Yes, thank you, Chair. Just a quick comment on Madam Redman's comments that perhaps if you have a newly established party, like the Brown Bread Party, I think you used as an example, your democratic right may be somewhat denied because you haven't got the ability to access a loan through a financial institution. Again I go back to my point that it has been my experience, certainly federally, that almost any candidate who approaches a bank for a loan has to put up security, and they usually have the bankroll of the constituency association behind them.
My point is that if the constituency association didn't have the wherewithal or the ability to raise any funds themselves in order to leverage money from a bank, then perhaps that says something about the democratic right of that candidate. If a candidate doesn't have the support of enough people to put $10,000 in the bank so he or she can borrow an additional $10,000 in a sign-back to the bank, then I'm not sure if a democratic right has been denied or usurped, because it doesn't appear that that many people would be willing to support that person to begin with.
The point is that currently we have a system in which almost any legitimate candidate has the ability to borrow money from a financial institution because of the backing of the constituency association, and if the constituency association is broke, it means not very many people are willing to support that particular candidate. So I think it works itself out. I don't think there's any particular demographic or any group of individuals who would be unduly penalized by this bill.