Tolley Anne: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
Tolley Anne: Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12960] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 When the former junior Labour whip Darren Hughes stood up to speak to this bill earlier on this afternoon he said it was a very simple bill. I agree with him. It is actually a very simple bill that we are debating here this afternoon. It is State funding in drag. That is what this bill is about. It is about funding for MPs and parliamentary parties and about giving them extra privileges over what the general public can have—it is State funding in drag. 
I just want to start by talking about the process of how we got here today. It largely relates to the rather inept former Minister of Justice Mark Burton who has been talking about this validating legislation on the Parliamentary Service Commission for months. He has been talking since at least May or June about the need to debate and negotiate the ongoing rules when this validating legislation is due to run out at the end of the year. What did he do about it? He did absolutely nothing but talk. Perhaps that is why he is the former Minister of Justice. In actual fact despite what has been said by a couple of Labour members in the House today no sensible negotiations started on what was to replace this validating legislation until at least towards the end of August and then as the United Future leader said there were a couple of meetings between the chiefs of staff. Well that is not about genuine consultation. That is not about the major parties sitting down to work out a viable sensible fair and equitable regime for the electoral law of this country. We now have a situation in the third-to-last week that this House will sit this year of a rollover bill being introduced into the House to proceed through all stages forthwith. That is not good process. That is not democratic. 
Electoral law defines electioneering quite clearly. It is advertising or communications that are of a certain nature. Also it has always been defined as happening within a certain time frame. That time frame is normally close to an election day. Why? Well someone recently talked about why Hallensteins advertises a sale in the nights or days before it is going to have that sale. The answer is because that is when people are interested. So election law in this country has recognised that the general public is interested in an election only when it is close to that election. If one looks at the spending that parties candidates and MPs do on selling themselves as a product which is what they all do we see that the concentration of that spending is always in the weeks leading up to an election because that is when they get the best attention from the public the best engagement and the best chance of selling their message. 
National’s position right throughout this debacle has been that electoral law should be fair for everyone and that is the position that we have argued in this House today. This bill sets up a regime that gives incumbents whether they are parliamentary parties or MPs a distinct advantage. 
Last election the Auditor-General caught parties spending on electioneering using their parliamentary funding. We have heard members from a couple of the other parties here in the House today saying that they did not know it is not fair and the Auditor-General is wrong. Taxpayers’ dollars funded parties’ election campaigns. In the last election year in the 3-month period leading up to the election which is the prime election time taxpayers had to put their hands in their pockets and fund parties’ campaigns. The Auditor-General said that that was wrong and those parties had to pay the money back. In other words those parties were electioneering as defined in the Electoral Act during that 3-month period leading up to the election. 
Labour’s pledge card of $800000-odd was electioneering. It broke two laws. It broke the Parliamentary Service Act which actually controls parliamentary spending and says as we have heard members say that one cannot spend that money soliciting votes. It also broke the Electoral Act because in fact if that $800000 was included it would have broken Labour’s spending cap. But the police did not prosecute because they were looking at the wrong bit of law. The police were inept. They should have taken a prosecution against the Labour Party. What is happening now? Well actually now Labour is changing the laws—both of them—to ensure that it will not get caught again. When most people get caught out breaking the law they change their behaviour. That is what we demand of our citizens. We demand that they change their behaviour. But this Government—this Labour Party—is not changing its behaviour. Labour is changing the rules because it has no integrity. Anyone with integrity would change their behaviour. Labour is changing the rules. 
We are here today debating an appropriation bill that will allow parliamentary funding to be used on soft election advertising and communications and they will not count towards a party’s or a candidate’s election spending cap under the Electoral Finance Bill which will be debated in the House next week. This means that a pamphlet letter or advertisement that is put out by the Labour Party HQ will count towards its electioneering cap. But if that same pamphlet letter or advertisement is put out by the Labour leader’s office with a parliamentary crest paid for by taxpayers and in the election period it will not count towards the cap. So the same document in a different place has different rules. That is what the National Party says is a rort of the system is unfair and is undemocratic. It is State funding in drag and this Labour Government is bringing in this legislation. 
Labour members have talked a lot about the desire for fairness but this piece of legislation will give a huge advantage to incumbents whether they are political parties that have parliamentary representation or individual MPs. It makes an absolute mockery of the spending cap and the regulated period which will be changed in the Electoral Finance Bill. All other New Zealanders will have to face a complicated regime. They will have to register. There are Draconian rules on how much money they can spend and how they can spend it and on what they say. This is a breathtaking double standard. 
We cannot take the bill we are debating tonight in isolation. We have to take it in concert with the Electoral Finance Bill. It has been designed that way and in fact that is the case. We cannot say we are just rolling over existing rules because the rules have been dramatically changed by the Electoral Finance Bill. The election period—the regulated period—will now start on 1 January. It will go for 11 months not just 3 months. So as my deputy leader Bill English explained the electoral spending cap for candidates means they will have only $20000 to spend over 11 months to establish their names and fight an election campaign. They could well be up against an MP who has a budget of $65000 at his or her disposal to get his or her name awareness out and to promote himself or herself around the district. That is an unfair advantage. Plus that MP will also have his or her $20000. That is a huge advantage that is being put into law by this Labour-led Government. Political advertising under the Electoral Finance Bill is highly regulated for the general public. This bill is a rort. It is an absolute disgrace for democracy in New Zealand.