Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. It is a step forward to recognising that our electoral donation system needs reform. I was delighted to see the Government pick up this particular measure out of my strengthening democracy member's bill which introduces a suite of reforms and we will continue to look further and further into making our democracy fairer because that is a priority for this Government. We live in a global context where democracy has been undermined by big money interference whether that's foreign interference whether that's multinational companies whether that's domestic actors with far more to invest as they would see it into our political system shutting out ordinary voters. And that isn't the way it's meant to be. But we knew that New Zealand was vulnerable and we in particular as Greens know that our issues are vulnerable to this type of interference. We know that action on the climate crisis has been slowed for decades by the interests of big oil by mining companies globally. We know cigarette companies—and the member who just resumed his seat Chris Bishop would know a lot about that having been a cigarette lobbyist—have interfered with healthcare reforms with putting labels on cigarette packaging. We know they did that. We know that the gun lobby in the United States has brought that country's public safety laws to a standstill for money. So we knew that change needed to be made. Imagine our Parliament sitting here passing our gun law reforms that were so necessary after this year's terrorist attack in Christchurch and having to be beholden to big money interests from the gun lobbies elsewhere in the world—and we know they tried. So this is change that is necessary. I will go through the bill because there's been some comments made that were a touch nonsensical. It is a ban on foreign donations. Fifty dollars is the cap because as they know the officials said that where people are selling things like raffle tickets inquiring about the immigration status of someone in a town hall meeting is quite difficult but we are raising the bar in terms of putting a positive obligation on party secretaries in all other cases to enforce a ban on any foreign donations above that amount which we say they do have an obligation to regulate. We can talk about urgency. We know and we've heard across the House everybody admits that the Justice Committee has been reviewing the 2017 election. And also within that and separate from that they've held an inquiry into foreign interference in New Zealand's democracy. For months and months they've heard submissions. They've heard submissions from experts from members of the public from human rights organisations and everyone agrees that this ban is necessary although much more is also necessary. I sat in some of those select committee hearings although I don't ordinarily sit on the Justice Committee but this is a special interest of mine and I do have the member's bill. So I did sit on some of those sessions and it was extraordinary the obstructive attitude taken by at least one member of the Opposition that I won't name. It was extraordinary the patience that that committee and submitters showed in the face of just absolute disorderly behaviour.Who would want to stop progress on reform of our political donations regime? Who would want to slow that process down? Why would you not want this ban in place before the 2020 election? They know they can't oppose it publicly. They know the Serious Fraud Office is investigating their political party for receiving a large donation that allegedly was cut up to go under the threshold for anonymity allegedly by—and incidentally—a foreign businessman. They know they can't say no to this this year publicly and there is a saying in politics When you've got no power you delay."—that's what they tried to do. There's been a process at select committee. There's been a recommendation to this effect and we weren't going to let them keep our democracy vulnerable.The Green Party has supported urgency in cases where we know substantively a select committee process has taken place. We did that at the beginning of this Government with the paid parental leave legislation which the National Party deliberately had delayed. We knew the substance of that bill had been through a select committee process. The process is what's important not the tick-boxing. And we won't let them delay what New Zealanders need from us as a Government.There's been talk of people setting up shell companies to bypass this law. Well that would be fraud just as cutting up donations to go under the anonymity threshold is fraud. But first you need the ban in order to enforce that law. If anyone is setting up a shell company in New Zealand to bypass this law we would investigate them just as the Serious Fraud Office is investigating the National Party. If they had in fact set up a shell company to bypass this law they would be guilty of fraud but first we need the ban. So that's that.Something that people haven't talked a lot about that's also in this bill that's close to my heart and I think really necessary again in the global context is that we're also apart from the foreign donation ban requiring people—advertisers political advertisers—to make themselves known. Now this is part and parcel of making our system transparent. We know that fake news and all manner of lobbying goes on everywhere else in the world. We know it happens in New Zealand and we know online in particular it's really easy for those stakeholders to remain anonymous whilst they're pouring money into advertising that does affect our elections whether it's on an issue-by-issue basis or in particular support of a political actor. This bill makes that system transparent. New Zealanders do need to know who is taking a stake in our democracy which is also why we need more reform which is also why my bill seeks to lower the anonymity threshold altogether because actually every political party in this House is able to receive a huge amount of anonymous donations and that does make our political system opaque. We do need to know if there's a gun lobby operating here and donating anonymously to our political actors. We do need to know if the oil companies are slowing climate action. And what more we need to know—and I think New Zealanders would be shocked to know—is that we don't actually have a limit on political donations. We need to introduce one because our democracy shouldn't be bought and sold on the free market—the free market that they love so much. Simon Bridges was asked about this a couple of weeks ago and he said "Oh well if we don't let people pour all the money they want into our democracy they will breach their freedom of speech." Imagine thinking that freedom of speech and democracy should be up for sale to the highest bidder. It's impeding freedom of speech to say that our politicians can be bought and sold if you've got the money. So we do need more reform. We actually need the transparency reforms in order to implement this particular change itself. New Zealand does need us to protect the democracy that we hold so dear. We are the second-longest-running free democracy in the world and we should actually be leading when it comes to getting big money out. So I commend this bill to the House. I hope for and will work towards further change diligently and we won't let them slow us down. Thank you."