SST on taxpayer funding of parties

To no one’s surprise the SST editorial endorses, well absolutely everything the Govt is proposing. It doesn’t even criticise the process, which even the Greens have condemned.

However the SST should stick to areas they know something about – like how the SIS bugged the Maori Party. Oh wait, perhaps not that. Let’s take a few of their points:

The limit of $5000 on anonymous donations would staunch the flow of politically laundered cash. In fact, the cap should be lower to stop wealthy donors splitting their investment into small packages to flout the law.

The SST obviously has not read the law which makes it clear it is the total amount donated over a calendar year. So it is not possible to get around the cap by splitting the donation up.

And the spending limit of $60,000 by third parties is entirely reasonable, and probably too high

The SST thinks a $60,000 cap over up to eleven months is probably too high!!!!

It is worth remembering that the less money political parties and third parties are allowed to spend, the more powerful the role of the media are in deciding elections.

The result of these and other changes would be to drastically reduce the amount of money available to political parties

I will have a blog post on this point tomorrow morning. I bet you the SST haven’t actually checked out the facts behind this assertion.

The fact that a few thousand dollars of state funding might go to fringe and fanatical parties should bother no one. The Libertarianz will never get anywhere, even if the state throws them a small bone.

Again the SST has not done their research when they claim fringe parties will only get a small bone. I’ll reveal tomorrow just what impacts there will be under Labour’s proposal. I predict people will be surprised.