Hon Christopher Finlayson

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : I thought that was a very careful and analytical speech from Mr Parker, and I think he correctly raised a number of important issues that will need to be addressed in a constructive way by the Justice and Electoral Committee. I can see from that very careful, thoughtful, and intellectual analysis why that member is the shadow Attorney-General, and why other lawyers in his party are not.

The Electoral Finance Act does need to be repealed, for the reasons the Minister of Justice has identified. One has only to look at, for example, the issues relating to candidate and party advertisements to see that. I agree with Mr Parker that the devil is in the detail and in the words. But the problems with regard to those particular sections were there for all to see. Far from being hysterical criticisms, as Mr Chauvel would have had the House believe them to be, my very constructive and measured comments, which tried to address those issues, went unheard at the select committee. Therefore, that is why there was a problem with Mr Rodney Hide’s excellent Brooks Brothers jacket when he tried to put his party’s name on it without an authorisation. That would have constituted an advertisement, which was absurd.

Indeed, when Katherine Rich retired at the end of the last Parliament and was cleaning out her cupboards, she found some National Party socks left over from a fund-raiser a few years back. Those socks would also have breached the Electoral Finance Act, because they had no authorisation on them. Those were the sorts of examples that we tried to bring to the select committee, but no one listened to us.

On the issue of donations, the Minister said that essentially the donations regime has been picked up and put into this bill. I think there does need to be an open and transparent donations regime, and I am sure that we will be able to get something that will be workable and acceptable to the public when the new legislation emerges from the Committee stage. Members can contrast that constructive approach with what happened regarding the Electoral Finance Bill in the select committee. There was no donations regime in the Electoral Finance Bill as introduced. Then, during one morning tea or lunchtime, Lynne Pillay and the troops shot off to get some instructions, and the donations regime was put upon us without any kind of discussion. That is not the way to legislate. That is not the way to move forward in order to get enduring and acceptable electoral legislation.

I am very disappointed in the attitude of the Greens. For Metiria Turei to stand in this House and claim that the Green Party has a record on human rights that is second to none, as I think she has done on a number of occasions, is evidence of a dangerously myopic view of the world. The Green Party voted with Winston Peters and the Labour Government to inflict on us one of the most self-interested and unworkable pieces of legislation in New Zealand’s history. Not only do the Greens refuse to vote to remove that legislation but also they are voting against a donations regime that they agreed with, essentially, when the Electoral Finance Bill was going through the House.

There is only one other point that I wish to make. It is that my careful historical analysis clearly upset Mr Chauvel, but, as usual, his facts were wrong. Many of the administrative problems of the 1978 general election were caused by Labour’s 1975 electoral legislation. Indeed, in the run-up to the 1978 election, Dr Martyn Finlay, a former Labour Attorney-General, admitted that his party’s experimental and radical change to electoral law had given rise to some problems. It was only after the 1978 election that National moved to fix up the situation caused by Labour’s 1975 legislation. That is yet another example of National having to fix up Labour’s sloppy interference in electoral law.

But I really do not want to dwell on Mr Chauvel’s lightweight analysis of the history—and ancient history, at that. Rather, I think it is highly desirable to pick up the statesmanlike tones of Mr Parker and say that efforts should be made to get back to the position that has prevailed throughout history. When all sides are prepared to make concessions to others an acceptable balance of interests is achieved, and enduring legislation is therefore enacted. That is what all parties should be aiming to achieve over the next months.