Pillay Lynne: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Electoral Finance Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13385] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 I am very proud to stand in support of the Electoral Finance Bill. This Government knows that the public should have the highest confidence in the electoral system we have. The system must be transparent and fair and not open to the undue influence of wealthy interest groups. This bill is in effect free speech—it enhances free speech. It enhances the ability of New Zealanders to have their say in this country. We are disappointed by the National Party’s deliberate scaremongering on this bill. One would have to ask why. Why are they scaremongering so strongly? They are worried about the funding they had from the Exclusive Brethren at the last election and about how much at risk that was. 
This bill will not destroy free speech. It will not stop people from expressing their views or particularly from lobbying on issues. By amending the definition of “election advertising” we can ensure that people can lobby on issues unfettered and we think that is really important. Why? Because people’s lobbying was what brought about great policies such as 4 weeks’ holiday paid parental leave early childhood education interest-free loans for students and policies on environmental issues. All of these happened because we have lobbying and advocacy within our country. That is something that the Labour Government is very proud of and something we celebrate. However we do not celebrate wealth running the show which is what happened in the last election. That is what the majority of submitters who supported the bill said they found the most repugnant when they came to speak to us at the select committee. 
I want to thank the advisers and committee staff who worked really hard and gave very constructive advice to the committee at all times. A total of 575 written submissions were received and 101 submitters came to the committee and spoke. I thank our colleagues from New Zealand First the Green Party and from United Future who like the Labour members were committed to ensuring that our pride in our open and inclusive democracy is maintained and that the rorts we saw at the last election with the collaboration between the National Party and the Exclusive Brethren which was a blot on our political landscape will never be seen again. 
I want to say that the games the National Party played in the committee really sunk to an all-time low. There were really silly silly games such as the times that they threatened to walk out and collapse the committee—and this comes from a party whose members say they want to work constructively and that all parties should be involved! 
Hon Annette King 
: Rubbish! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: The Minister is right. National’s performance in that committee was rubbish and their opposition to this bill is rubbish. All the submitters who came and supported the bill made very constructive suggestions and we listened to their suggestions and made improvements. We have had positive responses since the report back. The Human Rights Commission strongly supported the changes. The Coalition for Open Government welcomed the changes and was especially pleased that the issue of secret trusts and anonymous donations had been tackled. The New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union said that the Electoral Finance Bill brings better democracy and ensures that the democratic process is open to all New Zealanders not just the wealthy and the privileged in this country. 
As I said before narrowing the definition of “election advertising” by deleting clause 5(1)(a)(iii) of the original bill means that the advertising of issues will not be captured and that many lobby groups and advocacy groups can go about their business which we admire and respect in our country. Only advertising that advocates for or against political parties or candidates will be captured by this bill. What is so offensive is that the Opposition is trying to make out that this is something new. Lobbying or supporting a party during the election time has always been supposed to be declared. It is rorts such as the Exclusive Brethren’s collaboration with the National Party that has meant we have had to take another look at the bill and work towards ensuring that those sorts of things which are insults to our democracy in this country do not happen again. 
We listened at the select committee to many of the third parties who said they support the regulated period and support a clamp-down on trusts and anonymous donations. But they were concerned about the amount of $60000. Many of them recommended a sum of around $100000. We listened to those submissions and took them on board and now we are happy to say that the spending cap for third parties is $120000. This is for parties that are absolutely promoting a political party or advocating against another political party thereby definitely electioneering. We have ensured a more realistic figure for that and it is $120000. 
We have also ensured that New Zealand citizens including young people under 18 years of age are entitled to list as a third party. I want to speak a little more about the rules around anonymous donations and secret trusts. The Coalition for Open Government has agreed with us and said that reinstating the controls on secret financial contributions to parties via the anonymous donation and secret trust regime is one of the most effective parts of this bill. We ask the public to ask why it is that the National Party is so opposed so vitriolic and so utterly panicked about this. It means that there will be more fairness and we will not have the influence of wealth in our elections. It will ensure that everybody no matter what his or her resources or means is able to participate freely in elections. 
Let us talk about the regulated period. We can look back at the way in which wealthy backers attempted to outspend their rivals by doing election-related spending before the current 3-month regulated election period. We saw that. Members will remember the billboards the “Kiwi not iwi” slogan—it was so last election—where the National Party was intent on attacking race relations in this country. That problem will be fixed. In the minds of the public elections start in election year. The regulated period is still a lesser period than that in the United Kingdom where the period is a year retrospectively. We believe that we have ensured fairness transparency and accountability in our election laws and that is what this bill is about. I am very happy to commend the bill to the House.