Andrew Geddis on Electoral Reform Bill

Andrew Geddis is an associate professor at Otago University and has written a lot on the Electoral Act.  Now I don’t agree with Geddis on all things electoral, which is not surprising considering his background, but he is always worth reading and listening to.

I almost missed this article from last Friday by Geddis where he writes in The Press that one should not only be concerned with the EFB’s third party spending clauses, but also the failure to increase the transparency of political party funding.

Following the 2005 election, the Government promised to put a stop to the flow of secret funds to political parties and candidates.

However, the Government seems to have decided that both individual candidates and political parties should be allowed to continue their existing fundraising practices.

No doubt the early, knee-jerk rejection of any sort of public funding left it fearing that any greater disclosure measures might starve such contestants of the money they need to operate effectively.

This failure to really debate the pros and cons of public funding is regrettable. The public was never given the choice of whether it would rather politicians get their money from large, hidden, private donations or taxpayer grants. Instead, the status quo has been left in place, rather than the hard questions confronted.

At this last part, I disagree with Geddis that it is a binary choice.  That is quite misleading. And let us not pretend that Labour, who unilaterally killed the provisions, was in any way concerned for National’s ability to fundraise, or any other party’s ability.  Their sole concern was their own ability.

The amount of money received from anonymous sources is relatively modest, especially compared to the huge amounts Labour were proposing to have the taxpayer hand over to parties.

In this post back in April I calculated  that over the last four elections political parties would have received $40.5 million in taxpayer funding, and this to replace $6 million of anon donations over 12 years.  Labour would have had a likely $10.8 million funding boost from taxpayer funding.

One can end anonymous donations without needing state funding.

Geddis also covers how third party restrictions work in some overseas countries, but that the way they have been proposed in NZ leads to a conclusion that “the proposed limits on third-party spending simply are too low to allow third parties to meaningfully participate in the electoral proces”.