Prebble Richard: Inquiry into the 2002 General Election — Consideration of Report of Justice and Electoral Committee 
Prebble Richard: Inquiry into the 2002 General Election — Consideration of Report of Justice and Electoral Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13121] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 Let me in bipartisan spirit start off by saying that there are some matters raised by Mr Rod Donald of the Green Party that I do agree with. The first is that this is an important report; it ought to be debated and I think the other major parties should look at it. Secondly I do agree with him that having representatives from two political parties on the Electoral Commission and broadcasting is fundamentally wrong and it does compromise those organisations. I say to the House that it is a fact that prior to the boundaries being drawn after the 1996 election I drew for my staff the most unfavourable boundaries that could be technically possible for Wellington Central and said that that would be what the so-called independent commission would draw up. When it came out I was slightly wrong. There was a little bit of the electorate that could have been put in to make the boundaries even more unfavourable for me. There was a considerable amount of appeals from people in Wellington Central and the only change that the Electoral Commission made was to move to the boundaries that were the most adverse possible to me. I know that the civil servants claim they were unbiased. Rubbish! It is mathematically impossible to do that and of course we know that the same thing was done to the Social Credit Party. One of the reasons why first past the post became discredited was because the two major parties were able to influence the drawing of boundaries in this country. I say that those political representatives should not be on the commission. 
The next point that is clearly unfair concerns State funding. Per vote the ACT party gets the lowest amount election after election. 
Rod Donald 
: Not last time. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I think we were the lowest again. Of course the National Party ended up with $1.40 and that is because the system is biased in favour of the two major parties. They receive the bulk of television time and then by law other political parties are not able to buy any advertising time. What is interesting is that with nations similar to ourselves that have written constitutions—like Australia Canada and the United States—when our types of broadcasting laws have been passed by their Parliaments the courts every time—I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. A Minister is trying to hold a loud conversation in my ear. 
In Australia Canada and the United States New Zealand -type broadcasting laws have been struck down. Why? First they are an affront to the principle of free speech. By law we are refusing to allow certain opinions to be broadcast and secondly in a free society people ought to be able to spend their own money to advocate their views. We as a Parliament are saying that they cannot. That works very much to the detriment of my political party. 
I shall run through some other points that I do not think have been looked at. The Labour Government has spent a fortune to put people on the roll. In a free society that would be the duty of the citizen. Is it worthwhile? No it is not. While the number of people on the roll went up and in parts of New Zealand people were chasing citizens around the streets to try to get them enrolled it did not result in more people voting. It is a monstrous waste of taxpayers’ money. The fact is that the Government is prepared to spend that money because the Labour Party thinks that it is to its electoral advantage. I am disappointed that the select committee— [ 
Interruption 
] The Minister who is now interjecting should go back to playing her ukulele. The select committee has not given us any sort of report on whether that is a good use of taxpayers’ money. 
I now turn to another point that the committee in my view has not—[ 
Interruption 
] That Minister was elected on her name not for any work she has done. She also said that she would solve Auckland’s traffic woes. They seem to be going about as fast as she is. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: You were going to save Rail. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: That’s right. You were to save Rail. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I most certainly did. It is still there if the Minister would like to look. That Minister wants to spend taxpayers’ money on ukuleles but is not prepared to speak on why she is sending silly invitations to people to sing with her with a ukulele. I have better things to do. That Minister is being paid by the taxpayer to be a Minister gets a Minister’s car and thinks that is a ground for her to interject. However I shall turn to the question. 
Dail Jones 
: What’s she ever done to earn a Minister’s salary? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Nothing in my view. I tell the House that with regard to appeals for State funding for political parties if the select committee had examined the matters properly and added up all the State funding I believe I am right in saying that there is no other country that has more State funding than New Zealand. I know that that is an unpopular thing to say to MPs because they always want to maintain that that is not the case. In fact unlike Britain once the election is on members of Parliament are still able to fly around the country use their telephones and their full postal privileges. All those matters would be added up and included in a party’s expenditure in any transparent system but they are not. 
Then when we have a discussion on donations we find that the donation list is most extraordinary. It is quite possible for an organisation to give full-time organisers and cars to a political party but that never has to be recorded. In fact that does go on and we all know that the Labour Party is the biggest beneficiary of that. [ 
Interruption 
]The member raised the subject of Auckland Central. When I was the member for Auckland Central two full-time trade unionists and a car turned up to work for me. I did not have to put that down because there was nowhere in the return for that. When the Green Party talks about transparency—if we are to have that and that is what we ought to do—in my view if a trade union wants to use its union funds to support a political party so be it. In a free society it should. However we should not have the trade union -supported party then saying “It’s perfectly OK for us to be funded and for us to receive 10 20 60 cars or whatever it is from the trade union movement and full-time organisers but oh dear those people who are supported by business interests in New Zealand ought to be required to make a full report of their accounts.” 
I think the donation rules are a nonsense. Personally I believe in freedom. If people want to contribute their own money to political parties that is their business and not the business of others many of whom have never given a dollar or done anything to help in any election ever. 
Finally while the committee has called for the Government to do a review of the Electoral Act frankly I do not trust it to do that. If it is anything like this report the changes that will be recommended will be partisan and designed to help a particular political party. With regard to elections we ought to try to make sure that they are free open and people are able to have free speech. We ought to allow all citizens to have access to the airwaves. Countries that have restrictions on airwaves used to be part of the Communist bloc. We now have some of the most restrictive anti - free speech electoral laws in the world and they have been put together for the simple reason of creating a handicap system in favour of the two major parties. The sooner they are done away with the better.