I would like to begin by saying something positive about what has happened to the Electoral Commission today. We are pleased that the Minister has announced a funding increase for the broadcasting allocation to $3.2 million. It is a good move that the funding has been increased from its 1990 level, because the cost of running election broadcasting on television and radio has increased significantly since then e.g. advertising rates have gone up something like 30 percent since the last election.

I agree with Minister Rick Barker that an informed public is critical to good democratic processes. Which is why the Green Party is very pleased that the Government has finally seen fit to increase the election broadcasting funding, especially as it turned down a similar request from the Electoral Commission in May 2002.

But it will not surprise anyone, especially members of the old two-party club, that the Greens are not pleased that National and Labour appointees have power to decide how much of that funding will be allocated to the Green Party. It is not just, of course, the money, but it is also the time allocation that we are concerned about.

The motion before us belongs to the first-past-the-post era. It has no place in an MMP Parliament. Either there should be no parties on the Electoral Commission, or all parties, including those registered ones outside of Parliament, which comes to a total of 24 at the moment. But let us face it. The public already thinks that we have our snouts in the trough, and given that the party reps are only on the commission to allocate money and time to parties, the argument for no political party appointees is compelling.

So compelling that the commission itself recommended the removal of party hacks back in 1999. Their report stated: "The commission again submits that it is not appropriate for the commission as an independent body to have membership of this nature when it carries out any of its statutory functions. This is particularly the case when the commission is able to require parties to provide information relating to the election campaigns and where the commission reports to the police when it believes that a candidate or party may have committed an offence."

That statement was unanimous. Even the two-party reps supported the abolition of their positions. That was 1999; this is 2005. It has taken the Labour Government 6 years to do nothing. Mind you, the previous National Government ignored similar Electoral Commission calls for party hacks to be removed. Let me put this issue in terms that the two old parties will understand. Letting big party hacks divvy up the broadcasting money is like asking South Africa and Australia to set the rules for all the teams in the Rugby World Cup. Quite simply, players in the political game should not also be the referees.

National and Labour are stuck in a time warp. Labour's person at least represents a party with almost a majority of the seats. National's person represents a party that does not even command half of the Opposition seats in this House. As the Government rep represents only Labour and the Progressive Party, the National Party rep is meant to act in the best interests, of not only New Zealand First, the ACT party, the Māori Party and the Green Party but also in the interests of United Future, despite the fact that United Future has a confidence and supply agreement with the Government, and it is meant to represent all the parties that are not in Parliament at all.

I do not challenge the personal integrity of the two nominees, David Caygill and John Isles, but I point out that this process undermines the integrity and independence of our electoral process. It is totally unreasonable for political parties to have to disclose their membership numbers to representatives from National and Labour. Yet we have no choice if we want that criteria to be taken into account in the allocation. The Electoral Commission in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa are all free of political party representatives, and we should be, too. In any case, it is totally unreasonable for Mr Isles to try to represent the competing interests of the six parties I mentioned before. No matter how fair the members of the commission, and I do not just mean the party reps, I mean all the commissioners, try to be, no matter how wise they are and no matter how comprehensive their criteria, they simply cannot accurately second guess how parties will perform at this year's election.

Just look at what happened in 2002. They got the allocation badly wrong. Yes, it was fair for the Greens, as compared to 1999, when we were badly disadvantaged, but there was still wide variability in the allocations. United Future got only 55 cents a vote. The Alliance got $3.88 per vote. National was given $1.17 a vote, while Labour received only 79 cents. The measure of whether the two political party reps will act like a two-party club this year will be whether National is downgraded at this year's election. Last time National got $617,000, the same as Labour. This time it is well behind in the polls, and it has only about half the number of seats. National should certainly get less than Labour if the criteria will be properly taken into account.

But, the criteria are redundant in an MMP environment, and the Electoral Commission agrees. It wants a comprehensive review. In fact, it has been calling for a comprehensive review since 1996. It was also in its 1999 report and in its 2002 report it again stressed the need for a comprehensive review of the current legislation concerning election broadcasting. The select committee continues to kick for touch. It will not face up to the fundamental need to change how the electoral broadcasting regime has done.

For that matter it will not face up to the need for proper State funding of political parties. I call on the Government to get the review under way. The Minister Rick Barker keeps talking about it, but it does not happen. It is time to get a review under way.

We have only to look as far as Australia to see what is needed, and that is a very straightforward, system that will lead to political parties receiving State funding immediately after the election in direct relation to their vote at the election. So it is very much a performance-based system that I am sure some of my colleagues would support. There will be no issues about the commission having to weigh up how parties performed at the last election, whether to take the electorate vote into account, which, of course, should not be taken into account, because electorate candidates can do their own television and radio advertising, what to do with any by-election results, how many members parties have, and what the political polling is at any point in time, then need to try to weigh up all of those criteria and come up with a conclusion.

It is simply unreasonable to expect the members of the commission to second guess what the voters will do at the election and try to predict the outcome. It is time that we got rid of the system where the variations were so wide. Instead of parties, as I said before, like United Future getting only 55 cents at one extreme, and at the other extreme parties like the Alliance getting $3.88, there would be a straightforward formula where parties would get, for example, $2 a vote after the election. Obviously, parties would need to do a lot of fund raising beforehand, and perhaps even take out some loans in the knowledge that they would get some funding after the election, but it is by far a fairer system than the one we have now.

I also might add a personal note that I think it is time that we looked at the issue of parties being able to spend their own money for election broadcasting. It is not a Green Party policy, but there is a certain inequality at the moment in that the two old parties got $600,000 each at the last election and the next ranked parties got $166,000. There is a big gap in between and it perpetuates the system that the two old parties got three times as much exposure through the broadcasting media than any other party. I think it is time for that to be looked at and I am pleased that the commission keeps calling for that to happen, but I am disappointed that the Government does not get on with it. I say to get on with it now, get this inquiry under way before the election, because it never seems to happen in time following an election. Now is the time to start.