Who said this?

Who uttered these words?

We also have a changing political process. We have got rid of door-knocking now—that traditional practice. Instead, we have very expensive phone spamming by Canadian call centres, which will ring 70,000 households—just like that—in order to drum up support for a dying campaign. Yes, this legislation requires transparency by those who are engaged in the electioneering campaign, and the Greens are pleased we were able to expose the rort of 2005 before it could seriously contaminate the election process. This bill helps to protect us against that rort and that kind of corruption. We have obvious examples from other, similar jurisdictions overseas where corruption has infected the political system. US democracy has become a commodity that is routinely bought and sold.

Members should make no mistake: advertising works. In New Zealand the advertising industry is worth more than $2 billion a year. Nobody would spend that kind of money unless it was effective. Democracy in the US, in fact, relies on marketing for its very existence. Who can stand for election and whose message will prevail depends on the donors, and the ongoing flows of cash and donations have come to depend on the elective representatives remembering to pay the piper. It is a form of democracy that has virtually no life at all outside the classic examples, where donations determine who gets to stand and who gets to succeed.

The words were spoken by Metiria Turei, now the co-leader of the Green Party on 18 December 2007. The words were part of her speech during the Third Reading Debate of Labour's insidious Electoral Finance Act.

It's really interesting that five years ago, Metiria Turei was scathing about "US democracy being bought and sold" when Stuff reported this morning:

The Greens have been accused of using child poverty to mislead people into donating to them.
But a spokesman for New Zealand's third-largest party said they were simply adopting fundraising techniques used by the likes of United States President Barack Obama. 

Ah; we see. Money is fine when it's being raised by the Left; it's only when the Right raises money that democracy is "being bought and sold".

Thanks for clearing that up Ms Turei. We now know that not only are the Greens hypocritical in their attitude to money in politics, but they are driven by political ideology. They are most certainly not, as they would want us to believe, pure as the driven snow.