Dunne Peter: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Dunne Peter: Electoral Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1322] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 The introduction of the Electoral Amendment Bill brings to a close a rather sad chapter in our recent political history with regard to electoral law but it does not remove the issues that originally gave rise to the first bill. Like other parties United Future will support the introduction and passage of this bill and we will participate willingly in the process of consultation that the Minister has referred to as a way of resolving the issues and ensuring that we have robust viable and widely supported electoral law in place for the next general election. 
I make this point at the outset: we voted for the bill until its final reading when we bowed to the weight of public opinion as representatives of public opinion and voted against the bill. It remains one of my biggest regrets in my time in the House that we did not withdraw our support for the Electoral Finance Bill at an earlier stage and that we took so long as a party to heed the public message. 
When the 2005 election was over and all of the revelations about the activities of nefarious groups and others were laid bare it became vital that our electoral law be amended in order to do a couple of things: to introduce greater transparency into the funding of political campaigns and to introduce greater transparency and accountability into those organisations that chose to participate in the electoral process. There had always been a sort of gentleman’s agreement previously about the way in which these matters had been carried out and it was only the excesses of the anonymous campaigns associated with the 2005 election that brought the issues starkly to a head. 
On the face of it it is absurd that there are constraints on the behaviour of political parties during election campaigns—financial constraints and other constraints—about what they can and cannot do and within which period they can and cannot do it. However prior to the passing of the Electoral Finance Act there were no such constraints on other organisations seeking to influence the outcome of an election by exercising their right to free speech. 
I think the essential failure of the Electoral Finance Act aside from the complexity of the definitions it introduced was that it went too far in drawing that line. I do not think anyone argues that there should be a position whereby political parties are constrained in what they can say and do while any organisation acting on their behalf either deliberately or just coincidentally suffers no constraint. The question is what that level of responsibility should be. 
In the case of the Electoral Finance Act I think three major issues of difference emerged. The first concerned the regulated period and the fact that the clock began to tick on 1 January in an election year whether or not that election was held in the first half of the year or the latter half of the year. Also the constraints that applied to both political parties and other groups were so tight as to make their effective participation extremely difficult and in some cases virtually unobtainable or unachievable. 
The second problem was the range of definitions that the Act introduced as to what constituted a political advertisement or a political message. Members have spoken already of the many calls made to the Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer the resort to legal advice the hours spent poring over the documents trying to figure out what was on and was not on and the risk we faced all along that someone was going to get caught and made an example of which meant we would all then be subject to the discipline of that process. That made the organisation and management of the election last year far more complex than it needed to be. 
So we ended up with two things actually. First a lot of the messages from political parties were couched in such vague and general terms as to almost be non-messages not because they did not have policy to advance but because they did not want to fall foul of the provisions of the Electoral Finance Act. So people being asked to make an electoral choice were often trying to figure out what it was precisely that the parties were saying to them and how those messages were being conveyed. 
The second consequence was an even more ironic one. A member earlier referred quite properly to the concern about the fact that there should be no great advantage to incumbency—that political parties should not be able to organise the electoral process in such a way that it would suit the parties currently represented in this Parliament. Ironically that is exactly what the Electoral Finance Act did. One thing members of Parliament are very good at across this House is working out where they can draw the line between what is a parliamentary activity and what is a party political activity. That line has been redrawn several times over the last 18 months. So the ambition of the Act to try to level the playing field actually failed. We all became much better at knowing how to manipulate the system and stay within the law. 
At the same time as that was going on we had an Electoral Commission that was under-resourced that was unwilling to step into the breach and give clear and definitive advice and that gave parties the option all the time of basically saying: “Try it and see. If you can get away with it well and good. If there is a complaint lodged against your activity then perhaps you have to review it.” Wherever one sits on the political spectrum that is a hopeless way to run an election. It creates uncertainty and it creates a whole level of bureaucracy that is simply ridiculous. 
The previous speaker Rahui Katene referred to financial agents. I still fail to see why members of Parliament need to nominate a financial agent. It is our heads that are on the block and our signatures that are on the form. If we fail to declare our expenditure properly accurately and legally then we are the ones to be held accountable. Under the Electoral Finance Act an electoral agent financial agent or party secretary is held accountable for our failings. I still think that is wrong. I thought it was wrong when the original bill went through Parliament and I think it is equally cumbersome and wrong today. I hope that in the review we try to streamline the procedures for administration so that those of us who put ourselves forward for election accept the full responsibility of doing so when it comes to accounting for our behaviour during the electoral period. 
The most precious thing in any democracy—and we often hear references to this country as the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world—is the ability for people to participate freely in the electoral process without coercion or limitation and for the free and open expression of a range of political and other opinions. 
Whether it was intended or not—and I am inclined to think it was more an error than an intent—the consequence of the Electoral Finance Act none the less was that very severe restrictions were placed on the ability of people to go about their normal way of life during an election period. There were fears that Internet conversations would be caught and no one seemed able to give a definitive ruling on that. There were the ludicrous sorts of efforts we saw to my right of parading clothing like some mannequin on display all the time to tempt the provisions of the Act. There were cars written with party slogans and right down the bottom in language one could not see—but it was there in order to comply with the Act—was the financial authorisation. Even bumper stickers which people hardly see anyway had to carry a financial authorisation. New Zealand became obsessed with the minutiae and the detail rather than what the election campaign was all about. 
I am glad that this bill is progressing. I am very pleased that we will take time to consider it properly in terms of a replacement and I think that the important thing that the Minister needs to bring to that is a sense of open-mindedness of willingness to engage and of seeing that the electoral system is the property not just of the politicians but fundamentally of the people of this country. They make the call on election day. As we say in the prayer at the start of this Parliament we are their servants; we are not their masters. It is about time the law reflected that. 
As I said at the beginning this bill is the end of a very sorry chapter in our history. The issues need to be addressed and I hope that this repeal provides the opportunity for a thorough and proper reconsideration and for good legislation to emerge in the future.