State Funded Political Parties

The Labour Party President has called for direct taxpayer funding of political parties.

I am very much against this, even though as a party activist I know how much time and energy it takes up to fund-raise. I have organised dozens of fund raisers ranging in profitability from $150 to $7,000 and they are all hard work.

But it would be very unfair to have taxpayer funding of political parties, because it would entrench in the existing parties more. It is a good thing that because Jim Anderton tried to make himself dictator for life of the Alliance that the party fell apart, lost all its supporters and hence its funding base. The same applies to Social Credit in the past.