Electoral Funding Symposium
Spent all day Friday up at Victoria University attending a symposium on electoral funding put on by Transparency International and the VUW Institute of Policy Studies.
I enjoyed asking Transparency International, when they asked people to consider supporting their work, if they accept anonymous donations 🙂
Overall I found it a pretty balanced day. Most of the people there probably regard money in politics as evil and something to be heavily regulated, but there was a surprisingly healthy diversity of views. One participant pointed out how the US is arguably the most heavily regulated in the world, yet the one most influenced by money. By restricting donations to parties and candidates, the money just flowed instead to advocacy groups.
We also had two Speakers there – Margaret WIlson and Doug Kidd.
The Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission, Helena Catt, talked about (amongst many things) how the Electoral Act was still basically a FPP document, modified for MMP. This is very much the case with electorate candidates who break the Act able to lose their seats, but no penalties at all for parties which break the Act. I suggested that one option was to give the Electoral Commission the power to deduct votes from a party’s result, for the most serious and flagrant breaches of the Act. On balance I think this would be giving the Commission too much power, but at present they have none against parties – only against individuals.
Dr Joo Cheong Tham from the University of Melbourne spoke on Australian laws. He made a useful point that one should be debating political financing as a whole, not just party funding or campaign funding.
Andrew Geddis from Otago University (Trevor Loudon has an SAP on him) did a pretty comprehensive presentation on issues within the current law. He was with Steven Price of the Coalition for Open Government. Andrew did not propose his own answers, but did very well in covering all the questions.
Both agreed with me that the current restriction on parties being unable to buy their own broadcasting should be abolished, and broadcasting spending should just be included in a party’s overall expenditure limit (which would need to increase to reflect that).
Former National General Manager Steven Joyce spoke. He supported ending anonymous donations over the disclosure limit (mainly because then people couldn’t scare monger about the sources of funding). He also made the point that for those people who think people can “buy” policies, he’s never found anything able to compete with an MP’s own belief in the value of their own ideas and proposals. Heh very true. He said if you have state funding it should not be based just on the votes at the previous election as this may always advantage the incumbent Government, but it should be done like the Electoral Commission does broadcasting allocations – looking at current polling support also.
Steven though the current level of $10,000 for disclosure was fine. He also made a pretty vital point that future campaigns may be fought on You Tube by supporters as much by parties through ad buys, and all this regulation may get overtaken by technology.
Richard Northey, a former Labour MP (and party presidential candidate) had a somewhat strange presentation. He praised the performance of NZ Post in running the Electoral Enrolment Centre but was critical of The “Justice Department” for the operations of the Chief Electoral Office and Returning Officers. So his solution was to transfer the Chief Electoral Office to NZ Post. Yes he seriously advocated the a commercial trading enterprise should be in charge of running our electoral system. Would be amusing if we ever sell NZ Post one day – NZ would have its first privately owned electoral system!
But his real bombshell was as he explained his idea of an anonymous donation. He explained it is where a businessman hands you a large cheque and says “I wish to be anonymous”. This of course is a totally illegal practice, if correctly described, and the lawyers in the room were stunned. Mike Williams looked very unimpressed with Cr Northey. Northey also supported the Labour line on having spending limits apply for all of election year (something I regard as a hideous attack on freedom of speech). Oh yes he also misunderstood the role of the Auditor-General and the Electoral Act.
I won’t cover all the Party Presidents, as No Right Turn has done this so well. I agree with him the Maori Party President was rambling and useless (on this issue).
ACT’s Gary Mallett was pretty controversial for saying he regarded it as a bad thing to even be discussing limits. He did have useful points (also made by Bryce Edwards) that the amount of money a party spends has remarkably little (but some) effect on their vote.
National’s Judy Kirk made a point often overlooked by those who think all parties are funded from large corporate donations. She said National’s membership fully funded the party’s operating expenses (not campaign expenses), and even put a price on them of $4.2 million over three years. She also said membership was at a 17 year high. I have stated this many times – National gets most of its money from the tens of thousands of members and supporters who donate a relatively modest amount. The amount of large (declared) donations over the last three years was only $2.38 million which all goes to the campaign.
Labour’s Mike Williams spoke in favour of restricting third party advertising, such as that by the Exclusive Brethren. I asked him whether he would also support much higher penalties for Electoral Act breaches, such as the $1 million maximum fine proposed by the Campaign for Open Government. I was delighted that he replied yes, and hope that the Government’s bill will include proper penalties for Electoral Act breaches.
No Right Turn also covers the earlier speakers. What was amusing was the number of people who came up to me asking who was No Right Turn, as he was registered under his real name, and they wanted to meet him.
There are certain issues, ‘almost’ everyone seems to agree on. They are:
* Banning anonymous and trust donations (over the disclosable level)
* Higher penalties for breaches of the Electoral Act
* Having parties as well as individuals liable under the law
* Increasing the cap for electorate candidates
* Having the broadcasting limit incorporated into the overall spending limit
* Simplifying the number of agencies involved with elections and complaints
* Better transparency on third party campaigns
Issues on which there were significant disagreement:
* Greater public funding of parties
* The level at which donations need to be disclosed (views range from $500 to $10,000)
* The level of the spending cap for parties
* The period of time the cap should apply for
* Whether third parties should have spending caps, and how much
* Whether negative campaigns by third parties should be allowed
* How changes to electoral law should be consulted on (most were critical of Govt’s actions to date)
I’ve probably missed a few. Anyway a very worthwhile day and kudos to the organisers. The real shame was that the Government has not yet released their proposed bill – that was meant to be the focal point of the debate. I guess they have not stitched up the numbers for it yet.