Electoral Amendment Bill
First Reading, Second Reading, In Committee, Third Reading
NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) : It is important that I make a contribution to the third reading debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill. I remind all those people who are listening this evening that Labour rammed the Electoral Finance Bill through under urgency with very poor consultation and did not take into account the human rights submissions. It was one of the pieces of legislation that brought down the Labour Government—just one of them. The other, I believe, was the social engineering legislation, and then right across New Zealand the electorates said: “We’ve had enough.”
The electoral finance legislation was a bit like a spider web. It went across everything. It moved the campaign period from 90 days right out to a whole year, and financial agents had to have their own physical address on anything that was promoted. In the past, it has been fine to have PO Box—people could be found—but then the need to have the physical address of the financial agent caused many people to decide that the legislation was not well-thought-through. Many MPs could not find financial agents who wanted to put their name to that legislation because no one actually knew how far reaching it would be. That was the real concern that a whole lot of New Zealanders had. The electoral finance legislation was a spider web. It was suffocating freedom of speech.
I need to acknowledge the good work of the Minister of Justice, Simon Power, who has brought the Electoral Amendment Bill to the House this evening. John Key rightly said it will be very important in terms of getting our democracy right. The most important part, I believe, is covered in the explanatory note, which states: “the Government will undertake a considered process involving all parliamentary parties”—something Labour did not do—“and the public to further examine the reform of the electoral finance law. The stage 2 reforms will be enacted in 2010 for the 2011 general election.”
It is hugely important that this legislation is right, because we will all be elected under it at the next election. That is why this Government is very keen to have open dialogue with all political parties to ensure that we get it right. So, on that note, I stand here to support the third reading of the Electoral Amendment Bill.