Woolerton R Doug: Electoral Finance Bill — First Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Electoral Finance Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10783] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I have listened to previous speakers with a lot of interest. I have listened particularly to Mr Bill English and Mr Simon Power. They should be ashamed of themselves and I have listened for that reason. 
Mr English described this Electoral Funding Bill—which New Zealand First will support being sent to a select committee—as like something that would come out of Zimbabwe because he believes that it stifles free speech. I will tell members in case they have forgotten about something that was very Zimbabwe-like. It happened when New Zealand First was formed. In the very first election we fought we were not only barred from getting a share of public broadcasting money but also barred from using our own money. That is what happens in Zimbabwe and that is what the party of Mr Bill English and Mr Simon Power did to us. It was aided and abetted by the Labour Party whose members should be ashamed to hear that. We were barred in those years from going on public radio to send out our message. That is what Zimbabwean policies are all about and National is guilty of doing that. 
The other thing that those two speakers in particular talked about was 1 January being the date in an election year that the countdown of election spending clicks in. National members should be reminded that that is critical because after the 2005 election they were the ones who called the cops to use my colloquial language. I still have contacts in the National Party and we know that its members spent more public money on the election than any other party in this House. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes they did. They spent more public money on the 2005 election than any other party in this House by a considerable margin. 
Members of the public who are listening to this debate will be hearing Mr David Bennett saying “Pay it back.” and they will be wondering what I am talking about. I am talking about the 3-month rule. Nobody knows when the clock starts ticking because nobody knows when the election will be called. National did not know either in 2005. Does anybody know why I say that? Because I have absolutely cast-iron evidence that National members believed that the election would be in July 2005. They started spending 3 months prior to July because they believed that the election would be then. Mr David Bennett is quiet now; he knows that that is correct. National members started spending 3 months before July and they poured it out. They poured it out. The ACT party was so confident that National was correct that the local ACT candidate in Hamilton went on holiday. He booked his holiday for October because he thought the election would be in July. He had been reliably told that by the National Party and the National Party tipped the dough out 3 months before July. 
But we never know when that 3-month clock will start ticking when that 3-month period prior to the election will start. In the case of the National Party it had spent the bulk of its money before the 3-month period and that is why that party got away with a seemingly correctly funded election. But it was exactly the opposite. 
John Carter 
: That was so bad! It was naughty! 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Mr John Carter is saying it was naughty and he is tapping his hand. And he is right: it was naughty. But what was really naughty was for those members to say that National was the only honest party in this House and that they did not spend public funds. They spent more than anybody else and that is able to be proved. They spent it before the 3-month period by mistake. 
I want to mention another reason— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but there is far too much interjection. It is almost getting to the stage of being barracking which is not permitted. I refer members to Speakers’ ruling 57/3 and remind them that politics is the art of the possible and the possible we will explore today is good order. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for your fairness. I draw the attention of the public to another reason why New Zealand First is supporting this Electoral Finance Bill. It concerns an election campaign in Tauranga. This is the first time that I have seen people’s names mentioned in a Bills Digest and it is the first time that I have seen an issue mentioned in a Bills Digest: “The Peters v Clarkson election petition”—I am reading this directly—“although not upheld in court raised questions about the interpretation of current law for example the treatment of dual-purpose advertisements.” It was argued—successfully as it happens—that a billboard and in some cases a whole wall of advertising in Tauranga were meant for another purpose. They were not meant for election advertising. Because the advertising had been done skilfully by Mr Clarkson’s team—it had not been done by Mr Clarkson personally—the court could not get enough evidence to rule it out. 
We cannot have those sorts of things happening because that is not working to the intent of the law. It is using every damn trick in the book to get round the law and that is what the National Party did. Its members themselves are responsible for this bill coming into the House. New Zealand First members say that it is about time because we need clarity around these things. We need some honesty to come into electoral law and we need to go forward being able to sell our messages without the threat of big money winning every time. Thank heavens it did not win in the last election and we hope it will not win in the next! 
New Zealand First also applauds the removal of political representatives from the Electoral Commission when it comes to radio broadcasting. We think that should have happened a long time ago. That situation is an overhang from the first-past-the post system. In fact New Zealand First members have for a number of years tried to get ourselves on to that commission to even it up but our first preference was always to get rid of political appointees so we are pleased to see that that will happen. 
I have not spoken a lot about third-party advertising and what has become known as the Exclusive Brethren contributions to political campaigns. Clearly that is something that must be attended to. It is relatively new. Everybody understands—and it is fair cop—that business will give to National will give to Labour and will give a very small bit I must say to New Zealand First. We understand that that is offset on the other side by the contribution from the unions which in the main back the Labour Party but some unionists vote for National New Zealand First the Maori Party United Future or whatever. But it is clearly wrong for a group to come in with a completely full-on campaign with the knowledge as we have found of the party that is to be the beneficiary of its largesse. It is completely wrong for a group to come in in that way and this bill attends to that as well and we applaud it.