Electoral Finance Bill in Committee

METIRIA TUREI (Green): Tena koe, Mr Chairman. So much hysteria about this bill has been propagated by National and the ACT party, and it is unfortunate because it is misleading members of the community. It is driving up the level of fear and concern among them , and it is propagating to the view that somehow the right to spend money is the most important and crucial human right in our democracy. That is false, that is not the principle on which this country has been built, and it is a disgrace that those political parties are undertaking that kind of action.

It is quite interesting to note that the hysteria is being propagated by political parties with powerful financial backers, particularly ACT and National, as I have said. You know, National benefited enormously from the loopholes in the law, as was evidenced in the last election. National ruthlessly and purposefully exploited those loopholes. One example, of course, was its active assistance with the Exclusive Brethren's campaign. It is neither here nor there that it was the Exclusive Brethren as opposed to somebody else, but the National Party's campaign people talked to this other group and said: "Use these kinds of words in your campaign and so will we, and we will then be able to run these two kinds of parallel campaigns together, but yours will not be caught under our spending cap. Ours will be, and we will be able to double the bang for our buck. We can double the use of our money by running this dodgy system with another group outside the political realm." That was the loophole that was exposed, and that was the loophole that National exploited.

Now it is being closed and we are hearing the hysteria from National members — the hysteria — as they say that they do not want that loophole closed. I am concerned about ACT's involvement in this, but I guess it comes from that side of the House. John Boscawen — I think that is how one says his name; I am not quite sure — is an ACT member and a member of the Business Roundtable. The word has been put out today quite clearly that he is also an organiser of the marches in Auckland. Clearly, what is really important here is that he is using money as a campaign tool Clearly, what is really important here is that he is using money as a campaign tool because that is the only way to try to drive up the fear in the community in order to get support. This is not a community campaign; this is a money campaign, which this member of the Business Roundtable is using to try to get support to oppose this bill.

There have been vast and very expensive ads in the newspaper — we have seen those. It is a classic example of the problems that we are trying to deal with here — the fact that money can be used to mislead and frighten the community and drive it into a fury, when really what is needed is accurate information and a clear understanding of what the legislation does and what it is designed to protect. Frankly, the legislation is designed to protect our electoral system — to protect it from the use of big money, to protect it from the cancer of corruption that is infecting our electoral system and can continue to infect our electoral system if we do not do something about it. It is a manipulation by National and by ACT of the communities and their very real concerns about human rights.

It is fantastic that our community is so concerned about human rights. We want them to be concerned about human rights; it is very important. But human rights are not to be relegated to the right to buy; that is not a fundamental human right. A fundamental human right is the right to express ourselves, to have the freedom of association; to be able to do the things we need to make good lives for ourselves, our families, and our communities. It is not a human right to buy. This is the whole focus of the National Party and the ACT Party campaigns against this bill, and what John and all his work outside with the marchers is designed to do — it is using money to try to manipulate the members of the community's views and feelings so that they begin to see and attach the idea that one can use money to buy an election, and that money and the right to buy is a fundamental human right.

It is a pro-money campaign designed, in the end, to enable the buying of votes — because that is what would happen if we end up not being able to get this bill through, and if National members got their wish. They will then be able to use their vast resources to buy votes. This is what it comes down to. We must protect our electoral system from them doing that. It is part of the cancer of that corruption around buying votes that the right to spend money to gain influence is seen as somehow being honourable. That is what their campaign is doing, and what John Boscawen's campaign is doing — it is saying to the public that the right to spend money to gain influence is an honourable thing to do. It is not honourable; it is a disgrace.

Our whole democracy is built on the principle that people have the right to have a say. It is part of the basic inheritance of our future generations and of the people who are here today that we are able to bring forward issues in our elections; democratically vote for representatives in this House based on the programme, the policies, and the principles that they bring here; and that this House is a representative place based on the needs of the community. It is not a place where influence should be bought, it is not designed for that. Those are not the principles for which all of those people have fought in past wars. All of those people are concerned about protecting their rights to freedom of speech and to be free New Zealanders. But that is not the same thing as saying that it is right to be able to buy influence.

The National Party campaign, the ACT Party campaign, and the marches are all exact examples of the purchase of influence, and they are examples of why we need to control advertising, in particular. We have to remember that this bill deals only with the purchase of advertising; it does not deal with what one says or what one does. This bill deals with the purchase of advertising, and we see from the campaign against the bill how easy it is to use advertising to purchase influence over the community, how easy it is to mislead and to frighten — we saw that in the last election actually.

If we look at the *"Iwi/Kiwi" billboards, we see that they were a direct attempt to frighten Pākehā New Zealanders into thinking that Māori would steal their beaches. The National Party put those billboards out at 90 sites across the country. It cost over $1 million to run that billboard campaign, which was all designed to frighten people. National used money to do it, because it had the money to buy those billboards and to pay for the sites, and therefore to influence people into thinking that Māori was somehow a threat to Pākehā society. It was a direct, manipulative attack, and National used money to do it. That is what we are trying to stop. We are trying to make sure that when people go to the ballot, they go there because they have real information about the real policies that the political parties and the candidates are putting forward, and they know the truth around the issues. That truth will be disrupted and misled if we allow unfettered money to be the determinant of what those issues are, and if other people's voices are lost in the process.

Here we go with the National Party and the ACT Party wanting to be able to use unlimited money in the campaign. But what about those small groups — what about Plunket? What about all of those little community organisations that have real issues that they want to bring to the table? They just do not have the money to compete with a million-dollar campaign, which is being proposed by National members or by friends of National members — like we have seen with the Business Roundtable, the Sensible Sentencing Trust, or some of these other organisations, which have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend. What about those smaller groups? What about the ordinary New Zealanders who are trying to get their voices heard? They will be lost in the noise and the fury of the misleading, manipulative, and deceptive campaigns that are run because National has enough money to run them. That is the disgraceful situation that we are trying to stop here — and we will stop it, despite of all of the money that has been thrown against this bill, and despite of the hysteria from the National members, who can see their loopholes fading before their eyes.

I can understand their worry. I can understand why they are upset about it; they will have to fight the rest of the election on a level playing field. They will not have a special advantage just because they have very big financial backers — for example, from the Business Roundtable. I can see that it is a worry for National members. But it will be good for them, because every election should be fought on a level playing field, every election should be fought as transparent, and every election should be fought on the basis of real policies and real principles that candidates and parties put forward to the electorate so the electorate knows exactly what will happen with their vote. That is an absolutely crucial part of our democracy, which National is trying to fight against.

I feel sorry for National members — I think it is because their backers come from the old, neo-liberal, big money kind of environment. I would like to see National go back to its traditional, conservative roots, where the people who had those kinds of values understand the importance of democracy, understand the importance of a level playing field, and understand the importance of equality and equity, because that is what this country was built on. Those are the values held by those people, and they have been deserted by the National Party. Those people have been deserted by National, and instead the big-money backers have come in and taken over.