Select Committee on Electoral and Political Party Funding

Debate resumed from 22 October 2008.

The Hon. DON HARWIN [2.32 p.m.]: The Select Committee on Electoral and Political Party Funding, which was established by my motion, tabled its report in June. An old proverb states that while defeat is an orphan, victory has a thousand fathers. It has indeed been very interesting to watch people scrambling to take credit for this report. I can understand up to a point Ms Lee Rhiannon's positioning on the report given her non-membership of the committee. However, I am sure Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile must have been misquoted in the Sydney Morning Herald of 23 August as saying that "he was not sure the other committee members initially shared his strong desire for reform".

The report endorses many aspects of the Canadian system of election funding. I have been a proponent of election finance reform throughout my time in this place and have advocated the Canadian system as a possible model for our own arrangements both in the House for many years and, more recently, in the committee. As early as February 2004 I was drawing the attention of this House to the reforms in Canada and last year I took an opportunity provided to me by virtue of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association New South Wales branch overseas study grants to travel there to enhance my understanding of the Canadian system. Earlier this year I also had the chance to discuss the system with Sir Hayden Phillips, a former permanent secretary of the Lord Chancellor's Department and the chair of the Blair Government's inter-party talks involving the three major political parties in Britain.

My discussion with Sir Hayden and with many of the pre-eminent academics in the field of election finance reform made it clear to me that the Canadian model is widely regarded as the world's best practice. I am delighted that the report embraces the model as the way forward for change in New South Wales. Change is most desperately and urgently needed. The key concerns that precipitated the establishment of the committee were the escalating costs of election campaigns; the imbalance in resources available to the parties, particularly to the party of government; the perception that the huge funding advantage achieved by the party of government resulted from donations from corporations in industry sectors subject to close regulation by the State Government, including property, liquor and gaming; and specific grievances held by minor parties with aspects of the electoral funding regime.

New South Wales Labor has been able to increase its campaign expenditure at each subsequent general election since taking office in 1995. There has been an incredible 467 per cent increase in Labor's campaign expenditure between the March 1995 election and the March 2007 election. The Coalition has been able to increase its expenditure by only 72 percent over the same period. This escalating imbalance is not in the public interest nor is the skyrocketing level of spending. It is worth noting that the consumer price index during the same period rose by only 36.7 per cent.

The select committee had five of the six parties represented in Parliament included in the membership. The Greens failed to gain a position because the Labor and conservative crossbench members combined to block their selection. Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile was elected as chair and I was elected as deputy chair. The committee received 189 submissions. The most significant, apart from those from the political parties, were submissions from the Urban Task Force, the Property Council of Australia, Action on Smoking and Health Australia, otherwise known as ASH, the Cancer Council, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Democratic Audit of Australia, and Dr Joo-Cheong Tham of the University of Melbourne.

The committee held five public hearings and heard from 32 witnesses, and a public forum was also held. Half of the submissions received by the committee advocated either a complete ban on political donations or a partial ban on donations from certain sources. Two-thirds of submissions argued for tighter rules on disclosure. The report includes 47 substantive recommendations that are designed to apply to both State and local government in New South Wales. I emphasise that only two of these recommendations were the subject of a division. The Government adopted several reforms recommended by the committee before this report was tabled. These reforms were legislated so they could be in place for the local government elections that occurred in September. They included a reduction in the disclosure limit to $1,000 and the implementation of six-monthly disclosures of donations and electoral expenditure. These are seen as interim steps while the green paper process initiated by the Federal Special Minister of State, the Hon. John Faulkner, proceeds.

Unfortunately, the Government is now dragging its feet as to the remainder of the reforms recommended in the report. One reason cited for inaction is the delay with the Commonwealth Government's green paper, originally due in July but still not released. There are reports that the paper has encountered opposition among Federal Labor MPs concerned about proposals to tighten controls over disclosure, funding and expenditure. This Government is still awaiting the paper on constitutional and policy issues that it commissioned Associate Professor Anne Twomey to prepare. Without her paper, the Government has said, further donations reform cannot be undertaken.

It is now six months since former Premier Iemma had his conversion on the road to Wollongong, as Barry O'Farrell refers to it, and dramatically declared on Easter Saturday that, "My view is that the time has come for us to now seriously consider moving away from donations and having a fully public funded system the time has come to test the viability of a full public system." In the intervening six months the Government's progress on the subject has been disappointing and half-hearted. Despite avowing a commitment to meaningful reform, and despite having a comprehensive raft of recommendations from the select committee, the Government dismisses further action, pleading the need to wait for the Commonwealth Government to deliver its overdue green paper. It is certainly true that a key feature of the committee's recommendations is a preference for harmonisation between State and Federal jurisdictions as far as possible. The Committee has recommended "going it alone", however, if the discussions around the green paper process do not lead to major systemic reforms.

The Federal complexion of our major political parties, in which political parties at a State level operate as branches or divisions of national party organisations, makes unilateral supply-side restrictions somewhat problematic. However, it is quite feasible for an individual State to legislate for expenditure caps. Restricting the amount that candidates and parties can spend during an election campaign will address community concern about the link between donations and decisions by the current Labor Government. Campaign spending limits would also change the election financing landscape because if you cannot spend the money there is no need to raise it. This is an area in which New South Wales could make progress immediately, without the need to wait for the release of the green paper. At the recent Sackville Hotel debate Premier Rees shook hands with Barry O'Farrell on reform and said it would happen. We are waiting to see whether he delivers.

Further, one of the committee's key recommendations is that the Auditor-General be granted oversight responsibility for government advertising. Self-evidently, caps on campaign expenditure by political parties and candidates would be meaningless without complementary legislation to stop the misuse of government advertising budgets. The committee suggests that the Auditor-General's powers be modelled on those of the Auditor-General in Ontario, Canada. Once again, this recommendation concurs with the position that the Coalition has been advocating for quite some time. In May 2007 the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Barry O'Farrell. MP, introduced the Government Publicity Control Bill, which provided for the granting of such powers to the Auditor-General. Regrettably, it was defeated in the other place by Government members last October.

I advocated the benefits of the Ontario oversight scheme in a speech in this Chamber that same month. The Government need not wait for the release of the green paper before granting such powers to the Auditor-General. I have now given notice of a bill for an Act to provide for the scrutiny of, and guidelines for, government publicity which has or is likely to have the capacity to influence public support for a political party or for candidates for election to, or members of, Parliament, and for other purposes. Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile's chairman's foreword to the report notes:

The time for change is now.

Premier Rees should move swiftly to implement the recommendations of this report. It is more than six months since the Government committed itself to substantive reform, and there is no reason for Premier Rees to continue to await the Commonwealth Government's overdue green paper. Finally, I acknowledge the tremendous contribution that the committee staff made towards the production of this impressive report and the exhaustive inquiry process that is behind it. Rachel Simpson, Madeleine Foley and their team are to be congratulated on their work.

The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO [2.43 p.m.]: I am pleased to support the report of the Select Committee on Electoral and Political Party Funding in New South Wales. New South Wales has the good fortune to again be at the forefront of reforms in electoral and political party funding. With the Federal Government also undertaking a major review of the Federal laws relating to electoral and political party funding, the opportunity exists to develop a system where the requirements of Federal and State laws can dovetail together and result in a uniform and streamlined system that enhances accountability and transparency and makes compliance easier for candidates, donors and party organisations. Most importantly, any loopholes that have been exploited in the past could be closed.

The New South Wales Election Funding Act 1981 was a pioneering piece of legislation that led to the first comprehensive election finance scheme in Australia. The Act introduced public funding of State elections to New South Wales, and made disclosure of donations compulsory. The Act aimed to level the playing field by reducing the disparity of financial resources available to parties and candidates, and to prevent undue influence by requiring donations to be disclosed. The Election Funding Authority was established to oversee the new scheme. In 1983 the Federal Government followed suit and introduced its own public funding and disclosure scheme.

Following the election of the new Federal Labor Government in November 2007 Senator the Hon. John Faulkner, Special Minister of State, announced that the Government would make several modifications to strengthen the electoral regime. They included changes to some of the controversial amendments passed by the previous government in 2006, particularly reversing the disclosure limit for donations. Minister Faulkner also announced that the Government would release an electoral reform green paper. The first part, which was released in July 2008, examined disclosure, expenditure and funding issues. The second part, to be released in October 2008, will be directed at identifying other areas of electoral law that need strengthening. The Prime Minister has indicated that he will seek the cooperation of the States and Territories in producing the green paper and in advocating nationwide electoral reform.

I greatly regret that, while it is evident that there is support across the political spectrum for reform of the electoral funding system, there are differing opinions as to the nature of that reform. I also find it very regrettable that the Rudd Government's plan to inject greater integrity in our electoral laws has been stalled because the Federal Opposition sent the urgent Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008 to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters with a reporting date of 30 June 2009. No genuine review or consultation on the bill could possibly require a full year or more. The members of the Commonwealth Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters agreed, and their report was released on 23 October. The main recommendations are that the Senate should support the proposals in the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008. Hopefully, the Senate will now act in a responsible manner and pass this legislation. I now return to the issue of why we urgently need reform of political donations in New South Wales. My colleague the Hon. Eric Roozendaal in his inaugural speech in October 2004 stated:

There is no doubt the Australian public are uncomfortable with the interaction of donations and politics. They have every right to be. It is my strong belief that all political parties need to work together to change the funding of the political process. It is unreasonable to believe that the unilateral regulation of fundraising by any one party could ever be effective; it would place that party at a serious competitive disadvantage. A national, bipartisan approach is required, and caps need to be placed on campaign spending. The fundraising process must become completely transparent, and all donations must be traced to their true sources.

There is no doubt that such reforms need to be accompanied by a major increase in public funding. But surely that is a small price to pay for a fairer, cleaner democratic system in a country that can otherwise boast the most transparent electoral laws in the world. Unlike some, I do not argue this perspective for political advantage, but rather for the purpose of achieving a fairer political process.

I believe that the recommendations contained in the committee's report cover all of the aspects of electoral and political party funding that need to be reformed. We should not be afraid of once again being at the forefront of reform. I am confident that a system can be devised that will effectively and efficiently introduce the reforms that the committee is recommending and that will work effectively with the reforms being proposed by the Commonwealth. As the Hon. Mick Veitch noted, the Government members did lodge a short dissenting report that covered only two issues. Otherwise there was genuine enthusiasm for reform among the committee members. I turn to the matter of some of the witnesses that appeared before the inquiry and the double standards and hypocrisy that they displayed. First I will start with Clover Moore, MP, who stated at the outset:

I represent an inner-city sophisticated electorate.

Ms Moore spouted her usual holier -than -thou attitude, particularly in relation to property developers, but was very light on detail when asked about inconsistencies in relation to her campaigns. In response to a question asked of her about only declaring $950 as being the value of an in-kind donation of six weeks free rent of a two-storey commercial terrace in Ultimo, she responded:

The use of the Harris Street Campaign Office was arranged by Mr Barry Goldman of Portfolio Realty ... the declared value is based on advice received at the time ...

I still think $950 for six weeks rent of a commercial terrace in Ultimo has got to be the bargain of the century. Ms Moore was asked:

You clearly stated that you do not accept developer donations. When this issue was raised with you by the Sydney Morning Herald you said that the $30,000 did not come from developer donations. Is it not true that there is no way that you could know where that money came from or who were the original donors?

Ms Moore responded:

There is no way that I am compromised by that donation because I do not know where that money came from other than that it came to me from Living Sydney.

I did not know that using the ostrich defence was still current, but perhaps it is in an inner-city sophisticated electorate. The Greens also had a unique take on the inquiry. Through their Democracy for Sale website they had tracked the source of donations to all of the major parties and claimed that they all had corrupting influences. However, they will not support a ban on individual donations. This is perhaps because they received rather large donations from wealthy individuals. Claiming "we don't take corporate donations" is meaningless when there is no transparency in terms of the means by which their individual donors came to have such large sums of money. I checked their last returns, which showed donations from individuals to the extent of $55,000, $30,000, $61,000 and $60,000. There were too many $5,000 and $10,000 donations for me to add up. During the inquiry then Premier Iemma announced a raft of changes that have subsequently come into effect.

These were to implement six-monthly disclosures in June and December each year; commit to lowering the disclosure limit, if the Federal Government did so; require developers to declare donations when lodging development applications; formulate clearer guidelines for councillors voting on decisions involving donors; require all councils to record the voting history of councillors on development matters; require donations to be made to and administered by party headquarters rather than individual candidates, and to consider how to apply this to independent candidates; and to implement online disclosure of donations.

On 22 March the media reported the then Premier as advocating a ban on all donations. A few days later, in a supplementary submission to the committee, the General Secretary of the New South Wales Australia Labor Party, Karl Bitar, confirmed that the Premier had tasked him with initiating discussions with other parties to build bipartisan support for a ban on donations. Mr Bitar, in his evidence to the committee, stated empathically that spending caps were not the way to go as they were impossible to enforce: he quoted a number of instances in overseas jurisdictions to verify this. I strongly support his call for a ban on all donations and full public funding. I draw to members' attention the statement by Premier Rees on 10 October 2008 that political donations should become a thing of the past with taxpayer-funded elections being the only way to ensure that the political system is squeaky -clean.

In recent times more than enough has been said about corruption and donations to Wollongong City Council, but we should remember that this council is just one of a string of councils sacked for similar conduct—let us not forget Tweed Heads and Coffs Harbour many years ago. This problem rears its ugly head from time to time and councils of all political persuasions have been involved. The betrayal of public trust by elected public officials and council officers from senior to junior is unacceptable. Only through sweeping reform of election and political party funding will we be able to bring about the change that is needed, restore public faith and make sure that such corruption scandals are a thing of the past.

I look forward to the committee's recommendations being implemented, with the minor changes suggested by the Government members, so that New South Wales once again can be at the forefront of reform in this regard. The two issues on which the committee's Government members dissented were recommendation five, regarding oversight by the Auditor-General. Our reason was that the Auditor-General recently found that the New South Wales Government had introduced greater vigour into the process for approving government advertising. The Auditor-General stated:

The Government has improved guidance for agencies and introduced a more robust framework for approving advertising campaigns. Greater rigour has been introduced into the process by requiring campaigns to be peer reviewed and approved by Cabinet.

I thank all committee members for their contributions to the inquiry, and for their commitment and bipartisan approach to the committee's work. I thank also the Electoral Commissioner and his staff for their cooperation throughout the review. As well, I thank those who provided submissions and gave evidence during the inquiry, as their input was valuable. The committee was ably supported in its work by the staff of the secretariat and I thank them as well.

The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER [2.52 p.m.]: I thank the House for the opportunity to serve on the Select Committee on Electoral and Political Party Funding. As others have said, it was quite a remarkable committee in the consensus that was achieved. The committee was given the brief to examine the question of election funding and disclosure, including the advantages and disadvantages of banning all donations from corporations, unions and organisations to parties and candidates; the advantages and disadvantages of introducing limits on expenditure in election campaigns; and the impact of political donations on the democratic process. I also thank all the committee staff for their assistance throughout the inquiry, which was delayed deliberately until after the Federal election. Some of us had other duties to perform, so we waited until the decks were cleared, so to speak, to enable the committee to look at the issue with fresh eyes after the Federal election.

As other speakers have mentioned, there is a need for consistent election funding rules across Australia. There is no reason for New South Wales to continue to drag its feet just because the Federal Government is now running behind with its supposed reform agenda. We are still awaiting the Rudd Government's substantial response to the public debate in Australia about political donations that has raged not only in New South Wales but also in Queensland and Western Australia. The committee examined the election funding regimes in other States and countries. In essence, the committee recommended the adoption of a version of the Canadian model of campaign funding and donations, which is contained in one particular recommendation that all but small political donations by individuals be kept at $1,000 per political party per year and $1,000 per independent candidate per electoral cycle.

The committee recommended also that the Premier should investigate all relevant legal and constitutional issues arising from such a ban and liaise with the Federal Government to ensure national consistency on electoral donation and disclosure laws. During the budget estimates hearings it was ascertained from the Premier that he had received advice from Professor Anne Twomey on whether any legal and constitutional issues arise from a total ban—promoted at Easter by former Premier Mr Iemma—on political donations or on the limited donations that we as a committee had recommended to this Parliament.

Unfortunately, we do not know how much of the report the Premier has read. Obviously, he has many other issues on his mind and on his plate, which seem to be gathering pace as each day goes by. However, election funding is an important issue. People expect legislative reform on this issue well before the next general election. This debate cannot tick away month after month or year after year. I suggest that legislation should be introduced to this House before Christmas or, at the latest, in the autumn of 2009. This will ensure that these broad-ranging reforms are on the statute book for the benefit of all political parties and candidates contesting the 2011 election.

The committee recommended across-the-board six -monthly disclosures of donations. It is appreciated that this imposes an onerous burden on some political parties, particularly smaller parties. Perhaps with online electronic reporting the burden will be lessened for those political parties that not necessarily are interested in hiding their donations but have fewer resources to allocate to complete endless forms every six months. Many Australian parliamentarians and commentators, including some members in this House, from both political persuasions, have said that the current political funding system is unsustainable. The current election funding system in New South Wales is out of whack and has brought our democracy into disrepute; sometimes even the perception of corruption can be corrosive to our democracy. Of course, the committee examined the public perception that the former Minister for Planning, Mr Sartor, who had a great deal of power under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, perhaps was influenced by the level of donations that were flooding into the Australian Labor Party coffers. It is noteworthy that Mr Sartor is no longer the Minister for Planning. I believe he has stated on the public record that he feels that the perception I have described was one of the factors in his not being selected for the Rees Government's Ministry.

The committee made some important recommendations, such as the one pointing out the great deal of concern in New South Wales about the extent of government taxpayer-funded advertising. The committee unanimously recommended that the Premier entrust the Auditor-General with oversight responsibility for government advertising. As my colleague the Hon. Don Harwin has mentioned, there is a model up and running in Ontario that would could be implemented in New South Wales with relative ease.

The Nationals in many respects shared many of the views expressed across the table by all political parties. Major political parties are still constituted mainly by volunteers. I know that the Hon. Don Harwin, the Hon. Michael Veitch and I were concerned to guard against any new legislation acting as a disincentive to people who want to do voluntary work in the cause for their political party and in support of candidates who support the beliefs and values of their political party. That matter was greeted with consensus, which ensures that that aspect of political party operations will remain very important in Australia, both now and in the future.

From my point of view, in any model that the Parliament adopts it is very important that bipartisan and tripartite support of legislative reform is achieved across the board for a model that in the end is fair and is not lopsided or favouring one side of politics. Many supporters of The Nationals are concerned about what will happen to the unions and the flow of funds to the Australian Labor Party under any model that is eventually adopted. We will keep a very close eye on that development.

The committee has recommended that further resources be allocated to the Electoral Commission. I thank the Electoral Commissioner and his staff for their assistance with this inquiry, which at times has been quite extensive. The committee supports additional resources for the commission because of the additional workload that has already been imposed, and will continue to be imposed as more substantial reforms, hopefully, are rolled out. I look forward to the next stage of this debate. I hope that it will be sooner rather than later.

Ms LEE RHIANNON [3.02 p.m.]: I join in thanking the committee staff because, as is the case with so many committee inquiries, the thoroughness that they bring to a project really enhances the final outcome. That was certainly the case with this report. I thank also the staff of the Election Funding Authority. Although I was not a member of the committee that conducted the inquiry, I know about the extensive assistance the staff provided through our Democracy for Sale project with the Election Funding Authority. When the next chapter of history is written on the history of election funding reform in New South Wales the report before the House and the inquiry leading to that report will be regarded as most important.

It is also worth remembering the close involvement of many community groups that have been advocating for many years the need for extensive reform. We should always remember that it is not inquiries in isolation that effect change but, rather, the agitation and hard work contributed over many years by people in the community who advocate for change and, in this case, for democracy to be returned to an even keel. We witnessed the impact of the damaging Wollongong revelations played out in the early part of this year when the former Premier, Mr Iemma, on 22 March had his famous headline on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, "Iemma backs political donation reform". It was published on Easter Saturday, and I must admit I was not expecting to read such a headline on that day, or even so soon. However, the pressure was on, and the Labor Party needed a circuit-breaker. The former Premier's comment was welcome.

Subsequently the Greens met Mr Karl Bitar, who at that time was the secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party. I understand that he met with representatives of other political parties as well, and he said that his role was to take forward Mr Iemma's commitment to banning donations. I mention that because we are now under the new leadership of Premier Rees. On 9 September Mr Rees said on the 702 Morning show that he was committed to funding reform: he said, "We will be shortly announcing a major political funding reform package." Now, at the end of October, we still have not seen that package.

I am aware from discussions between the Greens and Mr Rees that the matters are extremely complex. The Greens agreed with that, but during those discussions I urged Mr Rees to follow through on the commitment. Labor gave the commitment, and clear recommendations have been made in the report being discussed in the House. The Government must dither no longer. The Government should come forward with a plan. It may be that the Government is revising its plans in the context of what Federal Labor is doing, but the Greens certainly believe that considerable changes can be made at a State level.

Some of the key changes that can be made by the State relate to tightening up who gives donations. The position of the Greens, as stated on the record over many years, is that there should be a ban on donations from corporations and other organisations as well as a strict limit on donations from individuals. If Mr Rees is saying that that is too harsh, let us remember that sectional interests of corporations have been banned from giving donations in other contexts, such as the tobacco industry and the asbestos industry. The political process should shift away from donations from developers and hotels. The Greens recognise the complexity resulting from donations emanating from other States, but New South Wales should lead. Premier Rees would be very foolish to abandon plans for political donations reform, particularly as he has given a personal commitment, not just a commitment on behalf of his colleagues, to follow through. The banning of political donations is a reform that should be implemented.

It is also important to remember that the reforms that came through in June this year were presented by the Government as measures to clean up the political funding regime before local government elections were held. The reforms were so minimal that they could hardly be placed in the category of political funding reform. While an important reform was that the period of disclosure was reduced from four years to every six months, which will give the public a greater opportunity to be aware of the donations that have been made, that level of reform merely nibbles at the edges of the problem. We should establish a regime that is similar to the one operating in Canada whereby donations are banned and there is a cap on election expenditure. They are the two parallel reforms that should be implemented.

I must say I was disappointed in the contribution of the Hon. Amanda Fazio. It was an exposition of the old Labor style that never changes—kick the protagonists, and kick them hard—instead of recognising that the Labor Party, let alone the whole democratic process, is bleeding because of the damage done by political donations. We should remember that political donations damage all politicians, not just political parties. The Greens have been advocating for a long time the type of reform recommended by the report. Having attended many of these meetings, I know that people are cynical about engaging with the political process. Reform in this area is long overdue.

It is worth remembering the fairly tortured history of political funding reform in New South Wales. The first round of reform occurred in 1981. Interestingly, when reform was introduced by a Labor Government the Liberals and The Nationals opposed it. When Labor picked up an extra six seats and the Liberals were hit with a $2 million debt at the 1981 State election, the Liberals decided to apply for political funding although they had been opposed to it. The National Country Party, as it was called at the time, was unwilling to engage in such a quick policy reversal; it chose to wait until the next State election to pick up public funding. But that was after it had waged a ferocious campaign in opposition to public funding. It is important to acknowledge how far we have come. On 22 March, within a few hours of Premier Iemma making his important statement, the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr Barry O'Farrell, had also changed his position. He held a press conference at lunchtime that day saying that he supported the call for a ban on political donations.

The Hon. Don Harwin: But the size of his change wasn't quite so big.

Ms LEE RHIANNON: I acknowledge that Mr O'Farrell had previously supported a cap on election expenditure. I acknowledge that a number of individuals from across the political parties have supported political funding reform for many years. Carmen Lawrence has been a clear spokesperson; she identified the urgent need for changes. The Treasurer, Mr Roozendaal, in his first speech in this House, spoke about reform. Mr Harwin from the Coalition was an early advocate for political funding reform. So with this report we have cross-party support. The recommendations in the report are similar to the model in Canada, where the system has been tested. In some cases it has even gone to the High Court and survived challenges. Again, there is no excuse for the Labor Government to go so soft on the need for change. Mr Rees would be wise to be an articulate advocate of the urgent need for political funding reform to restore faith in democracy in this State. It would be one of the biggest contributions he could make in his time as leader.

Debate adjourned on motion by the Hon. Greg Donnelly and set down as an order of the day for a future day.