will not remove the reality that the National Party spent $11305. It spent that money in the same way that the Labour Party spent $800000. We did not have access to a leaked report from the Auditor-General. The National Party did and it rushed to pay back the money in order to seek absolution—probably guided by Mr Brownlee in the hope that his confession might remove the reality that he had sinned. But if the Auditor-General deems the money was spent illegally then Gerry Brownlee did sin. 
This bill seeks to validate the spending by National Labour New Zealand First the Greens United Future and ACT. Each and every one of the parties in this House spent money in a misunderstanding of the rules around the appropriation. 
If the National Party was so much smarter and understood the rules clearly why then did it get it wrong with its GST payment? Why has it refused to pay back $118000 in GST? National members think that they were so smart and knew the rules—or maybe they knew something else. Maybe they knew that they did not need to spend money through the Parliamentary Service appropriation. Maybe they knew that they had secret backers. 
The question is what they would have done for the $1.2 million spent by the Exclusive Brethren backers of the National Party to offset the money other parties spent by way of the Parliamentary Service appropriation. It is the question that I have had to ask through this whole debate. Maybe the National Party when we pass this bill will be able to move on and explain. Maybe it will pay back the $118000 worth of GST it owes explain to us what it did for its $1.2 million explain to us how a group that says it prays for the Government—and that would obviously pay for a Government— 
Tariana Turia 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am just not clear whether we are talking about the bill or about the National Party. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. I have actually indicated to the member about coming back to the bill and I am sure he will come to the point. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I apologise but it has just been very hard to try to understand what the National Party has been talking about through the debate on this bill. 
This bill validates spending that every party—including the Maori Party—understood to be legitimate and to be legal throughout the campaign before the last election. I think it raises as many questions as it answers. It is a technical bill; it will allow us to move on and to ask questions about what legitimate parliamentary work is. The members opposite especially those who are constituent MPs will know that one has obligations to one’s constituency. There are costs in providing services as an MP and there are obligations to go out and tell people what is factually going on in Parliament—unlike the campaigns run by the National Party. 
The questions I have to ask go back to previous spending prior to the last election. I was rather sad that the Auditor-General did not choose to go back and analyse spending going right back into the 1980s where there has been acknowledged expenditure by many parties that we would claim to be very very similar in its application. I think we have every right once this bill passes through the House to put the heat on the National Party and I am sure that Bill English when he gets up to speak will probably explain what the National Party will do to pay back its GST. It has not been validated through this bill and as my colleague says if National Party members were that smart how come they spent over $11000 illegally? Was that figure inclusive of GST? The other question given National’s righteous claims over interest is whether National offered to pay interest on its $11000 when it was so quick to pay back money after the leaked report. 
We need to ask questions around how the National Party gained access to a leaked report. Why those members did not need to spend a large part of their parliamentary budget through this process is another question I would like to have answered. I see the guilt on the faces of those members opposite with regard to the payment made by a party outside Parliament—the Exclusive Brethren. Lockwood Smith looks a little unsure about that. Those questions must be answered by the National Party as we move forward from the passage of this legislation which is necessary in this Parliament. 
I welcome the passage of the bill. It will allow Parliament to move on and to clarify the rules around parliamentary spending and around the use of any parliamentary money prior to an election.