Peter Dunne's Speech for the Third Reading of the Electoral Finance Bill
UnitedFuture supported the development and introduction of the Electoral Finance Bill because we believed it was important to tidy up the excesses of the last election to ensure that New Zealand continued to have a fair and open electoral system into the future.
We still do – that is why we worked in the select committee and elsewhere to improve the legislation to remove its most obnoxious features, which we believe has been achieved, and why we have continued to support the Bill through the Second Reading and Committee of the Whole stage, despite our very deep concerns about the partisan way in which it has been developed.
We would have strongly preferred there to have been genuinely multiparty involvement in the development of this legislation, given that there was, at least initially, a measure of common ground apparent on some of the issues it was likely to cover.
Over recent weeks, partly but not solely in response to a well orchestrated campaign, it has become clear that many New Zealanders have deep unease about the Bill and its provisions as they perceive them.
... Read the full text of this article.
