I always laugh when politicians talk about the State funding of political parties. I wonder what they think we actually have. We are all here on salaries, so there is massive State funding of political parties—massive State funding—and anyone who suggests anything to the contrary of that has his or her head in the sand.
There should be no misunderstanding whatsoever as to why the Electoral Finance Act was passed. It was passed for one reason and one reason only. It was passed to help re-elect the Labour Party. It helped to re-elect the Labour Party by restricting what people could say about it, and by restricting people’s ability to criticise it and campaign against it. So credit is due to the people who criticised the Act, to the people who rose up and protested against it, and to the media who called the Labour Party to account.
I find it very interesting that most of the divisions in this Chamber are won by 69 votes to 53, but, as I said on Thursday night, the election was actually very close. An extra 10,000 party votes for the New Zealand First Party would have seen six New Zealand First MPs in Parliament. There would not have been a majority of ACT and National MPs, and who knows how the Māori Party would have voted? I suggest to members opposite that they could very well be in Government if it had not been for the Electoral Finance Act.
I would also like to talk about transparency. Everyone talks about transparency, and says how important it is to have transparent donations. The reality is that when the Electoral Finance Bill was introduced into Parliament in July 2007, there were no provisions on anonymous donations. The 600 submissions that were received on the bill were not received on anonymous donations, because there were no such provisions in the bill at that time. They were introduced after the public of New Zealand had had their chance to speak.
I sat in on the select committee when the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Rosslyn Noonan, said to the committee members: “The commission’s position is and remains that the bill should be withdrawn.” The majority of the members of that select committee voted to ignore the Human Rights Commission. The Chief Human Rights Commissioner also went on to say it would be essential that if the bill was not withdrawn, there be a second round of public consultation. Once again, I always laugh when I hear the Greens talk about citizens’ assemblies and public consultation. When the Human Rights Commission called for a second round of public consultation, who in the committee was to lead the charge against the Human Rights Commission? It was Metiria Turei and David Benson-Pope. I know that, because I was there. I listened to how Metiria Turei tried to undermine the submission of the Chief Human Rights Commissioner. Rosslyn Noonan went to the select committee and said the commission’s first choice was that Labour should withdraw the bill and start again. She said the bill was wrong. Finally, today, 15 months later, the truth has finally been spoken. The Labour Party has acknowledged her.
The Chief Human Rights Commissioner was right when she said the bill should be withdrawn, but, fearing that she would be ignored, she went on to say that if Labour was not going to listen to her, it was essential that Labour changed four things—not one thing, not two things, but four things. The Government moved to change two of those things, but it left in place a regulatory period of 11 months rather than 3 months. The Government voted for restrictions that were three times longer than our Human Rights Commission argued was reasonable. The commission also said that if we were to restrict third parties—and I am not going to have my position misrepresented—it was reasonable to restrict people, and if we were to restrict third parties we should allow them to spend between $250,000 and $300,000. The Electoral Commission and the Human Rights Commission both said the major political parties had $4.8 million each to spend, and if we were to restrict third parties we needed at least to allow them to spend $250,000 to $300,000. What did this Government do? It put on restrictions: a total maximum spend of $120,000, which is 2.5 percent of what the Labour Party was allowed to spend at the last election. The Human Rights Commission was ignored on those two points.
How did we get into this mess? There are protections—Chris Finlayson has referred to them, as has Charles Chauvel—and they are in this document, called the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It is a very small Act of about 10 pages, and ironically it was passed by the fourth Labour Government, under Geoffrey Palmer. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act does not guarantee rights to New Zealanders, but it affirms them. One of the rights that the Act affirms is that of freedom of expression. I will quote: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” The Act affirms the right of New Zealanders to speak out freely and to criticise their democratically elected Government, and in section 7 there is an obligation on the Attorney-General to report any inconsistencies between bills and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.
Charles Chauvel referred to the fact that the Attorney-General received an opinion that confirmed the Electoral Finance Bill was not inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is very interesting that Mr Chauvel raised that issue, because I have a copy of that opinion in front of me. It is 19 pages long—a 19-page opinion on the Electoral Finance Bill. I said earlier that there were no provisions on anonymous donations in the bill. The bill was never about election finance; it was about shutting New Zealanders down, it was about censoring New Zealanders, and it was about making it easy for the Labour Party to be re-elected.
What did Val Sim, a counsel in the Crown Law Office, say about the original Electoral Finance Bill? There was no provision to do with anonymous donations. There was a provision in the bill that said every New Zealander who wanted to speak out and criticise his or her Government, as a minimum, had to either sign a piece of paper in front of a justice of the peace or register with the Electoral Commission. What did Val Sim say? I will tell members what she said, as it is only four lines in 19 pages: “The bill requires candidates, parties and third parties to undertake registration and reporting requirements. These impose a procedural constraint on electoral expression but, as they appeared necessary for the administration of the substantive regulation of election advertising, no further issue of justification arises.” Val Sim of the Crown Law Office, the Government’s lawyers, thought the requirement that all New Zealanders who wanted to speak out freely should first have to sign a piece of paper was a procedural requirement.
I heard Mr Chauvel say that the Attorney-General had to form an opinion as to whether the restrictions were justifiable in a free and democratic society. The previous Attorney-General, the Hon Michael Cullen, had an option to override that Crown Law opinion, but he did not. Why not? I can presume only that the Hon Michael Cullen thinks that requiring New Zealanders to sign a piece of paper, as a minimum, if they want to criticise the Government is justifiable in a free and democratic society. That speaks volumes about Michael Cullen—absolute volumes.
It was interesting that Mr Chauvel made the comment that Michael Cullen deserves better. I was very careful in my maiden speech to acknowledge the Hon Michael Cullen in respect of KiwiSaver. I am a convert to compulsory saving. As far as I am concerned, making KiwiSaver compulsory cannot come soon enough. That is one thing I support the Hon Michael Cullen on, but I certainly have no respect whatsoever for the fact that when he acted as one of the safeguards, he used his position as Attorney-General for purely political purposes.
Following that opinion on the Electoral Finance Bill, and following what was obviously going to be the rejection of the Human Rights Commission’s submission, I launched a legal challenge to the Attorney-General. I was joined by the late Graham Stairmand, the previous national president of Grey Power, and by Garth McVicar and Rodney Hide.
Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, no!
JOHN BOSCAWEN: That is right. I say to Ruth Dyson that she can knock that, but the reality remains that her party and the previous Attorney-General thought it was perfectly acceptable to try to shut New Zealanders down. We sought urgency on that legal challenge. The select committee voted to deny us that chance. That particular case was set down for a hearing on 15 May. The Crown applied to have it struck out, and it was successful. We lodged an appeal in the Court of Appeal, and the court gave its judgment at 11.30 this morning. The court has upheld the striking out of the case. That case, essentially, is going no further than it has gone today. But I say to the Hon Chris Finlayson, the Attorney-General, that he needs to look at the provisions regarding electoral finance in relation to section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.