Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I am very pleased to speak at the third reading of the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2). The bill makes a number of important changes to the Local Electoral Act, the principal Act, which provides the rules for local authority elections. The bill tightens and increases transparency around campaign donations. It streamlines pre-election processes and it improves the availability of information about candidates.

The Local Electoral Act has three core principles underpinning it, which are upheld and advanced by this bill. The first principle is fair and effective representation for New Zealanders and for communities. The second principle is that qualified people have an opportunity to cast an informed vote to nominate a candidate and to become a candidate. The third principle is public confidence in local electoral processes and public understanding of local electoral processes.

As I mentioned, the bill deals with pre-election processes and candidate campaign donations. The bill makes a number of practical improvements to pre-election processes. These are based on earlier reviews of the local authority elections, and changes sought by councils and others involved in the elections. Specifically, the bill gives unitary, city, and district councils greater flexibility to set ward boundaries in a way that better encompasses local communities and geographic areas in their territories with common interests. The bill streamlines candidate nomination processes. The bill also provides electoral offices with an extra week to produce high-quality voting documents.

The other set of changes in the bill are important improvements to the rules for candidate campaign donations. Many provisions in the Local Electoral Act for candidates’ campaigns are modelled on the Electoral Act. The Electoral Act provides, of course, the rules for parliamentary elections. Over time the Electoral Act has changed and the Local Electoral Act is now out of step, specifically in the way that electoral campaign donations must be received, recorded, and reported by candidates. The need to modernise the Local Electoral Act and bring the two sets of rules closer into line is a major driver of this bill. The changes in the bill around campaign donations to achieve closer alignment with the Electoral Act include, firstly, a limit of $1,500 on the amount of an anonymous donation; secondly, a requirement for a candidate to include in his or her return of electoral expenses and donations information about donations above $1,500; and, thirdly, a more rigorous definition of anonymous donations and an obligation on a third party or a person administering the affairs of a candidate who receives a candidate’s donation to disclose the identity of the donor to the candidate. For maximum transparency, the bill will also require the publication—online or otherwise—of every candidate’s return of electoral donations and expenses.

At the Committee of the whole House stage, the Government introduced changes to the bill through a Supplementary Order Paper 198. These changes affect donations to local electoral candidates that are made up of pooled funds. This includes donations from trust funds or where there is a fund-raising collection for a candidate’s campaign. The changes include a new requirement for a candidate to disclose whether a donation is made up of pooled funds. The candidate will also have to disclose the names and addresses of any individuals contributing more than $1,500. It will mean a candidate cannot accept an anonymous contribution of more than $1,500. This is a good change by the House at the Committee stage. It closes a potential loophole, it achieves closer alignment between local authorities and parliamentary elections, and it supports the overall purpose of the bill.

Can I thank the Justice and Electoral Committee, under the guidance of Scott Simpson. Can I thank all its members for the collaborative process and constructive work that they undertook in bringing this bill together. Can I also thank members of this House for their contributions to the debate during the Committee of the whole House stage. I think that has generally added to a better bill.

Like parliamentary elections, local authority elections are held every 3 years. The next local authority elections, on 12 October this year, are fast approaching. The elections are for local councils and district health boards. In many parts of New Zealand, elections will also be held for local and community boards and licensing and community trusts. All local authority elections are held by postal voting. Electoral activity is picking up pace in advance of the 2013 elections. There is, indeed, a lot going on behind the scenes to ensure smooth elections. Important milestones and dates for this year’s elections include nominations for candidates, which close on 23 August; voting documents to be delivered to electors between 20 and 25 September; and that voting will close, as everyone is aware, on 12 October at noon.

In closing, the public rightfully expects high levels of transparency and confidence in the conduct of all public elections. For this reason, I am pleased to progress this bill in time for the elections on 12 October this year. I look forward to those elections, and I look forward to the bill enhancing the transparency and efficiency of the elections. The public can indeed be confident that the rules promote efficiency, democracy, and increased transparency. I commend this bill to the House.

Before I call the next member, during the process of the last vote a member raised the issue of Standing Order 48, which invites the Speaker to adjourn the House. The test is disorder or impending disaster. I am not aware that either standard has been met, so I will not be adjourning the House.

Although I rise to speak in these dying moments of this sitting of this Parliament—a long sitting, a 3-week sitting—on the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2), I do say to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, in relation to Standing Order 48 that we can oblige if you prefer. However, as will have been apparent from Labour contributions in earlier debates on this bill, we do support it. It is long overdue. Indeed, without wanting to get into a “Na, na, na, na, we did it first.” argument, I do want to say that we got there first. We had a draft member’s bill ready in place to go, with the great prescience of mind that members on this side of the House so frequently show, but before it was drawn from the ballot, the issue about John Banks and the Auckland mayoral race then erupted in full colour across the political landscape, and everybody knew why it was necessary to have reform of our local electoral laws.

I think it is important, even at this third reading stage, just in case some people have not heard the earlier debates and have tuned in only just recently or this afternoon, to put on the record why this bill and the changes in it have become so necessary. The reality is that the provisions governing local body elections had come adrift from the rules governing general elections. There was an inconsistency that could not be explained. Then we saw the conduct that we saw in the 2010 Auckland mayoral election. The conduct included that of at least one candidate who, having received donations—donations about which we now have clear evidence that that candidate played an active role in soliciting and receiving, donations that to all intents and purposes he knew the origins of—when it came time to make his election return, feigned no knowledge of the origins of those donations. And they were significant donations. That exposed to all who could see them the gaps, the problems, and the loopholes in the law as it then stood. Donations that were nominally anonymous were, in reality, not anonymous at all. The recipient of them, the candidate for whose benefit they were made, could avoid declaring them as contributions made by a known donor and could have them declared as anonymous donations. That was a very distasteful part of the history of local government in this country. It will go down in the annals of local government history as a poor time, as a black day, but it will be remedied by the provisions in this bill.

As the Minister of Local Government, who took the floor just now, has adumbrated in his account of the bill, in addition to putting limits and caps on donations, this bill will now tighten up the requirements for declaring expenses for, and donations to, local government campaigns, and that is long overdue. We do not want to live in a country where public office, whether it is at the local government level or at the central government level, can be purchased and can be won by those who have the privilege of being in receipt of the highest amount of donations because they are the person who happens to routinely rub shoulders with the wealthy and the rich and the privileged and the elite of this country. That is not the New Zealand that we believe in, and I do not believe there is a member in this House who would want our systems of democracy to be disgraced in that sort of way.

This bill comes in the nick of time for the forthcoming local government elections, as Mr Tremain said in his contribution. The provisions of this bill will take effect for the forthcoming elections. That will give some comfort to people as we sit around and wait for the onslaught of the next local government elections. We wait for the doorknocking and we wait for the material to come through our letterboxes, but, most important, we wait for those ballot papers to come in. We have our period of 2 weeks to consider and ponder and cast our vote in the election, and we will be able to do that this year safe in the knowledge that no candidate taking part in this year’s local government elections will be allowed to get away with acting in an untoward and an improper way. They will have been subject to spending limits and to donation limits, and the donations received by them will be properly disclosed. Any potential for misleading or rorting it around anonymous donations is now much diminished, and that will be good. People will have a greater sense of confidence in the elections that will take place this year. So we welcome the changes.

It has taken time. It is a pity that we are running right up against the timetable needed to administer the next local body elections—they are a matter of only months away. We acknowledge the work that our electoral officials do, here and at the local government level. They will be hard-pressed to meet the timetable, but, as the Minister said, we can be confident that they will meet it. That will be good for people. That will be good for confidence in our electoral systems, and that will be just one small step, the first step, on what will be a journey to restore genuine public confidence in our local body election system. So on that basis, and at this time, I say that we support the bill and look forward to its full implementation.

It is a great pleasure in my capacity as the chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee to rise in support of the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) in its third and final reading. The bill is in the name of the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Chris Tremain, and I want to thank him for his support during the course of this bill’s progress in instituting the very good Supplementary Order Paper 198, which assisted the work of the committee no end. This legislation, as other speakers have indicated, is planned to be passed well in time for the local body elections to be held in October this year, and it is timely that we should be considering this matter at this time, at this stage of the afternoon, and in this session.

This is a Government that is improving transparency at local electoral levels in terms of the donations that candidates will have to return and will be accountable for. The bill combines the changes of the local electoral amendment bill that was first tabled in 2011 with further changes to the electoral donation laws. There are three main aspects to the bill. First, it will improve provisions for the conduct of local elections, and that is a very good thing. Second, it increases the transparency and accountability in relation to candidate donations, particularly anonymous donations, and there would be many who would say: “Not a minute too soon.” The third aspect that this bill addresses is that it strengthens the integrity—

Order! The time has now come to adjourn the House.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.