It always fascinates me when members of the Green Party talk about citizens’ assemblies. I was at the hearing of the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Electoral Finance Bill on 18 October 2007 as a member of the public. At that hearing the Chief Human Rights Commissioner said quite clearly and categorically that her preference was—and remains—that the Electoral Finance Bill be withdrawn, and that Parliament start again on electoral finance legislation. She then went on to say: “If that is not going to happen, it will be essential that there be a further round of public consultation. The Labour Party here are playing with electoral law”—and she said to the committee—“you owe it to your fellow New Zealanders to allow them to comment on what you are going to do.” Metiria Turei, the Green representative on that committee, totally ignored that submission. So I always find it fascinating when the Greens talk about citizens’ assemblies, because if the Green Party was really interested in what the people of New Zealand thought, it would have accepted the recommendations of the Chief Human Rights Commissioner.
I would now like to come to the comments of Lynne Pillay. In her speech in the second reading debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill, she talked about the importance of participation, and how it was important that ordinary New Zealanders participated in the election process. I would like to read her a paragraph from the Human Rights Commission’s submission. It is paragraph 10.2 of the conclusion to the commission’s submission dated 7 September 2007. It states: “A human rights approach to democratic government requires genuine participation. Genuine participation, in turn, requires an informed electorate. By limiting freedom of expression and creating a complex regulatory framework in the way it does, the Electoral Finance Bill unduly limits the rights of all New Zealanders to participate in the electoral process. The Commission therefore considers that the Bill is inherently flawed and should be withdrawn.” I say to Lynne Pillay and the Labour members who are concerned about the ordinary New Zealander’s participation in elections that it is a pity they did not actually listen to the Human Rights Commission when it made that submission.
The Labour Government’s behaviour was worse than that, because initially it was very reluctant to have the Human Rights Commission appear as a witness at the hearings. It did not make it easy for the commission. Pete Hodgson has justified the Electoral Finance Act by saying that it does not restrict free speech. I have a very simple answer to that—let the people of New Zealand decide. Let the people of New Zealand form their own opinion. The Human Rights Commission said that if we are going to restrict the right of lobby groups to speak, we need to allow them to spend between $250,000 and $300,000. That is in the context of a political party spending $4.8 million; both the Labour and National Parties, as well as their candidates, were entitled to spend up to $4.8 million. I might add that $1 million of that was given to the Labour Party by way of broadcasting allowance, and $900,000 was given to the National Party by way of broadcasting allowance. So when people say that we must have taxpayer funding of political parties, I say that is a joke, because $1.9 million was spent on broadcasting alone, for just two major parties.
The Human Rights Commission agreed that it is right to restrict people; there is no point in having restrictions on political parties and then letting third parties go unrestricted. But the commission thought it reasonable that third parties should be able to spend up to $250,000 to $300,000. That is one-twentieth. The commission said that, yes, let the political parties get lots of funding. That was fine. But it said we must not drown out small people. The commission said that if a small person could spend just one-twentieth, and if National and Labour were allowed to spend twenty times what a lobby group was allowed, that would be acceptable. But that was not good enough for Labour. It wanted to spend 40 times that figure.
I referred to the International Bill of Human Rights, and to the actions of the previous Attorney-General. For members opposite who are genuinely concerned about electoral law and reform, I say that the actions of the previous Attorney-General, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, were very, very poor. The reason we have this problem is that he did not exercise his judgment. He used his role for purely political purposes, and he did not stand up and say that the electoral finance legislation was not acceptable. It was not acceptable to make the people of New Zealand come to Parliament, as I came to Parliament, and as Amy Adams came to Parliament; 500 people made submissions to the bill saying they were not prepared to see their freedoms—the freedoms of their parents and grandparents—taken from them. I believe the previous Government was very, very arrogant in the way it treated the people of New Zealand.
I also make a point in my final speech on this debate to acknowledge the courage of the commissioners and staff of the Human Rights Commission. The Chief Human Rights Commissioner is Rosslyn Noonan. She is a former national secretary of the primary teachers union, the New Zealand Educational Institute. She is a trade unionist, and someone who might normally be considered a supporter of the Labour Party. I believe her actions, and those of her colleague Professor Judith McGregor, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, in speaking out against the electoral finance legislation and in continuing to speak out against it, are courageous and should be acknowledged.
When I had the chance to speak for a few minutes in Thursday night’s debate, I talked about the arrogance of the Labour Government in pushing through the electoral finance legislation. I did so as a warning to the National Government, because when it comes to three terms in Government, and is looking for a fourth, it may want to consider something along the lines of the Electoral Finance Bill. It is not without precedent. I am a member of the ACT Party, and in 1995, Jim Bolger’s National Government passed a law with the support of the Labour Opposition that made it illegal for a political party to purchase advertising. I have said that taxpayers gave the Labour Party $1 million in broadcasting time, the National Party $900,000 in broadcasting time, and the ACT Party $100,000 in broadcasting time. That is fine. The ACT Party does not have a problem with being given $100,000, because at that time it had two members of Parliament. But it was illegal for ACT to purchase broadcasting time. In my consultation with members of the Māori Party on this bill in late 2007, they made the point that when they fought the 2005 election it was also illegal for their party to buy broadcasting time. They very much would have liked to spend the party’s own money broadcasting on Māori and iwi radio stations. It was illegal.
I urge the Minister to review that. If it is done in a truly non-partisan way, then by all means set caps on how much political parties can spend, but let them have the freedom to say how they spend their own money. We do not have a level playing field when the two major political parties can appropriate for themselves—voting together in 1995, as they did under Jim Bolger’s Government—the right to spend taxpayers’ money, and can then deny others the opportunity to raise money to put their message across. I would also like to pay a tribute to members of the media: the ones I work closely with, and the ones I do not know as well. I had a great deal of support in my campaign from Leighton Smith on his Newstalk ZB programme. Leighton spoke at my first protest march on 17 November in Auckland.
- Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
JOHN BOSCAWEN: Just before we adjourned for dinner I was acknowledging the courage and professionalism of the commissioners of the Human Rights Commission: Chief Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, and Sylvia Bell, the chief policy analyst of the Human Rights Commission. In this sorry saga, which is very close to coming to an end, a lot of credit goes to a number of organisations. In the last few minutes available to me I acknowledge the role of the media. It is well known that the New Zealand Herald ran a massive campaign and had an intense look at the Electoral Finance Bill. The New Zealand Herald came under huge criticism from the Labour members of Parliament but with those members finally speaking the truth and acknowledging that what they did was wrong the campaign has been vindicated. What sums up its campaign—and the campaign from the media generally—is the front page of the New Zealand Herald dated Tuesday, 4 December 2007. There the New Zealand Herald states that it was not just them; it was every other major media organisation in this country, and it quotes editorials from the Dominion Post, Christchurch Press, Sunday Star-Times, Waikato Times, and Otago Daily Times. With that I finish my comments on the Electoral Amendment Bill. Thank you very much.